Wireless N Network Upgrade Doesn't Help Signal Strength

Centipeed

This is likely a problem with no solution, but in a certain room of the house my netbook was having trouble connecting to the old Wireless G network.

So I've just installed a Wireless N router.

The router is set to transmit only in Wireless N, and the netbook has a Wireless N capable wireless adapter. I'm writing this post on it right now, so it connects, but it's very slow (2.0 Mbps to the router), and the internet doesn't work very well (Pages don't load or load very slowly).

It's exactly the same behaviour as it was with the Wireless G router. Is there a solution? The signal is travelling through several walls and a floor. Even though the companies claim that Wireless N has a greater range, I suppose that doesn't affect its ability to travel through solid material?

EvilMonkey

Hopefully someone will strike me down with a clue-by-four if I'm spouting ignorance (since I'm a newbie on the topic myself) but the range has more to do with the band the router is cabable of (2.4 vs 5 GHz). If my understanding is correct devices using 802.11n can be deployed via 5 GHz but it's not standard (e.g. iPhone4 is only capable of 802.11n via 2.4)

On the flip side I was told that 2.4 handles passing through say cement walls better than 5 but I've yet to do any research to verify that claim.

Edit: Stolen Info

Badwrong

802.11n uses channel bonding, which is why it has 2.4 and 5 GHz. One of the big reasons for this is interference, because alot of other things use 2.4, like cordless phones and microwaves.

What have you set the wireless N router for? You should be able to tell it only to use 5 GHz and that might avoid interference you are having.

If you think range is the issue though, get a wireless repeater somewhere between where you will use the computer and the router. The range from the router itself might not the problem, it could just be that the netbook doesnt have a powerful enough card when it transmits so data is getting to it fine but on the way back its not so great.

What evilmonkey said is correct though, some devices will only do 2.4, and thats where you can get more interference. If you can tell the router to only do 5 Ghz and then the computer wont connect at all, then the computer is only limited to 2.4 Ghz.


As far as travelling through several walls and a floor... ehh, I live in a house and my neighbor is at least 200 feet away, but I can still see their signal pretty strong just on my smart phone's application from inside my house. Although, the material used in those walls could be weird? I dunno. If you are getting any signal at all though, a repeater in between might fix it.

bowen

This is WiFi is a crap shoot most of the times. There are a lot of things at play here.

Interference:

• Is there other WiFi access points?
• Is there a lot of cordless phones and microwaves?
• What is the infrastructure of the building like? A lot of metal/cement/brick? Maybe insulation between the interior walls? Soundproofing? These are all things that can cause a signal drop

Strength:

• Is it a good quality AP?
• Is the receiver a good quality? I've had some laptops show abysmal strength and others show perfect strength. Generally the older the worse. But brand makes a huge difference. I've had an atheros card show 90% on a signal and some off the shelf linksys one show 10%.

Location:

• If the router is going through 3-4 walls/floors you're not likely to get good signal even at the higher frequencies. If it's a large open warehouse? You can probably cover the whole room. If it's in your basement and it needs to go through 1-2 floors and 3-4 walls, you're probably fucked, and will need to relocate it.

Roland_tHTG

You could try using a router halfway to just relay the signal.

Centipeed

I've just ordered a HomePlug system (Networking through the mains), so if that works fine then all these wireless problems will be moot.

Thanks for the suggestions though, guys.

bowen

You won't get very good speeds, but it'll work. And I think they all have to be on the same circuit. I think like 200Mbit/s (bit) (which translates into 25Mbyte/s) is the max. Just check the circuits, it's rare that in a house of normal size it'll be an issue.