Home Network Optimization

I have been having intermittent problems with my wireless network and want to make sure I'm doing all I can with the equipment I have. Any help would be appreciated.

Equipment:
Ruckus 2211 Metro Broadband Gateway
Tendnet TEW-639GR wireless router
2 laptops (Sager NP8662) w/Intel(R) Wifi Link 5300 AGN, running Windows 7
Black Armor NAS 110 (wired into router)
Roku for Netflix streaming

I have the wireless cards in the laptops set to 802.11n Channel Width for band 2.4
I have the router in wireless b/g/n mixed mode as the Roku is wireless g.

The problems are mostly related to performance - sluggish internet, poor quality with the Roku, and sometimes the NAS is not available unless I restart my computer.

I'm no dummy, but I am ignorant about a lot of the fine tuning that can be done to improve wireless networks. Any help would be appreciated. As for the location of the wireless router from the computers, it isn't too far usually, there is only one floor or one wall between them.

If there's more information that would be helpful, I can provide it.

 

Well, a tweak would mean a minor improvement in most cases. If you're having actual connectivity issues i'd look at a hardware problem. Just reading and guessing with your post, I would look to try out a different wireless router.

It is possible you're getting interference. Do you have a bunch of wireless networks around you? Also have you changed the channel the AP is set too?

 

I use city wireless which is on channel 1, so I currently have my AP set to a different channel. The signals from other networks seem fairly weak, so I don't know if it is an interference problem.

The connectivity issue is specifically with the Roku for Netflix streaming. Perhaps I should try their forums to see if others have similar problems.

Thanks.

 

Set your wireless router to channel 11 It is about the only thing you can do about poor signal quality aside from moving the device closer. Also, on networks with NAS, it's recommended you have static addresses.

 

H.A.L. thanks for the response. I did switch to channel 11, it was on 6. For the static addresses, should I make the change on my router or on the NAS? Also, I should still leave the setting on the modem as DHCP, right?

 

I believe that router will do reservations with the mac address. So you could either set it there or just assign a static on the NAS. If you set it on the NAS make sure you put it outside the DHCP scope. Leave the modem set to DHCP.