Belkin Wireless Router & Range Issues

[Kano]

Hello,

After reading and investigating I picked up the Belkin Wireless 4 Port Cable DSL Router and accompanying USB client card. The setup was a breeze and being my first time playing with wireless I was truly impressed. My reason for purchasing is I am trying to connect a client machine a level below my setup in my other room. The room is not directly beneath me and there are a few walls and of course the floor in the way. Needless to say I am not getting a signal.

I used a laptop and walked downstairs and as soon as I start descending the stairs I lose a lot of the signal. Also just leaving the room where the wireless router is the signal drops pretty drastically. Is this normal behavior? Is it a range issue with this particular model that others might perform better at?

Any insight is appreciated. I am thinking I will return the setup.

Thanks,

Kano

 

[spidey07]

wireless is a crapshoot in terms of range. sometimes just leaving the room will loose signal.

Play around with your antennae locations, make sure you auto select channel and speed and try again.

 

[Kano]

So do some units have better range than others? My buddy is able to literally drive down the road from his house before his Netgear drops signal. I returned the Belkin and am looking into Netgear and Linksys.

Thx.

 

[IaPuP]

I doubt it is the brand. They are all pretty similar in terms of output.

The type of walls your talking about WILL make a HUGE difference.

Anything with metal in it (office buildings, etc) and those with solid concrete/brick/stone walls will not allow wireless to pass through them very well. There is NOTHING you can do about that.

Homes with drywall/wood construction are no big deal to wireless. drywall looks almost like air to a microwave signal. Metal looks like... metal. hehe (so does water for that matter, so large water pipes and living things are the worst! - water just soaks up the transmissions)

also, floors are the worst. In order to support weight, they have to be the most dense and in many buildings (esp office buildings and taller complexes) they have metal supports and dense material (like tile, metal, etc) covering them. Plus, they're usually several feet thick.

I would try to see if you can get a signal DIRECTLY below you and if necessary look into setting up a repeater or having a wireless access point directly below you and then running wires to the next room for the other network.



Eric

 

[IaPuP]

that said, there IS SOME difference between brands, but what I meant to say was that if one isn't even CLOSE to working, then another brand won't be magically successful.

Look at moving your AP away from the walls and higher above the floor to cut down the angle of incidence and make it a cleaner path. make sure there is as little furniture as possible between the points you need to connect too.

Good luck,
Eric

 

[SaigonK]

Actually they ar enot the same when it comes brand to brand...

Many manufacturers vary the amount of power they use on the client cards.
For example Cisco uses a ton of power..upwards of 100mw, but Enterasys only uses 32mw maximum. They claim to be using a "cleaner" signal and thus do not need the extra power output to boost their signal.

Keep in mind as others have said, walls, doors, microwaves, 2,4ghz phones and metal framing all come into play.

 

[JackMDS]

If your projected environment is one or two walls, and 20-50' in distance most of the Entry Level Wirless combos will work, look for a sale, you probably find something for a total of $120 - $150.

Could be that your Belkin set (I Don't know where you find info that put Belkin on top) it a bad unit. I don?t think that the Linksys, or the Netgear combos are better. I saw many posts like yours concerning almost any kind of low end Entry Level Wireless combos.

If you are capable of placing the Cable/DSL Router in a very good position. I.e. high up about 10-12? bellow the ceiling, and clear of obstruction, stay with such a combo. Otherwise I would get a regular inexpensive Cable/DSL Router, and a Wireless Access Point (WAP).

Wireless Cable/DSL Router will end up with few cables attached, it is hard to put it in a good high place (With 4-6 cables hanging around). As a result the distance and level of communication ?Sux?.

A WAP has only one CAT5 that goes to the Router, and a Power supply cord, easy to place high out of the way of obstructions. Good WAPs can also be configured as a Bridge (none of the Wireless Routers does it). A lot of WAPs can be equipped with good external Antenna.

If your projected environment is more obstructed then the one mentioned above you need to get the ?Upper End of the Entry Level Wireless Hardware.

Example: Broadband Gateway RG-1100/USB Gold Desktop

BTW, if I put my Wireless Router in the Window facing the Road, and Drive down the road 200' I get nice Signal. In the House 3-4 Walls 40' and I get nothing.

In other words "The friend get" stories are meaningless unless you analyze the environment.

 

[ktwebb]

SOHO AP's are pretty similar, assuming the power output and antennas are identical. It's the client cards that give most home WLAN consumers fits. The Linksys AP's are 100mW with 2.2 dBi dipoles. Many of the budget AP's are 30-50 mW. My Siemens is 50 mW but has a 5 dBi antenna, basically bringing power output up to the Linksys level. I haven't looked at Belkins's stats but its almost always the cards on the client, desktop or laptop, that are the problem. Poor receive sensitivity, low power, cheesy no gain antennas and so on. The Belkin might have been fine for you if you had decent client devices. Orinoco, Cisco, and other tier 1 Wi-Fi devices will solve many WLAN headaches.

 

[Kano]

Well after some experimenting with location and antenna position I opted to return the Belkin set. Though I must say ease of use was quite impressive.

Thanks to all for their very helpful input! Thanks JackMDS for your candor and insight into the Orinico system.

I am going to borrow a friends Linksys setup and see if I get better range before scrapping the idea altogether.

Thanks!