Wireless Connection

Trytostaydead · Post by **Trytostaydead** » 2004-07-19 07:54pm

Is there anyway to increase signal strength? Like an antennae I can buy for my laptop or wrap it in tinfoil?

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2004-07-20 12:03am

Wrapping it in tinfoil will kill signal strength. Buy a better base station or try directional antennas.

GoldenFalcon · Post by **GoldenFalcon** » 2004-07-20 12:32am

It really depends on how your manufacturer sets your wireless adapter. Dell keeps the antennae next to the card, meaning if you open the miniPCI slot you'd see the card w/ antennae sticking out, while IBM builds special antennae right smack next to the monitor, and lets them relay signals to the miniPCI.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2004-07-20 06:36am

i dunno... but im interested on why i have a "low" signal strength less than 20 feet from the router...

I think its cos my house is fairly old and not made out of shite materials

GoldenFalcon · Post by **GoldenFalcon** » 2004-07-20 10:13am

Or there's some real bad interference going on somewhere...

What wireless type do you have? If you have A, then that's probably why (shortest range of all the Wi-Fi's, and easily disrupted).

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2004-07-20 10:20am

hmm... 802.11g according to my Routers manual. however i don't know what that means.

GoldenFalcon · Post by **GoldenFalcon** » 2004-07-20 10:25am

Weird, that's supposed to be the longest range and least interfering of all of them (since it uses 5GHz)...

I'd chalk it up to bad router, or bad wireless card then.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2004-07-20 10:28am

i have B cards, which i thought was odd when pc world sold them to my dad... would that have something to do with it?

edit: -
Routers a belkin one.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-07-20 10:38am

so you're using 802.11b wireless cards with an 802.11g router? yeah. . .get new cards that are on the g standard. it's likely the discrepancy between the two causing your problems.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2004-07-20 10:43am

bugger it. Not my fault I didn't buy the cards!

This'll teach my dad to go over my head.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-07-20 10:50am

802.11b is compatible with 802.11g routers so that shouldn't be the problem. What you should really do is return the router and go with a different brand 802.11g router (Netgear, Linksys, Buffalo are all good) and give that a try. Before you do that though, try switching your current router to a different channel to see if that clears up the interference.

Zac Naloen · Post by **Zac Naloen** » 2004-07-20 10:57am

I played around with the settings and it turns out theres another wireless network within range using the same Channel as me. so i changed channel and im getting a better signal now. Thanks kernel

GoldenFalcon · Post by **GoldenFalcon** » 2004-07-20 11:39am

Yeah, as I thought before...really bad interference.

I live in the city and may be moving to a skyscraper soon (currently in a suburban-type apartment building). What do I do if there are 10+ wireless networks surrounding me?

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-07-20 11:53am

GoldenFalcon wrote:Yeah, as I thought before...really bad interference.

I live in the city and may be moving to a skyscraper soon (currently in a suburban-type apartment building). What do I do if there are 10+ wireless networks surrounding me?

There are usually enough channels in a wireless router to get around any interference, you'll just need to play around with it for a while to get the one that works best for you.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-07-20 12:00pm

Buy a Mac with their internal antennae running along the screen

Or get one of those external wireless antennaes...

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-07-20 12:02pm

Praxis wrote:Buy a Mac with their internal antennae running along the screen

My Compaq has one of those too, and it has about twice the range of the PCMCIA models.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-07-20 06:53pm

Zac Naloen wrote:I think its cos my house is fairly old and not made out of shite materials

My relatively new townhouse is shit... you have nails sticking up through the stair carpet...

GoldenFalcon · Post by **GoldenFalcon** » 2004-07-20 08:34pm

Praxis wrote:Buy a Mac with their internal antennae running along the screen

Or get one of those external wireless antennaes...

IBM does that too, even includes a Bluetooth antenna. Really cool stuff.