I bought the newer linksys E1500 wireless N router to add another router at our house. I transferred the old WRT54G to my parents's room and for some reason, the E1500 has weaker signal. I notice that when my signal drops to 3 bars or less, the download speed is reduced by half! The WRT54G still maintains full download speed even at half signal. I tried all guides like setting it to 20mhz, disabling WMM, setting channel to 11 but still the same. I can live with the weaker signal but I can't understand why the speed is reduced when the signal is reduced considering this is wireless N already. Is the physical antenna a big factor for routers or did I misunderstood something here?
I will try to swap the routers and observe again. I'm beginning to think that I should buy routers with physical antennas. The range boosting marketing of the newer routers is false as far as I'm concerned.
-
Channel 11 is not a good channel in itself- use inSSIDer to scan for neighboring networks and adjust you channel if needed.
Speed is reduced when signal quality is reduced- it's perfectly normal and it doesn't matter if we're talking 802.11g or 802.11n -
Ok. Will try different channels. So far our old router is channel 6, the new one is channel 11.
-
About a year ago I bought a Linksys E4200 to replace my WRT54GS thinking I would get greater range. I actually got less range. Thankfully Best Buy took the return and I got my money back.
Now I'm thinking of trying the ASUS RT N66U. I read a good review of it in one of the computer mags. -
ALLurGroceries  Vegan Vermin Super Moderator
I use a WRT54GL with high gain antennas for my b/g gear and long range access. It gets about twice the range as my WNDR3700. I just bought another one as a backup/development unit.
WRT54G signal is stronger than E1500?
Discussion in 'Networking and Wireless' started by sachiel, Jun 11, 2012.