Trying to improve my wireless connectivity in my house...questions.

[RyanGreener]

Hi everyone. I'm not really an expert or anything when it comes to networking. In fact, I know very little about it other than basics, so I'm hoping to get educated/get good advice on how to improve my wireless connectivity.

I'm running a basic wireless setup with nothing special. I have an Asus WL-520GC Router (uses broadcom hardware I believe) and it's got the stock antenna. It's running DD-WRT Firmware that I upgraded it to, but this upgrade was done 2-3 years ago (in 2008). I'm wondering the following:

1. Can I replace the antenna with a better one to make my wireless better? Who makes good antennas that aren't too expensive? I hear omnidirectional ones are pretty good when the wireless has to go in many directions (which in my house, it does. the router is basically in the center of the area)

2. Should I upgrade the firmware on the router? I don't really know how this work, but has the firmware for DDWRT been optimized better or something along those lines to work better? Or does it just gain new features over the years? It works great right now, and i'm not a power user when it comes to firewalls/networking things, so what I am wondering is: will a firmware upgrade improve performance?

Also, if there are any optimizations I can do in the ddwrt firmware, please let me know. I've done googling so I have basic ideas that I've already done...but maybe the more experienced can help me.

 

[jlazzaro]

why are you looking to "improve" it? what issues or challenges are you facing?

 

[RyanGreener]

The wireless connectivity seems to be random at times (very good or very bad).....pretty much all there is to it.

 

[ScottMac]

The wireless connectivity seems to be random at times (very good or very bad).....pretty much all there is to it.

IMO, your best place to start is to download inSSIDer or Netstumbler (both are free), load them onto your system, and perform a scan; that will show you what channels are in use, and possibly other interfering sources.

After you run the scan for a while, you should have a good idea which channel (choose one of 1, 6, or 11) is least congested and / or has the best signal quality. Signal quality is much more important than signal strength.

There's more to changing an antenna than is initially apparent. Basically it boils down to each "gain" antenna gets the passive increase by re-shaping the shape of the radiated signal. A perfect omnidirectional antenna puts out a donut shape (think of a donut around a pencil) horizontally. To increase the output passively, the antenna design has to compress the pattern or re-shape it so that more signal is concentrated into less area (that's the only way to "make more power" without adding to it with an amplifier.
What I'm getting at is that you can put a higher gain antenna on your system, but if you don't know your radiation pattern, you have a good chance of missing the donut.

Most wireless issues are interference related. Start by finding the least-used channel (of 1, 6, or 11 ... favoring #1), and work from there.

 

[JackMDS]

You want good Wireless you do what Pro do.

Lay few cables to strategic points of weak signal and connect there more Wireless Routers configured as Access Points.

What mentioned in the OP are band-aid that can add here and there few feet. They are not a comprehensive solution.

Weak point can be Id as mentioned in Scott's post.

Using a Wireless Router as a switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

 

[RyanGreener]

Thanks for the advice guys! I'll run the scan and see which channel is best.

 

[wirednuts]

you might try going 5ghz... i know i am, as i have about 19 wireless routers within view and i cant even get a full signal from 20ft away.

 

[OlafSicky]

Another thing to do is to switch your router to one mode only N or G not both and the signal to 20hz only.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Some of the N adapters need 40mhz os it's better to leave that at auto.

 

[smitbret]

you might try going 5ghz... i know i am, as i have about 19 wireless routers within view and i cant even get a full signal from 20ft away.

Thumbs down to this.

Unless you are getting interference, 5ghz will shorten the range, not increase it.

Check for open channels, first.

 

[aylafan]

Guys, his Asus WL-520GC wireless router only supports wireless B/G; not wireless N. He should enable "G only" and use channels 1, 6, or 11.

Best thing for him to do to extend the wireless signal is to buy another cheap wireless G router for like $20, install DD-WRT on it and set it up as a repeater bridge (wireless connection between routers with internet access) http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge, replace the antenna on the router to something more powerful or buy a wireless router extender.

