wireless networking

We had been using a pair of these suckers to give my poor mother her internet addiction, and apparently they had been working alright (I think we had to replace them once though?) until about a couple of weeks ago, and she has been getting intermittent internet, mostly from the router on this side of the house. Her room is about 50 or 60 feet away, so sometime the signal drops altogether, since the receiving end of those (the one that picks up the signal from the one plugged into the router, which is from netgear, but hasn't given us any trouble yet) doesn't seem to see a signal when it's ten feet away.

Other people on the intarwebz seem to be having the same trouble, and I never really liked the idea of these bulky things that are stealing a wall slot from my computing set up (since they are too delicate to be plugged into a surge protector-.-) I've been looking into other hardware, to get my poor mother the internet she has become addicted to.

What do you guys use for access points etc? Anything you could reccomend before she drives me nuts?

My preference would be D-Link products. There're a few fairly decent range extenders on offer there. Though I would advise not to go with range extenders at all. Just get an 802.11e router. :D?

I use Linksys a lot, some DLink and Netgear. Besides the occasional fluke, they perform somewhat similarly on average. The only major differences are firmware options, price, and control panel features. (Of which Linksys has the best set of options)

I second Face's suggestion to not bother with range extenders if possible. Often times, loading a custom firmware (Linksys is great for this) for stronger broadcast, or getting better antennas, or trying better placement of the access point can get the range you need.

please tell me more, mike ^_^

also one of these days I should get a modem that doesn't have my ISP's propitary software on it and doesn't think it's a router so I can actually do port forwarding:(

The biggest problem with range extenders is that they tend to interpolate missing data. That means that if a packet is dropped here and there, the range extender will fill in the space with what "should" be there. The problem is, that it creates a margin of error, and with the primary job of the extender being to amplify the signal, it amplifies the error and creates a large space of rubbish data.
That's why I would avoid them.

You'll have a hard time finding an 802.11e router, because it's only a proposed change to the 802.11g standard. :p

What is the model of router that you're using?
I only use my D-Link DSL-G604t router as my AP.

I have a netgear wgt624, and it is not sufficient at all -.- Like I said, it's 50-60 ft away from her laptopping area, so the signal is pathetic by the time it gets over there.

I use netgear and I just move the receiving station as close to the base as possible with an extension cable. Taking the receiving part into the next room through a door helps. That's what I did for my system.

How many walls does the signal travel through?

Perhaps more importantly, what are the walls made of?

Are you using an extension ADSL cable from the router to the phone jack?

It could be a huge number of things, even after 50-60 feet, you should still be able to receive a decent signal, provided it's not travelling through four concrete walls.

My best advice would be to put the router in the laptopping area. If you have another PC it needs to be cat5/6'd to, it safe to run ethernet extension cable. It could also be your mum's wireless NIC. :p

if anyone is getting a super long cable run to them, it's going to be my mom :p

I'm not entirely sure *how* many walls it's actually going through. it's mostly doorways, but then again, signals aren't smart enough to go through doorways. Possibly three walls and maybe a refrigerator. I'm pretty sure this is part of the problem, because if she stands in the doorway of her laptoppin' room, she can almost always get a signal :p I have no idea what the walls are made out of. I think they're mostly just panelling on two by fours.

My dad's computer also uses the signal from the router, and it's just one room and one wall away, so the router is definitely staying closer to this side of the house xD

the setup from phone jack to router is jack, cable, adsl modem, cable router