Extending 802.11b Range?

I'm seriously getting annoyed with my 802.11b home network. My house is a 2-story bungalo with finished basement. My Netgear wireless router is currently ~30 feet away and one floor above me but I lose my connection all the time. It's not cool when I'm doing big file transfers from one computer to another or doing an empeg sync and then have to run fsck. The cards I have in my two notebooks are pretty old, but all the firmwares are up to date...

Is there a cheap way I can get better range out of these things? Are one of those attennas going to pushing into the price range of going 2.4Ghz?

I've heard a lot of people talk about how different 802.11 cards and base stations will widely vary in their reception range. Maybe it's simply a question of replacing one of those links in the chain.

I had similar problems a while ago with a 802.11b card built in by HP. (can't remember what brand it was) It wasn't that the distance was too much, it's just that it would drop the connection if the traffic got high. Of course, this would be the worst time to drop the connection. A lot of times windows would tell me the connection was unavailable when packets were still getting through, but plenty of times packets would stop going through. Rather infuriating. The Orinoco/Lucent card in the other laptop worked flawlessly. I went back and for with support for a bit, and they were no help. Eventually, I tried an older driver I found on the HP website, and all the problems disappeared. It was kind of annoying that windows update always wanted me to install a new driver from then on, but it worked. So to make a long story short, buy an orinoco card and test it out, they're basicaly the reference standard in wireless gear these days.

Matthew

Are one of those attennas going to pushing into the price range of going 2.4Ghz?

802.11b/g is 2.4GHz, 802.11a is 5GHz.


Anyway, if you have a Linksys AP, you can get a WSB24 Signal Booster. Also, the Cisco Aironet line of products are known to have the best range.

I have a WiFi problem as well. I have a couple of "cold spots" (seems an appropriate description) in the house where there is no reception. They are very small areas, just a couple of feet across where I lose my link to the network.

What puzzles me is:

- everywhere else in the house I can maintain 11mbps, at no point does it drop below 11
- even when I lose the link the signal indicator that WinXP provides stays at 100%

One of the "cold spots" is only 12 feet from my desktop machine which routes me onto my wired network.

I use an access point, do all devices have to be able to "see" the access point at all times or do they fall off the network when they can see other devices but no the access point ?

WiFi saved me from a very boring hour last Friday. I have a long commute on the days I work in the office (1.5 hours to 3.5 hours depending on traffic). Friday was very bad, so I was sat in the A1/M25 motorway services waiting for a blockage on the M25 to clear.

Thankfully the services now has BT Openzone a hot spot, so I fired up my laptop, paid my £6 (about $9 US) and surfed for an hour. I still think that £6 an hour is a bit steep, but it kept me entertained...

What pings stats do you get ?

- even when I lose the link the signal indicator that WinXP provides stays at 100%

Sounds like multipath reflections. Moving the base station a few metres might make a big difference.

I use an access point, do all devices have to be able to "see" the access point at all times or do they fall off the network when they can see other devices but no the access point ?

In "infrastructure" mode they do need to see the base station.

Sounds like multipath reflections. Moving the base station a few metres might make a big difference.

At the moment my network is arse-about-face, with just my Rio Receiver plugged into the AP downstairs and the rest of the network connected via a PCI card in my desktop machine. This was because Ethernet-WiFi bridges cost twice the price of an AP at the time.

Now Ethernet bridges cost a more sensible amount I guess I should move my AP to a more central point and actually start using it "properly".

I have also found that slightly reducing the spped can actually increase your overall speed. Slower connection means fewer lost packets. Fewer lost packets means fewer resends. And having to resend packets is slow.

That's a strange result, IMO. It could be due to the construction of the house as well. The wireless NIC that is attatched to the PC I'm using at the moment is the distance you're at, a floor above the router, through two walls and a set of stairs. The config utility says I have a 73% signal strength, and I'm at 11 Mbps.

This is with two Linksys products, though. That may not add a whole lot to it, but I also have no problems in another setup at my house, in which the router is in a closet in the middle of the house, and 30 feet away through several walls and the closet door, I get a signal with no problems with Linksys bridge.

the rest of the network connected via a PCI card in my desktop machine

Could you clarify how you have your network configured? What does the PCI card do - UTP Ethernet or wireless?

I can comment on the more general case regarding your question about what has to "see" what. 802.11a/b/c is Ethernet, meaning that ALL wireless devices are expected to be able to "see", or "hear", all the other wireless devices on the network.

Anytime one or more wireless devices cannot "hear" some or any of the other wireless devices, they can cause packet collisions, which slow throughput, and can also cause other wierd happenings.

ALL wireless devices must be able to see/hear the Access Point reliably. If there are radio "dead" spots (caused by multipath, metal or other dense material, or just bad luck), you can often work around the problem by shifting the AP or node, sometimes just a few inches or feet. Keep in mind that shallow diagonals through material, such as through a wall or floor at a shallow angle, can be the equivilent of several FEET of drywall or wood thickness, enough to significantly impair the signal.

Could you clarify how you have your network configured? What does the PCI card do - UTP Ethernet or wireless?

The PCI card in question is a WiFi card. The machine it is in also has a UTP Ethernet card and is responsible for routing between my wired and wireless networks.

get better range out of these things?

Other than making sure you are running decent versions of the firmware and/or drivers, all you can do from a practical perspective is shift the devices around to improve reception.

If you are willing to mess with it, you can imporve range, etc using better antennas, boosters, or parabolic reflectors, but few folks seem to want to bother with such stuff.

Beyond that, bear in mind that this stuff has been evolving, and the newest generation hardware seems to be substantially better in both connection reliability and throughput, especially in less than optimal conditions.

I would suggest, when the time comes, looking at the newest generations of integrated 802.11a/b/g products, which covers all the wireless frequency bands, and should be able to keep up with the evolving wireless standards for the next few years.

Still not fully understanding what you have connected to what, by what.

Does the AP provide the wireless access for the other wireless nodes, or does the PCI-wireless card operate in Ad-Hoc mode to service the other wireless nodes?

I have just the same sort of problem with my Linksys wireless kit, compounded by having 3 ft thick Yorkshire stone walls.

I found eventually that if I set the four units up carefully so that only doors and the odd plasterboard wall were between the units, i.e. line of sight excluded going directly through stone, it all works fine.

As I said in another thread, the only problems left are that the microwave stops the rio - receiver in the kitchen and the wireless doorbell rings when one of the computers boots up!

I on the other hand have had terrible luck with Orinoco/Lucent cards. I avoid them at all costs.

I've said it before, there are horror stories about any product out there. I'm just throwing in my 2 cents.

Still not fully understanding what you have connected to what, by what.

My AP is connected to my Rio Receiver (the Receiver is the only device on the wired side of the AP).

I have several machines on a separate wired network. One of the machines, a Win2k Pro box, has a PCI wireless card in it (as well as it's wired network card). The Win2k machine routes between the wireless and wired networks.

I know this setup is odd, but it was the cheapest way of doing it at the time as Ethernet-WiFi bridges were more expensive than APs at that time (they still are, but at least they are closer in price).

I also have a laptop with a wireless card.

Does the AP provide the wireless access for the other wireless nodes, or does the PCI-wireless card operate in Ad-Hoc mode to service the other wireless nodes?

The whole network runs in infrastructure mode.