I set up 2 Linksys WRT54G wireless routers (DD-WRT installed on both) in my house and it works really well.

Upstairs - main router with DHCP enabled (connected to the cable modem)
Downstairs - 2nd router used as repeater bridge with DHCP disabled (using the same subnet as the main router and grabbing IP addresses from it) ***2nd router only requires a power adapter; no ethernet cables connected to it.***

Now, anyone in my house can connect wirelessly to either wireless routers (preferably the one with the better signal) and surf the internet.

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

+1 to the last comment. I did basically the same thing. I couldn't stretch cable to all the places that needed it, so i added a cheap buffalo router that also supported DD-WRT (and Tomato) and I bridge them. I now have a g bridge that extends from the attic to the second floor, then to the downstairs. I'm sacrificing some bandwidth by multiple bridges, but my stability is rock solid and my coverage is complete. By the way, I switched from DD-WRT to Tomato, because of stability issues with the bridges (FYI).

 

[JackMDS]

Repeater is OK as long as One needs only a basic working signal.

However, repeater cuts the bandwidth into half past each repeating.

Thus, if good bandwidth is important (like for Streaming), repeater is Not a good choice.

 

[RyanGreener]

Guys, his Asus WL-520GC wireless router only supports wireless B/G; not wireless N. He should enable "G only" and use channels 1, 6, or 11.

Best thing for him to do to extend the wireless signal is to buy another cheap wireless G router for like $20, install DD-WRT on it and set it up as a repeater bridge (wireless connection between routers with internet access) http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Repeater_Bridge, replace the antenna on the router to something more powerful or buy a wireless router extender.

I set up 2 Linksys WRT54G wireless routers (DD-WRT installed on both) in my house and it works really well.

Upstairs - main router with DHCP enabled (connected to the cable modem)
Downstairs - 2nd router used as repeater bridge with DHCP disabled (using the same subnet as the main router and grabbing IP addresses from it) ***2nd router only requires a power adapter; no ethernet cables connected to it.***

Now, anyone in my house can connect wirelessly to either wireless routers (preferably the one with the better signal) and surf the internet.

Repeater is OK as long as One needs only a basic working signal.

However, repeater cuts the bandwidth into half past each repeating.

Thus, if good bandwidth is important (like for Streaming), repeater is Not a good choice.

Thank you both for the info. Bandwidth is important, so I can't do the repeater idea. I've done some modifications by changing the channel to 1 (which I found to be the most "open"). I will set the router to "G" only and then I will change the antenna out. Does anyone have any recommended ones?

 

[Cr0nJ0b]

Well, I can tell you that I steam 1080P to the upstairs and netflix (whatever that is) downstairs with no issues at all. And what I like about bridging is that I can boost all of the signals at the APs and then direct connect the clients that need constant attention like the media center. But it's not as fast as N and certainly not as fast as hard line.

 

[JackMDS]

@Cr0nJ0b

Bridging and Repeating is Not the same.

Bridging just replacing a cable without further transmision.

Repeating is Receiving from one Wireless source and transmitting it further, it cut the bandwidth into half because the device has to alternate between transmit and receive.

On way to avoid it is to get two inexpensive Wireless Routers. Configure one as a bridge and feed it at the same spot to a second device that is configured as regular AP. By doing so it acts like a Dual Radio Repeater.

http://www.ezlan.net/Wireless_Modes.html

 

[Megatomic]

I hate to barge in on this thread, but I just wanted to thank OlafSicky, ScottMac, and JackMDS for their various suggestions. I used bits from each of their posts to fix some problems on my own home wireless network.

I have a Netgear wireless router with 108Mbps support and Rangemax. My son and I have older T42 laptops with Intel 2100 3b chips. With the router in default settings (108Mbps on, channel 6 selected) we couldn't use the built-in wireless chips - there was some compatibility issue that I couldn't fix. Going to B+G on channel 1 fixed this and it increased the signal strength throughout the house. Double win!

Thanks again fellas, keep up the good work.