good-bad signal

I live in one of those foil lined wall new houses - with three floors!

I bought a netgear rangemax as I like to sit outside in the garden and surf.
For this it works and in my neighbours garden three doors down! Job done!

However, I cant get it to stay connected from the top floor to the bottom
when using my centrino laptop at full power on the wireless adaptor.

The odd thing is that the laptop says it is connected at 54Mbps and the
signal strength is 'excellent'. Yet it will drop out - i.e. cant get a
webpage to load, email to access, etc. Though it still says 54Mps (or 48Mps)
and 'excellent'. It also drops out if someone walks in front of the laptop!

I have changed channels to no effect and so I'm back at 6.

It's driving me crazy to be honest. I cant attach a high gain aerial to the
wireless modem/router DG834PN as it doesn't sport any externally.

Would a wireless bridge help if I sighted it on the second floor? I can get
a signal on the second floor and could locate it in the room directly below
the wireless modem/router.

If so, could I only switch it on when I needed wireless access downstairs?

Does anyone know of a good brand to use for this purpose?

Thanks.



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

F9 wrote:
> I live in one of those foil lined wall new houses - with three floors!
>
> I bought a netgear rangemax as I like to sit outside in the garden and surf.
> For this it works and in my neighbours garden three doors down! Job done!
>
> However, I cant get it to stay connected from the top floor to the bottom
> when using my centrino laptop at full power on the wireless adaptor.
>
> The odd thing is that the laptop says it is connected at 54Mbps and the
> signal strength is 'excellent'. Yet it will drop out - i.e. cant get a
> webpage to load, email to access, etc. Though it still says 54Mps (or 48Mps)
> and 'excellent'. It also drops out if someone walks in front of the laptop!
>
> I have changed channels to no effect and so I'm back at 6.
>
> It's driving me crazy to be honest. I cant attach a high gain aerial to the
> wireless modem/router DG834PN as it doesn't sport any externally.
>
> Would a wireless bridge help if I sighted it on the second floor? I can get
> a signal on the second floor and could locate it in the room directly below
> the wireless modem/router.
>
> If so, could I only switch it on when I needed wireless access downstairs?
>
> Does anyone know of a good brand to use for this purpose?
>

I'd be tempted to try a USB Wifi on a USB extension lead.. just find a
spot in the room where the signal is good and velcro/blutack/nail the
USB thingy there. You can run up to 15m of USB cable (using active
cables) if need be...

At another office with a similar problem, the windows in the router room
and the PC room both pointed at the same wall (garage) a few feet away.
A varnished hardboard panel, covered in kitchen foil and screwed
hardboard-side to the garage wall, worked a treat.. just leave
clearances around the screw heads so they don't earth the foil.


But yes, wireless bridges do work. A lot are being made obsolete by the
newer routers with much longer inherent ranges.

--
Sue

F9 wrote in
44aa5a53$0$9826$(E-Mail Removed):

> I live in one of those foil lined wall new houses - with three floors!
>
> I bought a netgear rangemax as I like to sit outside in the garden
> and surf. For this it works and in my neighbours garden three doors
> down! Job done!
> However, I cant get it to stay connected from the top floor to the
> bottom when using my centrino laptop at full power on the wireless
> adaptor.
> The odd thing is that the laptop says it is connected at 54Mbps and
> the signal strength is 'excellent'. Yet it will drop out - i.e. cant
> get a webpage to load, email to access, etc. Though it still says
> 54Mps (or 48Mps) and 'excellent'. It also drops out if someone walks
> in front of the laptop!

