How can I boost the signal strength of my home WIFI network?

nigpd

nigpd

Messages
6,137
Name
Nigel
Edit My Images
Yes
I have a bog standard WIFI Netgear Wireless-N modem router, but because of its location by necessity, it's farther away from the living room than I'd like. As a result, the signal strength is low and although OK for my Dell laptop, my partners little Acer netbook struggles.

What would I need to get in the way of a "signal booster" or "relay" to put in the house to increase the signal strength?

Thanks in advance for your help
 
I'm not sure that your router is working correctly by the sounds of what you say, or unless you live in a humungous mansion :)

My router is in the rear of my house, and I can get signal in every room, and also at the front of my house when in the car (I know this from my iPhone :) )

I'd guess that perhaps your router is not working correctly, or that there is an adjustment in the firmware somewhere that will allow you to boost the output from it. In fact, that's probably it... have a check in the manual for something that allows you to increase the power output.
 
Hi Nigel,

I've had similar problems myself and have seen this quetion asked a number of times. I would suggest putting the title of your thread into google. Here's one set of answers.

My favourite solution is creating a reflector escpecially if your router is at one end of the house. Quickly nip down to the kitchen and borrow a colander - They work realy well apparently :)
 
Depends on what the internal walls of your house are made of. Brick construction tends to kill signals if they have to go through too many walls.

You could use a network access point but they are very expensive, something like a Cisco Aironet with power injector, but you'd also have to wire a CAT5 cable through the house and put the access oint somewhere out of sight. If your doing that you may as well move the router.

Better to look at a router with better output. I have an Edimax on my cable modem that I can connect to in a neighbours across the road :D
 
Try moving the position of it within the room. If it's close to a corner then that can cause reflections so even close by you don't get a good signal. Also things like radiators in the path can cause problems so again just moving it around a bit might make all the difference.


You can get wireless repeaters now that don't need an ethernet cable between them but not all routers support the protocol. That might be another option.
 
Hi

Firstly I would try updating the drivers for the WiFi adaptor on the Acer Netbook (we suffered with flakey WiFi connection on a HP laptop until twigged that drivers update was the last thing I thought of did ~ solved it!)

Secondly if your house is a real challenge perhaps one of these http://www.amazon.co.uk/WiFi-Ethernet-Home-plug-adapter/dp/B002QAEF76 could de the job or more correctly 2 of them to 'make it work' ???

HTH and that you get it sorted AOK :)
 
I've heard good things about orange homeplugs.

You plug one in near your router and connect it with an ethernet cable. The other plugs in wherever you want to and broadcasts the wireless signal from there.

I believe they are around the 45 quid mark.

Andy
 
OK I was a bit slow.

The link from box brownie is essentially the same thing as orange homeplugs :D

Andy
 
Firstly, I would suggest you take a wander around your home with either your laptop or a wifi meter app on a mobile. Get a feel for where you get good and not so good signals. This may give you a clue to what's going on. Also have a wander with your partner's netbook. Does the netbook have crap reception close to the router or where you get great reception. If so, suspect the netbook. Take your lappy and the netbook out and find another wifi signal or three. Is the netbook still crap? I thought so ;)

If you want to persist in trying to rectify the router rather than the real culprit, then update the firmware and reposition the router. Just moving it away from a wall by a couple feet could help enormously.

Or, do the decent thing, chuck the netbook in the bin and buy her a laptop for crimble.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

There are 3 walls between the router and the laptop and netbook so it looks like the netbook with its poor reception is the culprit as the laptop is ok.

I'm busy updating the drivers in the netbook to see if that improves matters.

2blue4u said:
Or, do the decent thing, chuck the netbook in the bin and buy her a laptop for crimble.
Click to expand...

john, your reply was doing so well until I got to this bit :p
 
Try running the free InSSIDer software to identify other networks with possibly conflicting channel allocations, and move your channel to the cleanest frequency you can identify. Then try moving the router around a little to see if you can improve the strength of the signal. Metal is a killer. So is water. If you have rads in the way then relocate the router. Antenna orientation matters too, so try changing the antenna angle. Have someone monitor the signal strength at the machines while you tweak the router positioning.

If you run the software on both machines you might see that the netbook is performing consistently poorly. Not much you can do other than optimise the setup for the netbook, assuming the notebook will continue working well.
 
Last edited:
tdodd said:
Try running the free InSSIDer software to identify other networks with possibly conflicting channel allocations, and move your channel to the cleanest frequency you can identify. Then try moving the router around a little to see if you can improve the strength of the signal. Metal is a killer. So is water. If you have rads in the way then relocate the router. Antenna orientation matters too, so try changing the antenna angle. Have someone monitor the signal strength at the machines while you tweak the router positioning.

If you run the software on both machines you might see that the netbook is performing consistently poorly. Not much you can do other than optimise the setup for the netbook, assuming the notebook will continue working well.
Click to expand...



Thanks Tim, i'll give it a go
 
I was also told to move my router away from my cordless phone cradle as apparently this can affect the signal. Not sure how effective this is but can't hurt to try!
 
I know its been said, but I had a similar problem with my Thompson o2 router.

Speeds were very poor, if at all at times. I changed the channel number. It was either 5 to start and I moved to 11 or the other way round.

Worked a treat.
 
It's also worth being aware that for any given channel number the set of frequencies used extend either side of that channel, overlapping with nearby channels as well. So if you have the option to select a channel well away from all other strong signals then do so. Don't just shift along to the next channel if you can put a gap of two or three channel numbers between signals.

Here's the InSSIDer display of channel usage as identified by my laptop....

20101102_085840_.JPG


The BOBBLE network is mine and stands head and shoulders above other signals for strength. Nonetheless, I have selected a channel for my network which places it in the least conflict with other visible networks. I hope that makes sense.

Note how for the BOBBLE network, even though it is centred around channel 5, it extends in spectrum usage from channel 3 to channel 7. Thus to stay completely clear of my network other nearby networks should be on channel 1 or anything above channel 9 in order to avoid overlap. That said, with signal strengths 60dB below my own network it is probably not a big deal to have overlapping channels in any case. Still, I like to do what I can to maximise performance.

Just to complete the picture, here is a graph of signal strength over time from InSSIDer. My network is the fairly stable red line towards the top of the graph. I do not know why some networks are causing huge spikes in the data.

20101102_091345_.JPG


It could be useful to run a graph like this to see if there are times when the signal drops out or goes low for some reason. Interference could be a factor. Cordless phones, microwave ovens and TV extenders are sometimes identified as potential causes of interference, maybe baby monitors too. Personally I've never found that to be the case, but I thought I'd mention it.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top