WiFi Router - Need GREAT Signal Strength
 

I have a Linksys WRT110 RangePlus. Despite the name, the range on this thing is shit. My parents get 1mbps if that in the living room, where the laptop resides. Usually the signal is dropped completely. The distance from the router to the living room is no more than 60 feet, but it has 4 walls separating them. Besides moving the router, which would be a pain in the ass, I'm looking for something with a good signal strength.

Recommendations would be welcome.

Make a shotgun antenna

By making a directional antenna you greatly amplify your wireless signal/reception in a particular direction.

You can make one from a pringles can.

Check out:

Homebrew antenna shootout



Antenna on the Cheap (er, Chip)

You could buy a couple of routers and set them up with DD-WRT. Link them together to be repeaters and you can have a huuge WAN with great coverage and strength. I have no fucking clue how to do it but Redjake has it working perfectly so maybe he can provide some insight. You can get the routers that support it for $30 each on the Internet.

I will try to move the router closer to the living room tomorrow. Maybe that will work. Ugh. The pain of running meters upon meters of CAT5...

Get a router with external antenna's and buy a couple of high gain antenna's. That will help you get your signal out stronger.

Got any links for those?

I highly recommend the WRT54G models from Linksys.. especially older Rev. with external antennas. They modify very easily to DD-WRT, too. Can easily use them as repeaters if need be..

Go to hyperlinktech.com. They're based out of Florida. They have some great products and cheaper than most. I've purchased from here for home and the company I work for.

They should have whatever you need, SMA, RP-TNC, etc. as far as connectors, wires, rubber duck antennas, etc.

I second Jinn. The WRT54G are extremely cheap and reliable. You can put either tomato (my favorite) or DD-WRT on them and even use them as repeaters which should solve your problem well.

If you are into tech stuff, I second everyone else's opinion for getting some WRT54Gs.

As Lasereth mentioned - I have 2 WRT54Gs in which I purchased for $22 each when they went on sale.

I flashed both with DD-WRT and now my entire house has literally 100% signal in every single room. I have one router upstairs, one router downstairs. And the best part? Both routers support hardware connections. In other words, both routers can have devices plugged into them (like an Xbox 360) and also transmit wirelessly - without being connected to each other physically.

My WRT54G upstairs is connected to the internet and my main PC. My WRT54G downstairs is connected to the Xbox 360 and nothing else, but the 360 has Internet :)

The option that is as yet unexplored is to upgrade the laptop to 802.11n . The n spec does provide huge gains in terms of both range and throughput, but you'll only really see those in a greenfield network (ie, all devices on the WLAN are n spec). If the laptop only has an 802.11g adapter (as most of them do) then you may be able to solve the problem with a simple USB adapter.

At the risk of upsetting the fanboys, I'll say that I don't think the WRT54G is the optimal solution here. The problem is that you're still on the old spec, and anything that's 802.11g isn't going to gain you any real benefits in terms of range. While it's true that you can set it up as a repeater and gain some range that way, repeaters should only be used when absolutely necessary. Furthermore, with 50 and 100 mbps connections coming down the pipes in most parts of North America, upgrading your network Just Makes Sense.

So that's what I'd do. If the laptop is already draft n, or if a USB adapter still doesn't solve the problem, then adding a repeater is still a back-up plan.

The laptop only has a G card in it, so upgrading to N wouldn't really do much good here. I'm still in the process of moving the router to another bedroom, closer to the living room, but I've discovered that I only have one spool of 100ft cable. Need to order another one to run the wire back to my room. Haven't gotten around to it yet.

The WRT 110 already supports n draft, so all you'd need to do is upgrade the laptop.

Any one of these should solve your problem.

You think that would actually help the signal strength?

Hmm.

Well, I thought the WRT110 was a draft 2.0 device, but on researching it I'm unable to confirm that. It appears on double-checking that the WRT110 does support many of the features of 802.11n but is not actually draft 2.0 certified (hence the Range Plus branding).

So I'm going to amend my answer to definitely maybe.

The theoretical maximum range of 802.11g is about 150 feet, but that drops sharply when you have multiple obstructions (ie walls) between the router and client. A full 802.11n connection doubles the maximum and deals with obstructions better, so upgrading to 802.11n would almost certainly give you a consistent signal in this case. The problem is that if the WRT110 is not draft 2.0 compliant there's no way for sure of saying how many of the signal-boosting improvements have been incorporated, or how well. Linksys doesn't seem to have released any details in that regard.

I'm still thinking that it will provide the solution; if I were in your position it's what I'd do, anyway. But if you want a guarantee, I can't give you that.

Getting a second router to act as a repeater is your best bet, since usually the limiting factor is your laptop's wireless trying to send a signal back. Go to dd-wrt site and make sure the router you buy is supported including revision number. However, if you want to go the really, really cheap route, build yourself an antenna for your current router.