I've had exactly this symptom with a WG511T Cardbus wireless adaptor and a
DG834GT router. Both are on the latest drivers (*). My signal strength is
quoted as being "Excellent", "Very Good" or "Good" at various places round
the house. And yet occasionally, even though the signal strength is reported
as being good (according the adjectives shown by lingering on the
two-computers icon or by opening the Netgear app) and the link speed is 36,
48 or 54 Mbps, I occasionally lose network access for up to a minute. I've
run a continuous ping (ping -r 192.168.0.1) and I can see that there are
periods when multiple consecutive pings (nearly always 12 of them,
corresponding to one minute) fail to get a reply. Then it starts replying as
before. Unfortunately many apps that run over the top of TCP, such as a file
copy from another PC or a Paltalk session, will time out before network
access comes back. I've specifically checked the reported signal strength
during the outages and it is no worse than at other times. There are usually
no other detectable networks, either on the same channel or any other
channel. I'm not using my microwave, and I've tried turning off my DECT and
mobile phones and my cordless headphones in case there's interference.

I've seen it both when the PC has been a long way from the router and when
it's right next to the router, so it's not likely to be a signal strength
issue.



(*) Unfortunately the latest drivers for the WG511T, just like the latest
drivers for the WG111T USB adaptor, fail to connect to my router using WPA:
I get repeated "connected" and "failed to connect" messages every couple of
seconds. But I get a good connection if I use the Windows XP Zero Config
Service instead of the Netgear app to handle the wireless connection. And
the problem predates upgrading to the latest drivers, going back to a time
when the Netgear app with the older drivers was able to establish a
connection. Sadly, Netgear tech support are useless: the call that I raised
on my old WG111T is still open: there was no response once they escalated it
to 2nd Line, and when I gave them a "why haven't I heard anything" nudge,
they replied asking me to phone America to describe the problem, despite the
fact that my bug report described perfectly clearly and I linked to various
threads on their forum where other users had discussed the symptoms.

"F9" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:44aa5a53$0$9826$(E-Mail Removed):

> I live in one of those foil lined wall new houses - with three
> floors!
>
> I bought a netgear rangemax as I like to sit outside in the
> garden and surf. For this it works and in my neighbours garden
> three doors down! Job done!
>
> However, I cant get it to stay connected from the top floor to
> the bottom when using my centrino laptop at full power on the
> wireless adaptor.
>
> The odd thing is that the laptop says it is connected at 54Mbps
> and the signal strength is 'excellent'. Yet it will drop out -
> i.e. cant get a webpage to load, email to access, etc. Though it
> still says 54Mps (or 48Mps) and 'excellent'. It also drops out
> if someone walks in front of the laptop!
>
> I have changed channels to no effect and so I'm back at 6.
>
> It's driving me crazy to be honest. I cant attach a high gain
> aerial to the wireless modem/router DG834PN as it doesn't sport
> any externally.
>
> Would a wireless bridge help if I sighted it on the second
> floor? I can get a signal on the second floor and could locate
> it in the room directly below the wireless modem/router.
>
> If so, could I only switch it on when I needed wireless access
> downstairs?
>
> Does anyone know of a good brand to use for this purpose?
>
I solved a similar problem in a 2-storey house that had foil-backed
flooring. Whichever floor I located the router, reception was crap
on t'other. Customer was adamant against any cabling.

The solution was to install a range extender - D-Link DWL-710 - on
t'other floor.

In your case, a range extender on the ground floor might solve the
problem.

Frazer Jolly Goodfellow <no-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:Xns97F6A8B4A7FDfrz@80.5.182.99:

> D-Link DWL-710

Correction, make that D-Link DWL-G710.

