Rubbish signal strength with Virgin ADSL

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7 Oct 2008
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806
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Birmingham
Recenty got Virgin ADSL installed in my student house. Speeds are a bit rubbish but then so is the line.

Anyway, the supplied router appears be CRAP. I'm not there at the moment (visiting girlfriend) and won't be until tomorrow. However, a flatmate couldn't get connection in his room (no more than 20m away) but could get it perfectly in the room with the router. The flat isn't even that big so I'm a bit annoyed tbh.

We can't really move the router and the BT mastersocket is in a strange place (flatmates room downstairs on the other side of the flat). At best we can move it from her room and into the dining room with a 10m cat5 or something.

I think they currently have it installed behind her bed (she doesn't like the lights and that's where the mastersocket is, had real trouble finding that) so it's not in a great area. I know this isn't helping things but I didn't think it would nuke it this hard.

It's a rented flat so we can't drill holes in the floor/ceiling to run a cable so it would be a massive effort to run it meters and meters around the flat.

I was thinking homeplugs but they're quite pricey as we'd need to have 6 all together (six person house) and it means we can't have wifi except in a limited area. This is kind of a pain as I usually have my xbox/pc/netbook all hooked up but would only be able to have one at a time connected by cable in my room.

Signal extenders/relays seem to be a bit crap but looks like it might be the only option. What about a homeplug (onto say the landing) and then a relay/router attached to the homeplug?

I'm going to have a look at the router settings (mainly changing the channel) to see if I can ge a better connection but I'm not hoping for much.

Thoughts?
 
I think your best bet would be to buy a pair of homeplugs and a cheap standard (cable) wireless router - TP for instance.

Turn off the wirless capability from your existing router (i know WIFI is supposed to be safe, but I wouldn't want it working directly under my bed..) Plug one of the lan ports on the existing router into a Homeplug and then locate the other homeplug in a central place - then plug the output of that homeplug into the input (wan) of the new router. job done - cost 60.00

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-017-OK&groupid=46&catid=1604&subcat=

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-025-TP&groupid=46&catid=1596&subcat=


or the following solution is slightly cheaper

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-018-OK&groupid=46&catid=1604&subcat=
 
Last edited:
I think your best bet would be to buy a pair of homeplugs and a cheap standard (cable) wireless router - TP for instance.

Turn off the wirless capability from your existing router (i know WIFI is supposed to be safe, but I wouldn't want it working directly under my bed..) Plug one of the lan ports on the existing router into a Homeplug and then locate the other homeplug in a central place - then plug the output of that homeplug into the input (wan) of the new router. job done - cost 60.00

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-017-OK&groupid=46&catid=1604&subcat=

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-025-TP&groupid=46&catid=1596&subcat=


or the following solution is slightly cheaper

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-018-OK&groupid=46&catid=1604&subcat=

Would this work with the wifi enabled from the original router?

I.E. Masterport -> Router -> Wifi + Lan port homeplug -> Second homeplug -> Second router wifi

I assume it would. This would mean the two bedrooms downstairs would get good signal from the original router and upstairs (other side of flat as well) would have good signal from the homeplug/router on the landing.
 
yes that would work fine - I would be tempted to try and get the existing one out from the underside of your flat mates bed and try to elevate its position, as this will help quite a bit.
 
yes that would work fine - I would be tempted to try and get the existing one out from the underside of your flat mates bed and try to elevate its position, as this will help quite a bit.

Yeah Ill have a look when i get back tonight. Unfortunatly the supplied telephone cable was pretty short.
 
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