Okie Kokie, I've got two pc's currenly hooked up with wireless, both laptops. Soon i'm going to get some wireless cards for the proper pcs in the house, and connect those too, but i'm loathed to do that if i have other issues with the wireless.
Now, the two laptops are as follows: Samsung R20 C2D (new) with on board wireless. and a old Sony Vaio Duron 1ghz machine. This requires either USB dongle or PCMCIA card wireless as it has no on board lan of any description. Sky sent us a Netgear 54mbps dongle. This was 'kin useless, so we contacted them, and they sent out an identical dongle, but 108mbps. The R20 is running Vista home premium, and the Vaio is running XP - probably xphome.
The router is a Netgear DG834G which came with the sky bb.
When we first got it, the wireless was absolutely useless. This R20 would connect wirelessly as long as you were 4 feet away or less. The Vaio with the dongle wouldn't connect unless you were 4 inches away from it. This is when sky agreed to send out a new router, but sent the 108mbps dongle instead
Before that got here, one day i just happened to notice while i was watching a movie up here (other side of the house to router) on the R20 my wireless suddenly started working! Yes! thought I. Got excellent signal too. This was for no apparent reason, the only thing i can think of is sky sent a firmware update to the router to fix this.
So i went to test the Vaio (still on 54mpbs dongle) and hey presto, that worked too, although not as well as my R20 - keeps dropping out even in the next room to the router.
We don't have thick walls, or any major interfering devices in here, however this lappy picks up several wireless networks that aren't ours, like our next door neighbour who has a rangemax router, and the ppl up the road who have a Billion router. - and another one who i dunno whos it is
I'm guessing that the new dongle, which is faster, won't get any better signal than the old one
So i'm thinking all's cool, send both dongles back to sky and get a refund, then get some of these belkin pcmcia cards with pci adaptors, one for the Vaio, two for the towers. - Haven't done this yet - prob tomorrow or fri
So just now i'm on the net on the R20 and suddenly, for about 5 min, even my wireless went down completely. The R20 still picked it up, but couldnt connect, and showed only the smallest bar of signal.
What was really odd was the other networks in the street i can pick up, were still getting really good signal strength... Then it connected but with v.little signal.. now its back to full strength again? Weird. Why would it suddenly drop out then suddeny work again?
I'm going to try the other dongle in the Vaio and see how that is, if it isnt at least as good as this R20, it'll be PCMCIA networking, all the way.
Thing is i'm fairly new to this wireless stuff... The Belkin cards are 54mbps but have MIMO extended range. Our router and this R20 are 54mbps, non-MIMO.
What effects will putting 3 of these cards into our network give? Will it all still work, including my R20? will the mimo cards connect to the non-mimo router? Will they in fact boost our network coverage? (seems to me they should)
And how come the PCMCIA Mimo cards have no antenna whatsoever.. one would have thought an extended reach would mean greater antenna equipment..
Now, the two laptops are as follows: Samsung R20 C2D (new) with on board wireless. and a old Sony Vaio Duron 1ghz machine. This requires either USB dongle or PCMCIA card wireless as it has no on board lan of any description. Sky sent us a Netgear 54mbps dongle. This was 'kin useless, so we contacted them, and they sent out an identical dongle, but 108mbps. The R20 is running Vista home premium, and the Vaio is running XP - probably xphome.
The router is a Netgear DG834G which came with the sky bb.
When we first got it, the wireless was absolutely useless. This R20 would connect wirelessly as long as you were 4 feet away or less. The Vaio with the dongle wouldn't connect unless you were 4 inches away from it. This is when sky agreed to send out a new router, but sent the 108mbps dongle instead
Before that got here, one day i just happened to notice while i was watching a movie up here (other side of the house to router) on the R20 my wireless suddenly started working! Yes! thought I. Got excellent signal too. This was for no apparent reason, the only thing i can think of is sky sent a firmware update to the router to fix this.
So i went to test the Vaio (still on 54mpbs dongle) and hey presto, that worked too, although not as well as my R20 - keeps dropping out even in the next room to the router.
We don't have thick walls, or any major interfering devices in here, however this lappy picks up several wireless networks that aren't ours, like our next door neighbour who has a rangemax router, and the ppl up the road who have a Billion router. - and another one who i dunno whos it is
I'm guessing that the new dongle, which is faster, won't get any better signal than the old one
So i'm thinking all's cool, send both dongles back to sky and get a refund, then get some of these belkin pcmcia cards with pci adaptors, one for the Vaio, two for the towers. - Haven't done this yet - prob tomorrow or fri
So just now i'm on the net on the R20 and suddenly, for about 5 min, even my wireless went down completely. The R20 still picked it up, but couldnt connect, and showed only the smallest bar of signal.
What was really odd was the other networks in the street i can pick up, were still getting really good signal strength... Then it connected but with v.little signal.. now its back to full strength again? Weird. Why would it suddenly drop out then suddeny work again?
I'm going to try the other dongle in the Vaio and see how that is, if it isnt at least as good as this R20, it'll be PCMCIA networking, all the way.
Thing is i'm fairly new to this wireless stuff... The Belkin cards are 54mbps but have MIMO extended range. Our router and this R20 are 54mbps, non-MIMO.
What effects will putting 3 of these cards into our network give? Will it all still work, including my R20? will the mimo cards connect to the non-mimo router? Will they in fact boost our network coverage? (seems to me they should)
And how come the PCMCIA Mimo cards have no antenna whatsoever.. one would have thought an extended reach would mean greater antenna equipment..
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