wireless connection problem

[gghartman]

This is my situation. I have a di-624m Wireless Super G mimo router. My brothers house is about 100feet away from my router but when I just use a wireless pci card in his machine it does not pick up the signal. I know I am not out of range because I can take my laptop over and I can get a signal from his kitchen but when I go to his office behind another wall the signal is lost. There is my wall then 2 more walls at my brothers place for the signal to go through.

So now my question - which type of product will give me the connection i want so i can share my dsl with my brother. A repeater, an antenna or a access point ??? Which is the best and honestly the least costly to make this connection work. And which one works the best and the easiest to setup.

[flanzig1]

There are wireless signal boosters or extenders. Also, the orientation of the transmitting and recieving antennas can affect signal strength.

[gghartman]

flanzig1

have you ever used the antennas ??? if so did they work okay ??? if antennas do i need one in my location or just one at brothers home ???

have you used any of the extenders or repeaters ??? if so what one did you use ???

[tmathews]

For me, upgrading the antennas on my router and desktop
adapter got me a connection through about 8 interior walls,
a couple of which are tiled. They also boosted the range
and data rate for our laptops (using the built-in antennas).
They worked and cost less than an extender or repeater so
I'll let someone else comment on those.

Using the laptop, how much signal is left in the kitchen?
If it's weak, an antenna upgrade should help. If it's
strong, something in the wall is blocking the signal and
you'll probably need to go around or through it. I used
a +7dBi omnidirectional antenna on the router and a
+8dBi directional antenna on my desktop.

You might also want to check that your Tx strength is at
100%. I had the problem that my desktop could see the
router but couldn't get an IP address. My desktop adapter
defaults to Auto Tx strength selection and apparently
backed off to something less than the router could detect.
Forcing it to 100% fixed the problem.

[gghartman]

tmathews

when i used the laptop in the kitchen the signal strength did say low but when i downloaded some thing i was getting a download of 90+ which really aint to bad considering she now gets 4 - 5 with the dialup. my system is a 1.5 so from this distance to still get 90 seemed pretty decent. as soon as i walked into the office behind one more wall signal disappeared.

i was thinking about getting a couple of these - http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=3&pid=416

being it is pretty much a straight line through his walls the directional should be a better choice - agree not agree.

another question on my brothers desktop i have a 108mbps dlink pci card. can i just place the antenna for his home anywhere or how does that part work. i know on my side i connect the antenna to my wireless router but what about the pc trying to give the connection to ???

[tmathews]

I'm running the drivers that came with my adapters so my
displays are probably different from yours but I'll guess you
have low signal strength but good signal quality (the signal
is weak but there's nothing interfering with it). I'll bet the
antennas will do the trick.

The antenna you specified should be a good choice for your
router. You can get a little more gain with a directional
antenna but only in one direction. Since you have a laptop
you probably don't want to beam all of your signal to your
brother and leave none for yourself. The desktop can go
with a directional antenna since neither it nor the router
are moving around. The +7dBi omnidirectional antenna
you specified would be fine there too, though.

If the store is convenient, I would buy only one, connect it
to the router, and see if that gets you connectivity. If it
does but the signal is weak and/or the connection is slow
then you can go back and buy a second one. (If you're
ordering them online you may want to take a chance and
order both at once.) If you still can't get a connection
there's something about the wall blocking the signal and
you'll have to go around or through it.

You can place the antennas anywhere the cable will reach.
Mine have about 3 feet of cable. There are extender cables
but the longer the cable and the more connectors the less
gain you get. Once you can get a signal in the room you
can use the laptop to map the best locations for the
desktop's antenna.

[gghartman]

linksys has a pci g mimo with 3 antennas that they say should give me the signal through the last wall. not a cheap devices over 100.00 for just the pci card but worth a try.

thanks to all.

[glc]

I don't know how interoperable a Linksys mimo card will be with a D-Link mimo router.

[gghartman]

glc

well they are both 802.11g and wireless should be the same no matter whos device one uses but if not i have a good relationship with the outfit i buy from so will just return if it doesnt. building her an xp machine from parts i have available so when done with that i will try on the new xp machine. current machine i built her a couple years ago is 98 and shes starting to get the nasty 98 errors so time to trash that machine and go for xp.

thanks.

[glc]

Of course, it will *work* but it may not be able to take advantage of mimo.

[gghartman]

couldnt find anything that says mimo wont work unlike pre-n. the srx from linksys is am looking at is an expensive little pci card. when i switch her from the current 98 machine to the newer xp machine i am building her it is worth a try.

thanks again.