Wireless internet is pointless

Javery

Javery

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I just bought a new laptop and installed a wireless router to my desktop and cable modem so I could supposedly use the laptop anywhere in my house. The internet works just fine on my laptop upstairs in my office when it is sitting next to the router. The second I go downstairs the signal is lost. I'm only about 20 feet away - what the hell is the point of wireless internet if I have to sit so close to the router?

I was under the impression this would work from anywhere in my house. Is there any way to maybe boost the signal strength? I'm so mad I spent $1200 on a laptop and it won't do the one thing I bought it ofr...
 
You could get a Signal strengthening antenna from BB or CC which is a bigger antenna that sends your signal further than the ones that came standard.
 
hmm, what is your house made of, I can use my laptop everywhere in my house. Outsite and in the garage too, and my router is in teh basement. Linksys rules!
 
You know, just because you can't get your 802.11 to work under certain conditions does not mean "wireless is pointless".

I know this girl who's going to wait until she gets married. Does that mean "girls are pointless"?
 
Yeah, a G router should be good for up to 150 ft. Even a B should work up to around 100. I use B and go from one end of the house to the other and down a floor with minimal problems.
 
my wireless setup works anywhere in the house for me. Do you have overhead heat that runs through the ceilings? I've heard that that can sometimes disrupt the signal.
 
try setting the wireless in a room with almost no electrical devices, ie cordless phones and stereos, it should be able to reach out farther
 
[quote name='weimerwanger']try setting the wireless in a room with almost no electrical devices, ie cordless phones and stereos, it should be able to reach out farther[/quote]

good point about the cordless phone. 2.4ghz baby!
 
I've got a brand new linksys wireless G router. My house is tiny. I can't believe I can't get a signal 20 feet away...
 
[quote name='javeryh']I've got a brand new linksys wireless G router. My house is tiny. I can't believe I can't get a signal 20 feet away...[/quote]


Sounds shitty. I'll be over, with some wings and beer in around 45 minutes.
 
[quote name='eldad9']You know, just because you can't get your 802.11 to work under certain conditions does not mean "wireless is pointless".

I know this girl who's going to wait until she gets married. Does that mean "girls are pointless"?[/quote]

Yes it does. There is no point to wireless internet if I am chained to one particular spot in my house - I might as well just run my cable modem directly to the laptop. One the other hand, just because a girl won't put out doesn't make her useless - she can still cook and clean can't she?
 
i dont think that your small problem makes wireless internet pointless.....just get a strengthening antenna and you should be fine.

"One the other hand, just because a girl won't put out doesn't make her useless - she can still cook and clean can't she? "

hahahha
 
[quote name='JimmieMac']
Sounds shitty. I'll be over, with some wings and beer in around 45 minutes.[/quote]

Im having wireless problems too.
 
[quote name='scsg75']my wireless setup works anywhere in the house for me. Do you have overhead heat that runs through the ceilings? I've heard that that can sometimes disrupt the signal.[/quote]

That's a good point. Electromagnetic radiation tends to have trouble going through metal... :D
 
[quote name='bignick'][quote name='JimmieMac']
Sounds shitty. I'll be over, with some wings and beer in around 45 minutes.[/quote]

Im having wireless problems too.[/quote]

You'll have to bring it over, I'm just one guy and there are all these beers that need drinking and wings that need eating. Travel time only takes time away.
 
Doesn't a lot of things affect your wireless connection? I heard microwaves might interfere with your wireless connection depending on its location. Cordless phones affect your wireless connection too. Not really sure about the others. If my apartment complex is all wireless i would be so shaq-fuing happy. Imagine me stealing wireless connection from my neighbor lol. You can take your laptop to a coffee shop. Most coffee shops around my area offers free wireless dsl.
 
Thank you nickmad i have been looking for a link to those for awhile now. I work at Best Buy in computers and see them everyday, but i couldnt find them on bestbuy.com
 
Call me oldschool but I like wired. I stocked up on the hundred footers when ebgames had them for $10. So now I have ~110 ft of wires + half roll of duct tape hooking my system together
 
[quote name='javeryh'][quote name='eldad9']You know, just because you can't get your 802.11 to work under certain conditions does not mean "wireless is pointless".

I know this girl who's going to wait until she gets married. Does that mean "girls are pointless"?[/quote]

Yes it does. There is no point to wireless internet if I am chained to one particular spot in my house - I might as well just run my cable modem directly to the laptop. One the other hand, just because a girl won't put out doesn't make her useless - she can still cook and clean can't she?[/quote]

:rofl: this is true...
 
OK so I spent some time around the house testing where I could get reception and the farthest away from the router I can get is about 15 feet. The router is located in my finished attic which is the entire third floor of the house. The entire house is only 25'x25' so it's pretty small. The furthest I can get away from the router is at the bottom of the steps leading up to the attic. I can't even go into a room on the second floor without losing reception. I bought the thing to be able to go on the internet from the TV room all the way on the first floor - only about 20-25 feet away from the router.

