a little disappointed (WRT54G)

My WRT54G isn't actually as strong as I thought it would be, whereas I can pick up my neighbor's signal easily from across the street (he too is on a linksys), my connection does not work in the basement. The router is on the second floor so there is one floor in between. Sucks that I can't even get my whole house connected. Is there any way I can position the router or the antennas to get a better vertical signal, not just horizontal? Any settings to boost wifi reception? All my 2.4g phones can work through a floor and many many walls, why can't a router?

 

Thats your problem, you have too much interference in the house.

Try moving the router away from all telephones, TV's, kitchen appliances...etc.

Try changing the channel of the router to 11 or 1 instead of the defualt 6.

The router is very strong, and you will notice a huge improvement after you do these things

 

The basement is probably not the ideal place for the router. The antennas send out a relatively 'flat' signal, so if they're in the verticle position, that's best for horizontal coverage. You may want to try adjusting the antennas to a 45-degree angle, or even position them horizontally, to get more verticle coverage. If that doesn't work, and you need the connection in a specific area of the house, you could try replacing one of the antennas with a diectional antenna. Also check out www.hyperWRT.org for a free firmware update that will allow you to increase the Tx power on the router a bit (not if you have v5, though...).

 

I agree with the guys above, but it could also be your wireless card. I had range problems with my 2200b/g and the 2915a/b/g was actually pretty good, but once I got my Atheros card, holy **** it didn't seem to be phased as badly as the two Intel cards.

Yes I sound like a broken record because I've said this over and over again about the Atheros card, but seriously try an Atheros wireless card out and post back with your results.

I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised with the difference.

Oh my goodness my dog just farted and I'm about to throw up.

Cheers,
Mike

 

I guess I'll just stay outa the basement, just seems stupid that my neighbor's connection is still visable in the basement whereas mine is not even found. I do have a port forwarding question though.

I set up a small line of ports for my desktop's ip and a small line for my laptop's ip. Ever since, my desktop's downloads have blown up! I mean I went from 20kbps to a good 190kbps a second (odd because before the router, I just had a direct connection to the cable modem) Anyways, when I restarted my laptop this morning I realized that the IP had changed. Now I know that's normal but does that mean the router no longer will forward those ports to my laptop since its a difference IP address. Will the same happen when I restart my desktop??

 

Yes, if you're using port forwarding, you want to assign a static IP address outside of the range that the router's DHCP server doles out.

 

The biggest problem is the antennas. They all use 2 dbi. I elected to go with USR5450 AP and connect it to a standard 8 port router. This unit has dual 5 dbi antennas. Being a AP you are free to locate it where you get the best coverage. I can go 50 ft through 5 wall on low power. But I do not use what they call builtin (mini-pci) 11g. I use USR5410 PCMCI. Built-in 11g Raylink 2500 is good for line of sight with AP on high or 10' and 2 walls before I loose a signal.

So your your problem is the builtin 11g sucks. Try out a 11g pcmci card, and see if your distance improves.

 

You can upgrade the antenna on most routers too.