Poor Signal - Networking card and repeater

triggerthat · 30 Jun 2018 at 10:29

Hi, I have a virgin connection (50Mb) which gets great speeds downstairs in the front room with my laptop and iPhone. Upstairs I have a ASUS wireless card (PCEN15) plugged into my PC which struggles to get any decent speed. My laptop and phone in the same room manages to perform a lot better so I'm not sure if its something to do with the standard that the card supports (not dual band/ AC/N etc).

I ended up buying a wireless repeater but it seems that doesn't make much difference - in fact it can be slower.

Any advice?

bremen1874 · 30 Jun 2018 at 11:35

Repeaters are generally a bad idea.

Where did you install it relative to the PC?

triggerthat · 30 Jun 2018 at 16:54

PC is upstairs in spare room with the reapter also upstairs on the landing (very close).

BigT · 1 Jul 2018 at 05:51

triggerthat said:
PC is upstairs in spare room with the reapter also upstairs on the landing (very close).

Well that won’t help too much. A repeater needs to be half way between the router and the dead spot. If the WiFi signal is bad where the PC is then citing the repeater next to it gives it nothing to repeat.

Duke · 1 Jul 2018 at 09:14

Is there no way at all to be able to run a cable to the PC from the router? Or even just upstairs somewhere then you can put an wifi access point up there. Failing that, home plugs.

jsmoke · 1 Jul 2018 at 09:22

I've bought a few wireless USB adapters and have noticed significant differences in signal pickup between them. My phone for example usually performs better.

Attach your phone to the PC and enable tethering in wireless settings. See if your router shows up and what strength etc. This will give you an idea of the quality of the USB adapter you have.

Phil2008 · 2 Jul 2018 at 00:26

bremen1874 said:
Repeaters are generally a bad idea.

Thats what I thought, but I took the risk and bought the TP-Link AC1750 Universal Dual Band Range Extender hoping to be able to get the wifi out into the garden. To my amazement its working, but I have only had it for a week, so it still could go wrong.

I have set it only to power on in the day times, so I guess thats helping with the reliability and I have the extender plugged in about 50% away from my wireless access point so it tells me.