weak wifi signal help please, wifi boost?

happyhero

Hi I have a Netgear DG834GT wireless router and I am with Sky. I have an attic conversion in which I have my study/office. I have my main PC in this room hardwired into one of the router ports and I like it this way as when I get any connection problems I can see the router lights to help me get the connection back (doesn't happen that often). My family, between us have two more laptops in the house, but we often have trouble wirelessly connecting and from experience we can see that most of the problem is range.

Sometimes we go and stand in the ground floor hallway with the laptop to connect and then go back into the lounge and then the connection seems to hold on with the occasional break. Its is quite a nuscience having to walk round to get a connection whilst you are sitting there with all your bits round you and maybe even the tv on. We seem to have a couple of dead spots too where it is very hard to connect unless we keep on trying.

I have experimented with the usual, moving the router about, changing channels etc and none of that really helped, so I am wondering about boosting the signal. I have had a quick look on the net and see various booster aerials (are they any good) and devices that look like a router but are in fact a wireless range extenders and which are expensive.

I would be grateful for any advice on what works best and any experiences.

Moving my router away from my PC is not really an option I fancy, and I have got it sitting in the clear a few feet away from the actual PC to try and help.

Any help would be appreciated.

espresso

Do your laptops have Super G™ technology adaptors?

What angle is the aerial pointing on the DG834GT?

The_JinJ

You do get boosters...eg.
http://www.broadbandstuff.co.uk/index.php?cPath=26_147
They do what they say they do - used a Linksys one in the past, zero config and worked well.

Or maybe try antenna extensions?
I guess you've tried changing the aerial position? Have them pointing out rather than up to maximise the reception area....

happyhero

Cheers for the help, not sure what Super G is but they are compatible with B and G that you normally look for. The aerial was pointing straight up, so now I am trying it pointing out sideways.

Also someone has just pointed out to me that if I have my study/office in the attic and it was built in the not too distant past that it probably has foil backed plasterboard which wont help the signal. Well I know it does have that as I was around a lot when it was being built. The thing is though that all this plasterboard is on the walls and my wireless signal needs to travel downwards to the other rooms that have the laptops in them, so not sure if just having these foil backed walls around will still give me a problem.

There are some steel beams (just to make things worse) in the floor but these are fairly well spaced apart.

So now this has got me thinking, should I get a booster as The_JinJ suggests which I sort of fancy, or is there such a thing that plugs into the aerial socket of the router with a load of wire and then an aerial so that I could still have my router beside my PC as I would like but can put the aerial out through a little whole to another floor or something similar?

If possible I would like a real strong signal at the place where the laptop is usually used. Might sound obvious but after so long having a crappy signal, choosing what equipment I would buy, I would be strongly biased towards the thing that achieves this. I would guess the Linksys Expander would probably achieve this best?

espresso

happyhero wrote: »

Cheers for the help, not sure what Super G is but they are compatible with B and G that you normally look for.

OK so what mode do you have your DG834GT set to?

Mode.
• "g & b" allows both "g" and "b" wireless stations to access this device (default).
• “g only” allows only 802.11g wireless stations to be used.
• “b only” allows 802.11b wireless stations; 802.11g wireless stations can still be used if
they can operate in 802.11b mode.
• “Auto 108 Mbps” means all 802.11g, 802.11b, and Netgear 108 Mbps wireless
stations can be used. The Auto 108 Mbps mode is the second fastest mode.
• “108 Mbps only” means only compatible 802.11g wireless stations that support 108
Mbps can connect. The 108 Mbps only mode is the fastest mode.

If you only have 802.11g set it to that however setting it to 802.11b may give you better wireless results but at a max speed of 11Mbps. It's pointless having a Super G technology router, unless all of your equipment is compatible!

The aerial was pointing straight up, so now I am trying it pointing out sideways.

Maximum radiation is at right angles to the aerial, so if your other equipment is below, it needs to be horizontal.

Also someone has just pointed out to me that if I have my study/office in the attic and it was built in the not too distant past that it probably has foil backed plasterboard which wont help the signal. Well I know it does have that as I was around a lot when it was being built. The thing is though that all this plasterboard is on the walls and my wireless signal needs to travel downwards to the other rooms that have the laptops in them, so not sure if just having these foil backed walls around will still give me a problem.

Never heard of foil backed flooring!

There are some steel beams (just to make things worse) in the floor but these are fairly well spaced apart.

So now this has got me thinking, should I get a booster as The_JinJ suggests which I sort of fancy, or is there such a thing that plugs into the aerial socket of the router with a load of wire and then an aerial so that I could still have my router beside my PC as I would like but can put the aerial out through a little whole to another floor or something similar?

If possible I would like a real strong signal at the place where the laptop is usually used. Might sound obvious but after so long having a crappy signal, choosing what equipment I would buy, I would be strongly biased towards the thing that achieves this. I would guess the Linksys Expander would probably achieve this best?

If it were me, if you can't improve the reception, I would move the router down one floor and connect to your main PC using an Ethernet cable. You don't need to see the lights on the router and if connected via cable you can definitely log in and get the necessary status information, etc.

PistonBroke_2

Do you need it to be truly Wireless or one of these work ? typically i think they cost about £85 but would give you a near perfect connection i believe


Also i used to have terrible troubles when i moved into my new house with my old DG834GT reaching one room in particular(it wasn't in the loft though) and it would be the one room that i really needed :rolleyes: so i upgraded to the Belkin Pre-N router which was just as bad & then the netgear Pre-N (V.Slight Improvement) and then finally the Netgear DG834N (Massive Difference) now i get a clean signal all round my house & i have a loft conversion too so that could be another alternative and i am using the built B\G Wifi on my laptop and not an N Card or Booster

buglawton

Try a big sheet of aluminium foil to create a reflector under / on one side of the router to reflect most of the signal in the desired direction. This worked for me on a previous weak router.