Need help expanding a Wirelss Network

Chris_Dentino · #1 December 27th, 2006, 09:47 AM

The set up as is:
cable modem is uplinked to a linksys Wireless router

What the problem is, is that the signal is very weak upstairs in my side of the house. The signal is very low and is dropped alot. I came accross a Belkin Wireless router, is there a way to use it as a range expander?

Thank you,
Chris

**Snurfen** · #2 December 27th, 2006, 02:35 PM

Depending on how you use the network, a simpler solution to extending your signal strength is to get a hi-gain antenna for the router.

If you mainly use it in this one part of the house where the signal is week, get a focused beam antenna, if you often use all over the house, get an omni-directional antenna.

You may be on a hiding to nothing if there is a lot of obstructions causing the signal to drop, therefore you'd be better getting a repeater access point.
The trick is positioning it in such a way that the signal bounces to it and then to your pc thus missing the problem area (boiler, lot of wiring, very thick chimney breast, etc). It can be a major pain in the derrier to go down this route, and you also loose quite a bit of bandwidth.

So decide which of the two options would suit you best and post back, someone will then give you in depth instructions on how to perform either solution. Good luck

Chris_Dentino · #3 December 27th, 2006, 05:06 PM

Thanks for the reply! I was mainly wondering if another Wireless router would do the job, it being after christmas and i am short on funds. The only other thing i could think of to get this to work was to run a cable upstaires from the router to the belkin and use that as the internet connection and haveing another wilress network upstairs. The reason I have been more driven, aside from the constant lag and drops and low connection speed, is that I got a Wii for christmas and it has trouble connecting to my network at home.

oracle128 · #4 December 28th, 2006, 06:50 AM

Some routers can act as repeaters, some can't. It depends on the specific model. Presumably, if a router can act as a repeater, and you can't find a hard copy/online manual, it'd have an option to enable this within its configuration.

Chris_Dentino · #5 December 28th, 2006, 05:52 PM

Allrighty, ill keep looking through the settings. Thank you very much!