Improve wireless range?

xiphrex

xiphrex

xiphrex

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Joined
21 Sep 2003
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1,406
Location
Leicester
Hi,

Im wondering if anyone knows.

I have a Netgear DGN2000 wireless router which is currently in use, but I also have a netgear DG834GT and a DG834G just lying around unused.

The wireless coverage in my house is rather poor, possible because its an old house theres loads of old wiring etc and its quite large as well. But even the signal through 2 walls drops to 30-20% which does cause some problems. Downstairs there is hardly any signal at all.

Im wondering if there is a way to improve the wirelss coverage in my home using these other two routers that are just lying about at the moment?

I read a bit and there is something called bridging or access point but I dont know what any of it means.
 
Have you tried moving the router to different location to see if that helps and changing channel?

What wireless cards are you using on the other devices because they may be the problem not the router.

DG834GT can't be used as a bridge
 
sell those two routers and buy an access point, or a Linksys router and user the DD-WRT firmware which allows you to use the router as a bridge and many other things.
 
DGteam firmware has the ability to act as a bridge, might be worth exploring that before spending any money :)

Also google inSSIDer, install it on a laptop preferably, or wireless pc, and wander around the weak spots. It's possible you just have interference and switching to another channel might improve the signal.
 
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Thanks for the posts guys.

Ive had a look at the DGTeam firmware and it can allow both the routers to act as a bridge, but I dont know the meaning of this whole concept of bridging etc. Will it halve my wireless bandwidth? Do I literally just get that going, set it up in the settings with the IP etc and then its done?

I'll try inSSIDer, it may be interference on the channel. I recently noted that 2 of my neighbours were using the same channel as me so I recently changed that, a marginal improvement but still poor.

I would rather not use a powerline adapter (although its a sweet idea) because the electricity in this house is kinda dodgy, the wiring is quite old and we've had electricians come over expressing their disgust at it all.
 
If you set one of the dgs to bridge then it effectively turns the router into a 4 port switch with wireless receiver. Just remember to make sure you're main router is controlling things like say, dhcp etc and it should be a case of just plugging the pc into a lan port.
 
Ah I see, so this method turns the wireless signal into a wired connection rather than extending the wireless signal?

I was thinking if there was a way to extend the wireless range, so if the bridge could receive the wireless signal, boost it, then re-transmit it? Is this possible?

Otherwise Im not sure how the bridge would boost the signal seeing as I would need to put it in the same room as the other PC with the poor signal to connect it to the router, and so the signal will still be poor.
 
I'm not sure whether the two 834Gs can be set up purely as access points or not, but if they do, you could use them (by cabling back to the router). So you can spread out the three devices, to give good coverage.
 
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