Clients choose AP by channel instead ofstongest RF Power

Sorry for long post.

Industrial / office building built in large 'C' design. Using 9 APs, 3 SSID
(Admin, Engineering, Barcode Scanners) channel assignments all drawn out on
large building prints for 1-6-11 and so forth as best as I can. WEP long
encryption password unique to each SSID. RADIUS not used due to 50 count
limit.

Old Lunch room converted into major project 'Team" meetings. Three AP's
(all Admin SSID) overlap coverage for Old Lunch room. Signal Strength are
25-30% (channel 1), 40-45%(channel 11), and 60% (channel 6). All clients
are using Win XP Pro, and Windows built in version of Windows Wireless
client. The Laptops in the lunch room all pick the AP using channel 1, the
lowest power, and within 20 minutes all the client laptops outlook will have
just given up and disconnects.

The fault I am trying to resolve: The client computers will try every 7
minutes or so to connect to the lowest channel number, not to the AP the
most RF power for a given SSID. At low power, there is too many
retransmissions due to bad data packets.

The Windows client seems, at least to the testing I have done, only locks up
to an AP based on signal strength only when power is over 80%.

Is there a white paper, or other resource I can research to force the
windows wireless client to select the strongest signal AP with identical
SSID, instead of the lowest channel? Am I missing a key part of this
puzzle?

(I will also gladly accept a good google query phrase, since I keep drawing
a blank. Or a suggestion on another NG to post my question.)

Phil

Nobody have any suggestions to my question?
Hello-- is anyone there? Are my post being filtered?

Phil S.

"Phil S." <nospam-m-phil-NoSpam@one two three m-a-p-s.net> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Sorry for long post.
>
> Industrial / office building built in large 'C' design. Using 9 APs, 3
> SSID (Admin, Engineering, Barcode Scanners) channel assignments all drawn
> out on large building prints for 1-6-11 and so forth as best as I can. WEP
> long encryption password unique to each SSID. RADIUS not used due to 50
> count limit.
>
> Old Lunch room converted into major project 'Team" meetings. Three AP's
> (all Admin SSID) overlap coverage for Old Lunch room. Signal Strength are
> 25-30% (channel 1), 40-45%(channel 11), and 60% (channel 6). All clients
> are using Win XP Pro, and Windows built in version of Windows Wireless
> client. The Laptops in the lunch room all pick the AP using channel 1,
> the lowest power, and within 20 minutes all the client laptops outlook
> will have just given up and disconnects.
>
> The fault I am trying to resolve: The client computers will try every 7
> minutes or so to connect to the lowest channel number, not to the AP the
> most RF power for a given SSID. At low power, there is too many
> retransmissions due to bad data packets.
>
> The Windows client seems, at least to the testing I have done, only locks
> up to an AP based on signal strength only when power is over 80%.
>
> Is there a white paper, or other resource I can research to force the
> windows wireless client to select the strongest signal AP with identical
> SSID, instead of the lowest channel? Am I missing a key part of this
> puzzle?
>
> (I will also gladly accept a good google query phrase, since I keep
> drawing a blank. Or a suggestion on another NG to post my question.)
>
> Phil
>