Is my router broken? Other than losing the signal when I go downstairs I guess it works OK. If I get one of these signal boosters, which is the better type to get - the antenna or the relay? I just want this to work. Thanks for all the helpful responses so far.
 
man that must be a shitty router, my one roomate has a laptop and she snaked wireless internet from the people above us XoD
 
[quote name='javeryh']OK so I spent some time around the house testing where I could get reception and the farthest away from the router I can get is about 15 feet. The router is located in my finished attic which is the entire third floor of the house. The entire house is only 25'x25' so it's pretty small. The furthest I can get away from the router is at the bottom of the steps leading up to the attic. I can't even go into a room on the second floor without losing reception. I bought the thing to be able to go on the internet from the TV room all the way on the first floor - opnly about 20-25 feet away from the router.

Is my router broken? Other than losing the signal when I go downstairs I guess it works OK. If I get one of these signal boosters, which is the better type to get - the antenna or the relay? I just want this to work. Thanks for all the helpful responses so far.[/quote]

It sounds like your house is built extremely well if you are having problems with it penetrating walls only 25 feet away. When I was living in Nashville, my house was like most currently built houses and was made up of thin-ass drywall and cheap materials. I could get wireless reception ANYWHERE in that house. My router was on the 2nd floor bonus room and I could be on the complete opposite end of the house on the 1st floor and get perfect reception.

Where I live now, this house is about 20 years old and was built a helluva lot better. I can barely get a wireless signal 10 feet away from the router. But there are TONS of other factors that affect wireless connectivity as well.

I'm assuming your laptop has wireless built in, right? Have you tried a 3rd party PCMCIA wireless card to see if the reception is any better? You can't really be sure it is your router without ruling out the wireless components in the laptop as well.

My work machine is a Toshiba laptop with built-in wireless. The reception with my built-in wireless card sucks compared to using a PCMCIA wireless card.

Just something else to add to your wireless troubleshooting checklist.
 
Have you tried changing to another channel? There may be another device nearby that is interferring on that frequency. I have 802.11b and I can use it upstairs, downstairs, around the entire yard its about 1/4 acre and even across the street.
 
[quote name='bignick']hmm, what is your house made of, I can use my laptop everywhere in my house. Outsite and in the garage too, and my router is in teh basement. Linksys rules![/quote]

I used to work for Linksys, I would definately not recommend their products, they release them without them being tested, all of their customers are considered "beta testers" if you own a Linksys product and dont have any problems with it consider yourself lucky. If you run into problems, good luck with their support, most of the customer and tech support is handled by the Phillipinnes and India, if you call you will get these people who barely speak english and you will get transfered from rep to rep or be told that someone will call you back....Its a trap!

Cisco has owned Linksys for a while and they have not changed their ways, Linksys is working on their own, they are just owned by Cisco, I still know this because my fiance works in customer service in their Irvine, CA office.

I would recommend buying from D-Link
 
You should put the router in the center of the house. I have found that I lose the most reception going from floor to floor not through walls. Drywall is easy to penetrate but wood flooring requires a much stronger signal.
 
I agree with the person above. The D-Link products that I have bought seem to be much better than the Linksys products.
 
[quote name='lebowsky']It sounds like your house is built extremely well if you are having problems with it penetrating walls only 25 feet away. When I was living in Nashville, my house was like most currently built houses and was made up of thin-ass drywall and cheap materials. I could get wireless reception ANYWHERE in that house. My router was on the 2nd floor bonus room and I could be on the complete opposite end of the house on the 1st floor and get perfect reception.

Where I live now, this house is about 20 years old and was built a helluva lot better. I can barely get a wireless signal 10 feet away from the router. But there are TONS of other factors that affect wireless connectivity as well.

I'm assuming your laptop has wireless built in, right? Have you tried a 3rd party PCMCIA wireless card to see if the reception is any better? You can't really be sure it is your router without ruling out the wireless components in the laptop as well.

My work machine is a Toshiba laptop with built-in wireless. The reception with my built-in wireless card sucks compared to using a PCMCIA wireless card.

Just something else to add to your wireless troubleshooting checklist.[/quote]

Yes, my computer came with a built in wireless card. I really thought I would be up and running in 5 minutes once everything was set up. My house is 75 years old (but in amazing condition) so there might be some weird shit in the walls but I stil find it unbelievable that the router wouldn't work a mere 20 feet away - isn't that it's primary purpose?

Do you think a signal booster of some sort would work? After spending around $1,200 on the laptop I'm willing to spend another $100 to get it to work...

Oh yeah, the Linksys customer support is horrible. Three people tell you the exact same thing that doesn't solve anything in an almost uncomprehensible accent. They seem to know nothing about the actual product and are instead relying on a guide or something.
 
Your actual wireless products might be defective, some vary in quality depending on what version they are, you might consider getting replacements from https://ssl.linksys.com/rma1.asp you are required to pay for shipping, but if you can argue your way out of it, it may take time but it can be done, supervisors at linksys cusotmer service give up if they get yelled at or bothered repeatedly, you can probobly even obtain a refund or upgrade. If you still have time to return at store, I would defenately recomment switching for another brand.
 