"Frazer Jolly Goodfellow" <no-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Xns97F6A8B4A7FDfrz@80.5.182.99...
> "F9" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
> news:44aa5a53$0$9826$(E-Mail Removed):
>
>> I live in one of those foil lined wall new houses - with three
>> floors!
>>
>> I bought a netgear rangemax as I like to sit outside in the
>> garden and surf. For this it works and in my neighbours garden
>> three doors down! Job done!
>>
>> However, I cant get it to stay connected from the top floor to
>> the bottom when using my centrino laptop at full power on the
>> wireless adaptor.
>>
>> The odd thing is that the laptop says it is connected at 54Mbps
>> and the signal strength is 'excellent'. Yet it will drop out -
>> i.e. cant get a webpage to load, email to access, etc. Though it
>> still says 54Mps (or 48Mps) and 'excellent'. It also drops out
>> if someone walks in front of the laptop!
>>
>> I have changed channels to no effect and so I'm back at 6.
>>
>> It's driving me crazy to be honest. I cant attach a high gain
>> aerial to the wireless modem/router DG834PN as it doesn't sport
>> any externally.
>>
>> Would a wireless bridge help if I sighted it on the second
>> floor? I can get a signal on the second floor and could locate
>> it in the room directly below the wireless modem/router.
>>
>> If so, could I only switch it on when I needed wireless access
>> downstairs?
>>
>> Does anyone know of a good brand to use for this purpose?
>>
> I solved a similar problem in a 2-storey house that had foil-backed
> flooring. Whichever floor I located the router, reception was crap
> on t'other. Customer was adamant against any cabling.
>
> The solution was to install a range extender - D-Link DWL-710 - on
> t'other floor.
>
> In your case, a range extender on the ground floor might solve the
> problem.

Would this be possible? I have found that my existing router doesn't have
WDS. Would the wireless signal be automatically picked up and extended if I
had this unit on the middle floor. I also notice that it only does WEP and I
use WPA-PSK. Would this matter?

Thanks.



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"F9" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:44aa93fc$0$9919$(E-Mail Removed):

> "Frazer Jolly Goodfellow" <no-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:Xns97F6A8B4A7FDfrz@80.5.182.99...
>> "F9" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
>> news:44aa5a53$0$9826$(E-Mail Removed):
>>
>>> I live in one of those foil lined wall new houses - with three
>>> floors!
>>>
>>> I bought a netgear rangemax as I like to sit outside in the
>>> garden and surf. For this it works and in my neighbours garden
>>> three doors down! Job done!
>>>
>>> However, I cant get it to stay connected from the top floor to
>>> the bottom when using my centrino laptop at full power on the
>>> wireless adaptor.
>>>
>>> The odd thing is that the laptop says it is connected at
>>> 54Mbps and the signal strength is 'excellent'. Yet it will
>>> drop out - i.e. cant get a webpage to load, email to access,
>>> etc. Though it still says 54Mps (or 48Mps) and 'excellent'. It
>>> also drops out if someone walks in front of the laptop!
>>>
>>> I have changed channels to no effect and so I'm back at 6.
>>>
>>> It's driving me crazy to be honest. I cant attach a high gain
>>> aerial to the wireless modem/router DG834PN as it doesn't
>>> sport any externally.
>>>
>>> Would a wireless bridge help if I sighted it on the second
>>> floor? I can get a signal on the second floor and could locate
>>> it in the room directly below the wireless modem/router.
>>>
>>> If so, could I only switch it on when I needed wireless access
>>> downstairs?
>>>
>>> Does anyone know of a good brand to use for this purpose?
>>>
>> I solved a similar problem in a 2-storey house that had
>> foil-backed flooring. Whichever floor I located the router,
>> reception was crap on t'other. Customer was adamant against any
>> cabling.
>>
>> The solution was to install a range extender - D-Link DWL-710 -
>> on t'other floor.
>>
>> In your case, a range extender on the ground floor might solve
>> the problem.
>
> Would this be possible?
Can't guarantee it, obvioudly.

I have found that my existing router
> doesn't have WDS.
Nor does the Netgear router at my client's site.

> Would the wireless signal be automatically
> picked up and extended if I had this unit on the middle floor.
Yes, I'd try the ground floor first.

> I also notice that it only does WEP and I use WPA-PSK. Would this
> matter?
Yes, it does matter. As does my quoting the right product code :-)
see my earlier correction post.

"The DWL-G710 provides standard WEP 64/128-bit data encryption.
WPA-PSK mode is additionally provided for you to set up a robust
network security." see D-Link web site.