Wireless Signal Strength

**RonL** · May4-09, 01:24 PM

Installed a D-Link DIR-655 Router for my wireless network.
The network consist of 3 desktop computers, 3 laptops, and 1 Blu-ray (netflix setup).
The only problem is that one laptop has a signal strength that varies from (the high) that I have seen, 38Mbps down to 1Mbps.
The trend seems to always start at mid 20 and fall to 1 after a short time online, the room is in the back of the house about 50' away from the base unit.

Could this be a heat related problem ? or possible software conflicts ?
Thanks for any help.

Ron

**junglebeast** · May4-09, 02:13 PM

I haven't looked at the specific protocols used for wireless ethernet but I suspect there may be something built in to progressively increase redundancy for low signal to noise ratioas, so it's possible that when you turn it on it assumes a low amount of redundancy, and then as the error correction codes start to detect tons of errors it adds in a whole bunch of redundancy which slows down the communication drastically. Try bringing the laptop closer to the wireless router so it has a better signal and see if the problem persists.

**RonL** · May6-09, 12:48 PM

Originally Posted by junglebeast

I haven't looked at the specific protocols used for wireless ethernet but I suspect there may be something built in to progressively increase redundancy for low signal to noise ratioas, so it's possible that when you turn it on it assumes a low amount of redundancy, and then as the error correction codes start to detect tons of errors it adds in a whole bunch of redundancy which slows down the communication drastically. Try bringing the laptop closer to the wireless router so it has a better signal and see if the problem persists.

Sorry to take so long responding.

Thanks for your response, I don't understand much about what you described, but I do have the book " Microsoft Windows XP inside and out", the next step is to study about the things you mentioned above.
I did take one of the other laptops into the room (which is 85' away) and got the same response, so my guess is the distance and interference between the base and computer. My wife's netbook seems totally unaffected.

One other thought is to use a splitter in the line (100' from office to sunroom) to the blu ray unit, and install a range booster, wonder if anyone has ideas of this working?

Ron

**B. Elliott** · May6-09, 11:20 PM

Are all of your network cards draft N or are they a mix of G and N?

**RonL** · May8-09, 01:05 PM

Originally Posted by B. Elliott

Are all of your network cards draft N or are they a mix of G and N?

Looks like more to learn

The D-Link DIR-655 is draft N, backward compatible with 802.11g devises.

I checked online for wireless range extenders and on the d-link site they offered three units, of which none were compatable with my DIR-655 Router.

My wife has a long list of honey do's, guess this will carry over to next week.

Thanks
Ron