Home Wireless Network Problems
 

I have a Belkin N1 router that doesn't seem to carry itself thru my house. I was told when I bought it that it would carry a signal 1400 feet.
I have 2800 sq feet of home on three floors and there are way to many dead spots.
The worse one is my Tivo connection and that really bums me out. No remote scheduling while I am on the road.
What are my options?
Thanks in advance.
Jon

1400 feet is outside in perfect conditions, and even that is pretty rare on any router without some help.

Indoors every single wall or door will degrade the signal. What are you using to connect the Tivo to it? The original Tivo wifi adapter? AFAIK Tivo doesn't support any 802.11n adapters so the ".n" part of your router is useless to it and it'll be working in 802.11g mode.

Try changing the channel on the router, making sure there are no 2.4GHz phones anywhere near and making sure the router isn't hidden away. Try putting the router somewhere higher.

In the end you'd probably been better off with a simpler router with a good external antenna, like the Buffalo 54GSHP. 802.11n routers are nice for fast connections, but don't deliver the kind of range a good old 802.11g router with antenna can.

FWIW; most reviews of the N1 are pretty unanimous in confirming that the Belkin has poor range.

Can you still return it?

What is Compusa's Return policy?

Let me check.

I hope that they haven't closed the store you bought it from...

Where is your router located? In a 3-story house, you might try it right in the middle of the 2nd floor. I've got a 2800 sq ft 2-story house and my Netgear 802.11g router gives great coverage, even out on the deck.

Are you opposed to running cables? One option is to have a wired "backbone" that connects more than one wireless access point.
I'm not sure if the belkins are fully compliant or not, but in theory you can have the same SSID and security settings and you'd seamlessly roam between the APs...

If that doesnt sound attractive, you may have some other options...
The cheapest method is to make your own parabolic antenna
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template/
with some foil and cardboard you can greatly increase the distance of your AP.
After that try a new external antenna, if the belkin supports it... and place the antenna in an open area like a stairwell...

Finally, you could consider something like an Apple Airport Express that will do wireless extending...it picks up the signal from the belkin and re-boardcasts it... but it comes with some overhead and isn't as elegant as it sounds.... there are tons of other models that will do WDS, but the AP Express is the first that came to mind (and probably the most expensive of them).

Use a repeater
 

I had a similar problem - signal degraded by metal joists in between first and second floor.

So I got a Netgear Wireless powerline range extender kit:
http://www.netgear.com/Products/Powe...s/WGXB102.aspx

One of the doohickeys gets connected to your router via ethernet, then plugged into a nearby wall socket. The other doohickey gets plugged into a wall socket somewhere else in your house, and acts as a wireless repeater.

No setup if you have a netgear router.

Very cool.

Which is exactly as I did. I then used a linksys router as a repeater which solves my problem.
I was told the plaster walls impede the signal.
it works fine now even the basement cameras.
Thank you all for the tips and suggestions!

I had the same issue, I ran a wire down the side of the house with the phone lines that were in that room, into the basement, and up on the other side to put in a wireless access point. Coverage all over the house, and extended way into the yard.

I have them with different ID's, I need to play around with having them the same and seeing what happens someday.

Right now I have them set with two different ID's.
The Netgear Ethernet wall extender kit works well. Right now I would recomend it to anyone.
It's too cold here as Mike knows to wander outside to see if it works on the sunporch and back patio. :eek:

WDS...with the proper router/firmware.

Sorry but I am confused, could you clarify please?
DD-WRT?

Antenna direction
 

I've played around a bit with this and one thing that I think is easy to overlook is the directionality of antennas.

Not familiar with the N1, but before you leap into mutiple access points, extenders, repeaters, etc you might want to take a look at the documentation that came with the router.

Which way the antennas are pointing can make a difference.

I had a Belkin with two antennas and putting them perpendicular to each other helped.

And a Buffalo that I had, had no external antenna, but it turns out that it's actually just case with a PCMCIA wireless card on the inside. Rotating the thing changed signal strength in parts of the house.

(BTW, multiple routers/same newtwork ID can be a real pain. I tried and switched to other methods, but have vowed to go back and figure it out one day...)

-R

I have one of these and can't figure out how to set up some simple security to prevent a neighbor from using my cable internet connection. I struggled through what I thought would work and then couldn't gat my laptop to find the signal. I am very non-techie and need some help. Note, with no security, it works fine and lets me access the internet from a bedroom at the far end of the house.

The easiest way to stop the neighbor borrowing your signal is to use MAC filtering. I use this with my SMC ADSL modem / wireless router. In the setup of your router you should find 'MAC filtering' (or words to that effect) and you just enter the MAC address of your wireless device(s) and activate MAC filtering. It will then only accept the wireless divice(s) that are in its list and not your neighbor's one. The MAC address is a unique number, found by running 'ipconfig /all' (in a DOS window). It consiste of 6 (I think) groups of 2 hexadecimal combinations each (something like 00-2F-27-9A-C3-D2).

Just to get on my favorite soap box...
Remember that MAC filtering is not security but just a deterrent from keeping someone off the network. It doesnt really keep anyone with access to google and some initiative off and it doesnt do a thing to protect your traffic (encryption).

Unfortunately, using only MAC filtering on your WiFi network won't keep out anyone but the most ham-fisted hacker. Even the basic "live" Linux CDs have the ability to sniff WiFi traffic...which will show the MAC addresses of clients accessing your AP. All that needs to be done at that point is to provide a "locally administered" MAC address (to the hacker's WiFi card) that matches an approved MAC on your AP...one they've seen exchanging traffic with your AP...and they're right back in business. Simple WPA encryption is a virtual necessity.

dougef, check to make sure that you've set up the WiFi security in the powerline bridge itself. Think of it as a completely separate AP...because that's basically what it is. Check your manual for how to get in and configure it...then try cloning the same WEP/WPA, SSID and channel settings from your main AP.

EDIT

Sorry SB, I was typing my response while you were submitting yours.

No worries! Its a point that deserves to be underscored...

here's a link to another thread with some info (my uber soap box rant) on security
[url]http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=633980