Boost Your Wireless Signal

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James Bond

Diamond Member
Jan 21, 2005
6,023
0
0
Originally posted by: spidey07
Originally posted by: Tizyler
Originally posted by: spidey07
Those bars are not in any way related to wireless performance.

That bonehead most likely made matters worse.

If you put your cursor over it will show the actual transfer rate.

When your NIC is communicating with a wireless AP, they negotiate on what transfer rate to use. After negotiations are complete, the speed will appear (in colored bars, and numerically).

So yes, the bars do matter.

No. Wrong.

Which part?
Edit: I'm not saying the colored bars will always reflect the negotiated speed.
 

spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
5
76
Originally posted by: Tizyler

Which part?
Edit: I'm not saying the colored bars will always reflect the negotiated speed.

I'm just being mean. ;) Sorry.

Speed isn't negotiated. The datarates the client and AP support are sent in 802,11 management frames (along with what datarates are REQUIRED). The speed at which the AP and Client transmits can be different and they change depending on conditions.

Also datarate is different than throughput (which I equate to performance).

The bars thing is trivial and doesn't give a good indication of true performance was my main point. Most times a weaker, higher quality (less noise) signal yields better overall throughput and performance. Many make the mistake of wanting a "stronger" signal which can actually make matters worse.
 

Leros

Lifer
Jul 11, 2004
21,867
7
81
Wow, this is pretty cool. However its rather inconvenient not being able to use your cell phone. I'm only seeing one new access point, but my home connection is no longer flaky like it used to be.

It wasn't easy to make this work and I'm not sure if the satellite dish does much, but here's a small tip. Make sure you wrap the ethernet cable really really tight and the get the wires lined up just right or it wont work. It took me a handful of tries to get the wrapping tight enough.
 

spidey07

No Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
65,469
5
76
Originally posted by: Leros
Wow, this is pretty cool. However its rather inconvenient not being able to use your cell phone. I'm only seeing one new access point, but my home connection is no longer flaky like it used to be.

It wasn't easy to make this work and I'm not sure if the satellite dish does much, but here's a small tip. Make sure you wrap the ethernet cable really really tight and the get the wires lined up just right or it wont work. It took me a handful of tries to get the wrapping tight enough.

lol. The twists in unshielded twisted pair pick up the signal much better if you wrap them tight.

Thought everybody knew this?

-edit-
To really mess you up - the concern in UTP is now the interferrence from other cable bundles. Who would have thought that would EVER be a concern?
 

us3rnotfound

Diamond Member
Jun 7, 2003
5,334
3
81
Originally posted by: Leros
Wow, this is pretty cool. However its rather inconvenient not being able to use your cell phone. I'm only seeing one new access point, but my home connection is no longer flaky like it used to be.

It wasn't easy to make this work and I'm not sure if the satellite dish does much, but here's a small tip. Make sure you wrap the ethernet cable really really tight and the get the wires lined up just right or it wont work. It took me a handful of tries to get the wrapping tight enough.

Wait, wtf? It works? :confused:
 

Leros

Lifer
Jul 11, 2004
21,867
7
81
Originally posted by: Fritzo
This better be a joke...no way this would work.

Don't doubt it until you try it. Don't sloppily try it once and declare it a failure. It took me about ten tries to wrap the cable tight enough so it would work. I don't understand why tighter wrapping works better, but it does.

 

Ktulu

Diamond Member
Dec 16, 2000
4,354
0
0
Originally posted by: Pioneer Premier
So, I guess it really did worked.

No I think someone is trying really hard into making us think it worked.
 

GundamSonicZeroX

Platinum Member
Oct 6, 2005
2,100
0
0
I can't watch this vid right now since this compy is firewalled and I don't wanna get anyone pissed. What makes this video so full of Bull?
 

us3rnotfound

Diamond Member
Jun 7, 2003
5,334
3
81
Originally posted by: GundamSonicZeroX
I can't watch this vid right now since this compy is firewalled and I don't wanna get anyone pissed. What makes this video so full of Bull?

He makes his NIC act as a wireless card, using his cell phone by just wrapping networking cable around it. :D