Ditching wireless

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Rutland
I've have had enough of this wireless thing. Both our pcs have Belkin wifi cards in. They can be working fine at one moment, then suddenly disconnect showing a wep error. It can also be working fine and then the next person to turn the computer on is unable to connect. The only thing that can reliably see the wireless router is my Dell laptop. That has worked perfectly for just over a year. I even went to the extent of copying and pasting the wep code from the router setup screen into a text file saved on a floppy disc and then pasting that into the wireless setup on both pcs. They still only even seem to work when they feel like it. So that's it. We should be moving house soon, and as soon as we do I'll be investing in plenty of RJ45.

Just wanted to let off some steam. :)
 
belkin products are pretty poor on the whole so you may find that it is the hardware that is causing you the grief...
 
I had a belkin F5D7000 for a while and it was absolute rubbish, the wireless would drop out all the time whereas my asus and linksys cards we stay on 24/7. You may want to get a new wifi card and see if it makes a difference before you start drilling holes in your house . . . . .
 
Sounds like we are having the same trouble, it generally seams to be very in consistant and very tempremental. Im using a Belkin USB card.

I was using a D link card with my laptop for over a year without any trouble what so ever. Very tempted to order a new one.
 
I would second trying a different card. I used a few belkin adapters and had nothing but probs. Using some usb2 Linksys adapters now for quite some time and haven't had any probs. Decent connections (Well...okay, I do still miss wired connections when moving big files about) and the connections don't tend to drop out at all.
I suppose it could also depend on your house, mine is quite open plan, so not a lot in between everything, could make a difference!
 
Might be worth looking into Devolo MicroLink dLAN Homeplug networking.
After months of problems with my wireless I gave up & got a set of these.
It allows PC networking over your mains power, & will probably run quicker than wireless.
 
I'd use linksys kit with speedbooster, about equivalent to 100tx in transfer speed with a good signal. Wouldn't use Belkin if you paid me. Only Belkin i use is USB/parralel and keyboards, anything networking is risky.
Cables will be easier but they have their limitations.
 
Another vote to ditch Belkin here. Have dealt with many wireless products both Home and Corporate and cant recommend Netgear highly enough. Also Linksys seem to be fairly hassle free. Belkin is evil.
TBH, wireless networking is just a case of setting it up properly (usually). Many a time Ive had to spend about half a day fart assing around with wireless networking and once youve cracked it, it should be hassle free.
Also have to say, about 99% of home wireless issues I have seen, have been when people have been using Desktops with wireless USB dongles. Laptops just seem to work more reliably with a fixed card and also I find have more range often.
 
in theory USB dongles should have longer range as PCMCIA is rated at +3.3v and USB +5v. More power should equal stronger signal output. However there are USB adapters costing £40 and some costing £15. Thus the quality of product is more commonly the issue.
Wireless should take 5 mins to set up if you know what your doing. Which you should make sure you do before you start.
In theory internal components can use upt to +12V direct, tho standard wifi doesn't need that much to achieve a resonable range.
 
Skilldibop said:
in theory USB dongles should have longer range as PCMCIA is rated at +3.3v and USB +5v. More power should equal stronger signal output. However there are USB adapters costing £40 and some costing £15. Thus the quality of product is more commonly the issue.
Wireless should take 5 mins to set up if you know what your doing. Which you should make sure you do before you start.
In theory internal components can use upt to +12V direct, tho standard wifi doesn't need that much to achieve a resonable range.
Click to expand...

But theres a legal limitation of how much power you can send out in the 2.4GHz band, so it doesntm atter what the voltages are.

Point taken about the quality though, my Cisco PCMCIA a/b/g card picks up a signal far stronger than any other card/dongle i've used.
 
But theres a legal limitation of how much power you can send out in the 2.4GHz band, so it doesntm atter what the voltages are.
Click to expand...
12v isn't gonna be that strong. We have a couple of RF links between buildings cos fog kills the faster IR ones. They're mains powered and the licence just involves a one off payment and filling out a form. That's only cos it's a 450m range in a directed beam.
 
I would get a card from someone decent like linksys or netgear and test it for a few days and if it doesnt work, then take it back and go wired, but if your laptop card works then it suggests to me that the Belkin cards are the problem.
 
I tried both the belkin software and microsoft. After a bit of investigation I found that the cards are actualy manufactured by a company called ralink. I downloaded their software. It improved the situation a bit on one pc and made no difference on the other. I concluded the same as you in that the cards are just rubbish as the laptop works fine. But the way I see it, i may as well just use some cable that I've already got.
 
I transformed the performance of my wireless by buying an extension for the antenna. It was £9.99 from a high street electronics shop, it screws onto the back of the card and at the end of a 1.5m extension has a magnetic base which the original antenna screws onto. Clearing the antenna from vicinity of the base unit, and even sitting just on top, makes all the difference. Admittedy it is only through one wall, but now I have an almost constant 'Excellent' signal strength and constant 54 Mbps, whereas before it would disconnect several times per hour. This is with an Asus pocket AP, which is hardly the most powerful device around, and sports no external aerial.

Current uptime 1 day 5 hours.
 
Yeah as Gavstar said external antennas often do help quite a lot. I have an asus wireless card with an external antenna and when transferring a 4GB file via the wireless network the speed stayed at 54mbs and the signal strength at very good. However I think that using the two desktops wired and the laptop wireless is a good idea and I hope it works well for you.
 
An alternative to wireless is homeplug - costs a bit more but getting some very good press :D
Routes the data through your internal mains wiring speeds up to around 85Mb/sec from what I have seen :)
 
An alternative to wireless is homeplug - costs a bit more but getting some very good press
Routes the data through your internal mains wiring speeds up to around 85Mb/sec from what I have seen
Click to expand...

There are a few un talked about problems with that. The quality of your house wiring and you need everything to be on the same ring main, unlike low voltage media you can't bridge mains. Try bridging a 30amp circuit and *bang* not a fulse left in the house. You need to know where all *** spurs and rings are in your house to make sure your plugged into the right one.
 
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