Whenever you depend on a wireless connection for your internet, the signal strength can vary depending on the room you are in. A lot of this is due to factors you cannot control, such as wiring inside wall and construction materials used. For a simple fix to this, check out the Linksys Powerline Network Kit.
All you do is just plug one of these boxes into the back of your router and into the wall and then plug another device into an outlet elsewhere in your house. From here, you can run a network cable to the computer needing connectivity from the box you plugged in and you now have connection. Since the network traffic runs through your electrical wiring, no additional wiring is needed.
At the time of this writing, this will run you about $130 (Newegg link), but if you have wireless signal problems this can be a solution worth considering.
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You could try a directional antennae on the router first too, they can be handmade for free… this may increase the signal enough to bust through building materials…
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html
I tried these a number of years ago. The ones I had were made by Netgear. Very intermittent functionality. Sometimes they would work, sometimes they wouldn’t, and sometimes they would work with a ping of >500ms to my router.
One thing I did note was this: If anyone turns on a high current device (vacuum, hair dryer, mixer, etc.), these will lose connection.
Loved them when they were working, but that only seemed to be about 50% of the time.
Another big issue is how is your house wired.
I have had three clients use powerline adapters and two couldn’t use them because their houses were wired with different circuits and the adapters were on different ones – meaning adapter 1 was by the router and on a circuit that covered rooms x,y, and z but adapter two was in a room a that was on a circuit that covered rooms a,b, and c – the two circuits went through different breakers and could not talk to each other.
However, client 3 could use their perfectly and they work really well and don’t really have much interference issues.
I try to use directional/boosted antennas first or even run a hard line before trying powerline; but it is still an option and it should not be over-looked.