New wireless card or new router for better reception?

DCodd

Hi all

Having had a virus recently I was expertly helped by on this forum and eventually did a Factory restore which has dramatically improved the performance of my laptop in all areas but one. Wireless connection.

It has always been poor as I tend to use my laptop upstairs and away from the router. What I'm asking is, would it be better to upgrade the laptop's wireless card from a Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG to an Intel WiFi Link 5100 wireless N card (both cards seem to be dual band) or to upgrade the standard router from BE, a single band Technicolour wireless N 2.4GHz model to a dual band router?

Thanks

esuhl

I don't know, but I had the same router. Some devices dropped out upstairs, whilst others in the same location had a good, solid connection. I'd suspect that changing the wireless card would give the most improvement... although it's hard to say which wi-fi adapters have the best range.

802.11n cards should have a greater range than 802.11a/b/g, but the -n card in my netbook is always one of the first to lose connectivity, whilst my ancient Netgear 802.11b/g adapter always has a good signal in the same position.

Can you get an extension lead for the wireless adapter and try putting it in different positions and orientations? Does it have a detachable aerial you could upgrade to one with a higher gain? (Probably not great solutions for a laptop...)

Do you fancy trying out your Blue Peter skills to make a wi-fi signal reflector for your router to make the signal more directional?

http://limetrip.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/build-your-own-homemade-wi-fi-signal.html

Or... do you have a spare "router" that you could connect to the Technicolor one with a cable, so you could have a wireless access point on each side (ideally each floor) of the house...?

JJ_Egan

You could replace with a dual band router and wifi stick .

http://boingboing.net/2013/06/21/wifi-router-with-impressive-ra.html

Toxteth_OGrady

@OP

Have you tried different wifi channels (Inssider) to see if you can improve it?

esuhl

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

@OP

Have you tried different wifi channels (Inssider) to see if you can improve it?

Good point. I found that having the channel selection set to "automatic", my router kept trying to switch channels, causing dropouts. Setting them to a relatively clear channel manually definitely helped.

DCodd

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

@OP

Have you tried different wifi channels (Inssider) to see if you can improve it?

Thanks Toxteth_OGrady.

Not really sure what I was looking at. I had "RSSI" of -29 when next to the router but -80 upstairs. There were 3 others on the same channel as me the rest were split amoung mainly channels 5,6,9,10 and 11 so I'm assuming the channels run from 1-11 and I can log in nto the router and manually set the channel?

Toxteth_OGrady

Yep, set the channel in the router to a clear one.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/21132/change-your-wi-fi-router-channel-to-optimize-your-wireless-signal/