[Rik]

Hi all, I have my wireless network up and running but am having reception problems.
My pc is less than 5 meters from my wireless router but there are 2 walls in between which both have mains and phone wiring within them, there is also a radiator in the way too and possibly the central heating and a now unused immersion tank.

I am in no way a wireless expert and have no idea what kinds of things block signals and how to improve things so I thought the best thing to would be to ask advice.

I know that a repeater could well improve things, but, i would have no where to plug it in without running an extension lead out into the hallway which i don't really want to have to do for obvious reasons.

Any and all advice and idea's will be greatly appreciated.


[Edit] I have just done a little experiment, i am using a wireless pci card and i get 1 bar on the signal strength, i just plugged in my usb wireless adapter into the front of my pc and i get 4 bars?? Well confused now.

[Daveskater]

The angle that the signal has to travel through the walls can make quite a difference, for example if it's at 1 degree then it has to effectively go through something like 4 meters of brick as opposed to 20cm (at a right angle) or however thick a wall is.

We used to have our router in the airing cupboard and my sister had trouble getting decent signal because the wall on one side was really thick, then there was another wall, and it had to go through her bed etc. What I did was fit a bigger aerial to the router and it helped a lot Currently there's a big aerial (that came with my PCI card) on the router and I have the tiny one from the router, because I'm pretty much directly above it.

Two walls shouldn't be too bad a problem, so try sticking a whacking great aerial on the router and see if it helps For a cheap solution I think you can get a copper coat hanger and bend it around the end of the aerial and it should give out a better signal.

With the front vs. back of PC thing, it depends on which end of the PC is closest to the router. If it's nearer the front, then it will lose some signal with having to try and get around the PC, which is probably why you get less when it's connected from the back.

[Rik]

Cheerz for the advice mate. I have done a little more experimenting and i think that the problem may lie with my pci card. With said pci card i get just 1 bar as mentioned before, also as mentioned before, i get 4 with the usb adapter. I have also discovered that with the pci card i only pick up my own wireless network yet with the usb adapter i also pick up 2 other wireless adapters that are elsewhere within the building. The aerial on the usb adapter is not removable so i cannot do a swap for test purposes.

The walls are only plasterboard and aren't thick at all (should have mentioned that before).

[The_JeKyL]

I think your NIC may be going bad. I know this is an old thread and it says your account is disabled, but thought I may still through it out there...I work with wireless equipment a fairly good amount. I had a wireless NIC that was plugged in my desktop and for ages I thought my computer was dead since it wouldn't turn on and then I was finally putting my troubleshooting skills into play and removed the card and voila!!! my computer is now working again. It was giving me really degraded performance and then my computer took a year long nap...lol...i know that was off subject...but sometimes the problem lies in the hardware and if you have a working usb nic i would just use that. That is what I use and I get way better reception with it.

[Klunk]

Fitting Hi-Gain aerials to the router and the PC's WAN card will help