WLAN Performance and Using a Router to Repeat?

[bmwme]

I jumped on the Newegg deal for a new ASUS WL-520gU router. I was having intermittent dropping out issues with my Netgear WGT-624 v3 so I figured a new router for only $20 with good reviews was a no brainer. Well I'm having mixed results. While it appears that the WLAN has been stable for the past week the range doesn't seem as good as the Netgear was. My wife has a Dell m640 with an internal card and I use a Netgear card in my Dell Latitude. I have the router on the second floor of our house and we primarily use the laptops on the first floor. I have the antenna tilted at a 45* angle like I found best with the Netgear but unless you are near the router signal strength is merely "good" (about 34mbps) and I was watching the signal meter on my laptop last night and it would hover at good then suddenly drop to poor for a second before coming back up. What's going on? Is there a good powered antenna to improve reception?

Which leads me to my second issue. Once I noticed the Asus wasn't giving me the same signal strength, I started researching on how to modify the Netgear to be a "repeater". Well lucky me it can be! I used this site: http://www.beatjunkie.de/Router_eng.htm

I was able to connect to the router and run the script that is linked on that site. It showed that the router was modified to repeater mode but I get nothing. The site is very vague on what you need to do after you run the script. What IP, gatway, DNS, etc settings do I need to change to get it to run as a repeater? Do I need to allow access through the Asus router?

Thanks!
-Jeff

 

[bmwme]

20 views and no one has a suggestion?

 

[kevnich2]

If you can get an ethernet cable down to the 1st level just setup the Netgear as an access point and turn off DHCP (Plug ethernet into one of the LAN ports and do NOT use WAN port).

 

[Tbirdkid]

kevnich, please explain why you wouldnt use the wan port off of the other router. i dont understand that. normally, you would use the second wan port and just break the network.

 

[JackMDS]

While DD-WRT is known world wide and is used by ten thousands people. I doubt that more than few heard, or used the thing that you found for the Netgear. Thus it is hard to relate to the outcome when using this finding.

Tbirdkid, kevnich2 notion relates to extending Wireless with the use of one Network cable as oppose to the Repeater solution that was tried by bmwme.

Cable soltution when done skillfully is much better than any Repeater solution.

Option 1. Using a Wireless Router as a switch with an Access Point - http://www.ezlan.net/router_AP.html

Option 2. Network Segregation - http://www.ezlan.net/shield.html

 

[Tbirdkid]

Ive always set it up with the segregation. Using the second router to statically be set to 192.168.1.1 instead of 0.1 which the main router has. Sure, it takes some work for each computer to see each other, but other than that I have found it to be the best way. I hate wireless access points in a network. I think they are unreliable at best and generally dont perform anywhere near as fast as just pulling an ip from a single router.
when you use it as an access point though, you have to disable the dhcp because the ip addressing should come from the switch correct? i guess there is a setting in the router to turn it into a switch. im sure each router is different in how you set that up, so I will take the time to figure it out. Thanks!

 

[kevnich2]

Honestly, I don't see how that's a better solution at all. Why break your network into two separate networks when you can just turn off DHCP and use the 2nd router as a simple WAP. Nice and simple setup. KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. Works great. Don't make things more complicated than they need to be. And wireless access points when setup and used correctly work just fine as long as you know the speed isn't going to be the same as ethernet. Wireless has it's place and will continue to grow in popularity, no question about that at all. The only time I've seen wireless not work was due to bad implementations as well as poor expectations.

 

[bmwme]

I purchased a more powerful antenna through Newegg so I'll see how that improves things. From there I'll look back to a repeater but it is just causing issues right now.

 

[Engineer]

Since you didn't mention it, have you upgraded your Asus router with DD-WRT or Tomato? If so, have you tried turning up the power on the router? It defaults to 42mW transmit and has been shown to go up to around 72mW (250 MAX :shocked: but don't do it) with no damage (at least on the Linksys WRT series routers). The Asus router seems to run cooler (to me) than the WRT54G Linksys so I would assume 72mW woudl be fine also.

Also, to my suprise, the box indicated that the Asus router had two antennae...one internal and one external. Using DD-WRT or Tomato, you might optimize your situation by playing with which antenna transmits and which receives (just a thought).


Good luck!

 

[JackMDS]

Wireless signal is more about Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), http://www.ezlan.net/wbars.html

If a radio and its Antenna interface were not design for Higher Power, pushing the signal Up pushes the noise as well and the results might be worse.

Each circuit has its sweet spot, on the WRT54g it is about 50 to 55mW. Higer power increase the noise too much.

50mW as oppose to the default is a little better (really a little).

I never tried to push up an Asus. You can try but be careful.

 

[kevnich2]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Wireless signal is more about Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), http://www.ezlan.net/wbars.html

If a radio and its Antenna interface were not design for Higher Power, pushing the signal Up pushes the noise as well and the results might be worse.

Each circuit has its sweet spot, on the WRT54g it is about 50 to 55mW. Higer power increase the noise too much.

50mW as oppose to the default is a little better (really a little).

I never tried to push up an Asus. You can try but be careful.

Correct, higher transmit power doesn't really benefit much. A stronger antenna, however, can definitely help with range. I just ended up putting another DDWRT router in access point mode on the other side of my house (connected with ethernet) to help boost my signal a little. I have ethernet drops in most rooms in my house though but my house is quickly going almost all laptops so mobility is a plus.