If you have a 2.4 Ghz cordless phone, that's probably your problem. I use an 802.11b wireless router and it transmits fine to just about everywhere in my house. I also have cordless phones, one of which is located next to the router, but all are 5.8 Ghz.
 
You could always buy another wireless router and extend the signal, I had to in my boss's mansion when I set it up, he wanted to be able to play on his laptop while sitting in his docked boat.
 
[quote name='bignick']hmm, what is your house made of, I can use my laptop everywhere in my house. Outsite and in the garage too, and my router is in teh basement. Linksys rules![/quote]

yeah, everyone thinks building a house out of lead is a good idea at first, with all the protection against x-ray guns and lasers, but the minute you cant use your wireless router, people realize that maybe it wasnt such a great investment.
 
Do you have plaster or drywall on the walls. Some of those older houses with plaster have a wire mesh behind them that helps to hold the plaster up. It could be possible that it would mess with the signal.

If you still have the old electrical wires running through the house, it could also disrupt the signal. They aren't shielded as good as the new wires.
 
I know this has been said several times, but I don't think you've said if you have other devices in the house (such as a cordless phone) that run on the same frequency (2.4GHz) as your wireless router. When I first set mine up, it worked fine in my office, but when I got anywhere near my cordless phone, it would disconnect. You can change the channel on your phone or your router to correct this problem. Set them on frequencies as far apart as you can. I haven't had any trouble with mine since I did this.
 
[quote name='ratdaddy']I know this has been said several times, but I don't think you've said if you have other devices in the house (such as a cordless phone) that run on the same frequency (2.4GHz) as your wireless router. When I first set mine up, it worked fine in my office, but when I got anywhere near my cordless phone, it would disconnect. You can change the channel on your phone or your router to correct this problem. Set them on frequencies as far apart as you can. I haven't had any trouble with mine since I did this.[/quote]

That's a good tip
 
I do have a cordless phone that docks in the kitchen on the first floor. It works everywhere in the house with no problems at all and even outside for quite a ways. I don't know how to change frequencies - I will give it a shot when I get home though. Thanks for the tips. Anyone else?
 
During your setup with the router, it should ask you what channel you want to set it on (at least mine did, but it was D-Link). You might try going back into the setup and changing it there. Also, your cordless phone should have a channel button on it, try pressing that a few times, and then try taking your laptop around the house. If it doesn't work, press it 2-3 more times and try again. Since your phone doesn't # the channels, it's a little hard to figure out, but eventually you'll get it. I think my router had 8 channels it could run on.
 
[quote name='javeryh'][quote name='eldad9']You know, just because you can't get your 802.11 to work under certain conditions does not mean "wireless is pointless".

I know this girl who's going to wait until she gets married. Does that mean "girls are pointless"?[/quote]

Yes it does. There is no point to wireless internet if I am chained to one particular spot in my house - I might as well just run my cable modem directly to the laptop. One the other hand, just because a girl won't put out doesn't make her useless - she can still cook and clean can't she?[/quote]

Yes, women are not worthless. Neither are guys. Guys can... well they... and...
 
Just to add to my last post: You said that your connection was fine upstairs, but you lost it downstairs, which is where the cordless phone base unit is. If both the router and the phone are both 2.4Ghz, I'm willing to bet that if you get them set up on different channels, it'll fix your problem.
 
Several things to try:

1) Get NetStumbler. It's free and it will give you a graphical repsrentation of your wireless signal, regardless if you can connect or not.

With Netstumber running near your router, walk away frm the router with your laptop and see if you notice the signal suddenly weakens or drops entirely. If you get a signal downstairs but there are frequent drops, then you will not be able to establish a TCP/IP connection even though you have 'signal'. THose drops are causing your problem.

2) Update the drivers for you wi-fi card.

3) UPDATE TO THE LATEST FIRMWARE. I cannot stress that enough. (Fixed my supposed crappy D-Link router. Firmware DOUBLED my signal strength) Of course YMMV.

4)Since you are in the attic, point your antenna DOWN.

Hope this helps and GL
 
[quote name='CappyCobra']Several things to try:

1) Get NetStumbler. It's free and it will give you a graphical repsrentation of your wireless signal, regardless if you can connect or not.

With Netstumber running near your router, walk away frm the router with your laptop and see if you notice the signal suddenly weakens or drops entirely. If you get a signal downstairs but there are frequent drops, then you will not be able to establish a TCP/IP connection even though you have 'signal'. THose drops are causing your problem.

2) Update the drivers for you wi-fi card.

3) UPDATE TO THE LATEST FIRMWARE. I cannot stress that enough. (Fixed my supposed crappy D-Link router. Firmware DOUBLED my signal strength) Of course YMMV.

4)Since you are in the attic, point your antenna DOWN.

Hope this helps and GL[/quote]

Awesome. Thanks!!! :D I will give it a try as soon as I get home. I love this site.
 
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