Weak Wireless Signal

[SoulAssassin]

So I've always had sporadic connectivity issues in my basement (which is my primary location for using the laptop) and I've finally reached the point of frustration that it's time to do something about it. Check my game plan and let me know what you think.

I live in a townhouse that's about 20x40, wireless router is in the office/spare bedroom at the front of the house with my main pc. Couch/big screen/etc in the basement is at the rear of the house 2 floors down so it's pretty much the longest possible run between the walls. My connection shifts from full strength to zero, back to full, nothing for a minute or so, full strength, etc...very frustrating. I have a 2.4Ghz phone w a base station in the office a good 8 feet away from the router. Antennas are oriented at 9 and 3 o'clock in (what I thought was) an effort to increase signal strength to the lower floors. Running a WRT54G v2 that I recently flashed to DD-WRT and increased the signal strength on (which appears to have made no difference whatsoever). Moving the cable modem/router to the middle floor is not an option as I don't want to run the main pc on wireless. I'm contemplating 3 options here:

1. Pay someone to run cat6 from the spare bedroom, probably through the attic, probably down one of the air ducts and into the small room w the hot water heater/heater/etc (or get it down in the basement some other way). From there install another access point (or move the existing). None of the 3 closets in the basement have outlets so one will need to be installed. Cost probably a couple hundred.

2. Install new antennas on the router. Found these on ebay for around $21 w shipping...7db boost. Suggestions on something better are welcome.

3. Install a wireless repeater someone on the main floor. I get pretty decent signal here and if the repeater will actually do what it's supposed to that's great. I'm aware they can cut speed, I don't do any wireless gaming or heavy file transfers from the laptop so as long as my connection to the rest of the world is the bottleneck I'm fine w it. Probably go w the WRE54G unless someone has a better suggestion. Cost ~$70

Cost is a concern, op1 is definitely the most expensive followed by 3 and then 2. I'm just concerned that #2 won't get the job done and will be money wasted so I'm pretty much stuck between those two options.

So whaddya think? 3? 2? 1?

Cliffs:
wireless signal drops
read the options
whaddy think?

 

[JackMDS]

Best trch wise would option 1.

Indoor Omni Antenna usually do not add much.

Option 3. Does not have to cost so much, the Buffalo Router can be found for $40 and as is out of the box it does WDS.

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

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd...ctDetail.do?oid=155054

 

[SoulAssassin]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Best trch wise would option 1.

Indoor Omni Antenna usually do not add much.

Option 3. Does not have to cost so much, the Buffalo Router can be found for $40 and as is out of the box it does WDS.

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

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd...ctDetail.do?oid=155054

Yeah, #1 is "The Right Way (tm)" to do it but I just don't think it's the most cost effective. What about a directional antenna? I had given that some thought but forgot to include it in the op.

I've heard many good things about the Buffalo routers and that's a definitely possibility. My only hesitation with it is that it adds another device to the mix which is one more thing to troubleshoot/fail. Not being intimately familiar with WDS outside of reading the wiki page and some stuff here and there. How does a client make the determination of which device to use? Do they broadcast the same ssid and it just picks the strongest/first to respond? Do I name them name_1, name_2 and define a preferred?

 

[SoulAssassin]

^

 

[Riverhound777]

I went with a directional antanae for my internal wireless card on my desktop. It boosted my signal from 40% (2-3 bars) to 90%(4-5 bars) and my inconsistant connection was fixed.

I also have experience with the range extenders from work. A client had a laptop downstairs from the router and was having trouble printing to his printer connected to the router upstairs. We installed a range extender and his signal went from 2 bars to 5 and the printing was much better. Either option would be good, maybe go with the cheapest one, or the one on sale and try it out.

Edit: On second thought, it might be an interferance issue. You may just try changing the channel on the router and see if it makes any difference. Maybe the phone you have next to it is the issue, try turning it off and see if it fixes it.