Hi,

Would really appreciate any help on this, as I have tried Belkin tech support many times and they are unbelievably useless....

I've got a Belkin 802.11g wireless router and a Belkin wireless card in my PC running Windows XP. I set it up with no problems at all, but when I moved the PC to my study about 15m away from the router (3 walls and one floor). I had a "very low" signal or nothing at all i.e not enough to get on the internet (despite the box claiming an operating range of 60m). After talking to tech support I tried lowering the speed and changing channels with no luck.

I now have the router in the same room as the PC, about 5 feet away. It works, but is reaaaaalllyy painfully slow and about one page request in four ends in "this page cannot be displayed". I've gone back to my original cable internet connection now which is really zippy. They sent me a replacement router which has made no difference at all.

I really would appreciate any help on this, as I can't bear the thought of trying to get through to Belkin tech support (basically...you can't, unless its 3am), and even if I do get through, most of them sound like they've not used a PC before.

I've got McAfee security centre, Windows XP. Let me know if theres anything else you need to know.

I'm currently trying to run my business hunched over my computer in the corner of my bedroom, so I'd really appreciate some assistance - thanks in advance!!

Jamie

Have you secured the router appropriatly? (someone could be bugging you by changing the settings) see Secure your wireless network
for information about securing your network appropiatly

To improve the wireless signal (get a better signal)
- Download Netstumbler
- Instal netstumbler and restart your pc
- Start netstumbler and goto ssid's (on the left)
- Select your network id and expand the menuitem
- Now you see the signal strength
- Adjust the position of the router and the antenna's of both the router and your wlancard untill you get the best signal

Aside from adjusting the antenna's a low signal/speed can be caused by:
- the usage of a wireless chanel allready used by other people in your neigbourhood
- the presence of thick walls, electric devices or metal near the router or computer
- using WPA security when having a low signal will severely drop the speed and give you timeouts

Hi Jaime,

Welcome to PCHF. We have a terrific staff of techs here, and I am sure that we will be able to help you resolve your difficulty.

Btalman, has some excellent suggestions, and I am sure that one of our hardware gurus will be online shortly with other ideas.

Please let us know whether or not the steps work for you so we can assist you further.

Look forward to your reply,

TTFN

LGW

Hi,
Do you have any firewalls or Norton Worm Protection working? I've had mine mess up the signal sometimes as it was scanning everything that went in and out of the PC and made internet really slow. So if you do, try disabling them and seeing if that makes a difference. Otherwise you can try looking in the router settings and looking in the help files for tips on how to boost the speed. Ofcourse it could also be due to your Wireless card in your computer, is the card also 802.11g compatible? Some routers (like mine) have issues with different types of cards and will work better with the same type.
Hope that helps you a bit

Cheers

Hi guys, many thanks for your help. Sorry about the slow response, but I had to go to Italy on a last minute booking to play piano for a musical. It's a hard life....!

I've got the connection working fine in the same room now a few feet away (Connected at 54Mpbs, signal at -36dBm in the link status dialogue of the Belkin config utility). Took it to the back room again, no signal picked up at all. I'm now trying it somewhere in the middle of the house (maybe 8m and one floor away) - seems to be reasonable, connected at 36Mpbs, about -50dBm signal, noise -85dBm).

I have a wireless thermostat, but thats at 433 Mhz, so shouldn't interfere should it? I've tried all different channels, and there's no improvement anyway.

The card is 802.11g compatible and was sold together with the router.

Do you think either of these products would help me?

Desktop Antenna:
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...%2Etworking%2F

Wireless Network Access Point:
http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...%2Etworking%2F

Tried disabling McAfee, no change. I'm not sure what WPA security is, or how I can turn it on or off.

Thanks again,

Jamie

Hi Jamie, a quick trip to Italy? Sweeet, wish I could do that, even if I had to work there ;-)
WPA is 'advanced' security, just like WEP it consists of a password, but WPA will also encrypt the data transmitted and is strongly recommended when you don't want anyone 'sniffing' (capturing) your data. You can find more about WPA in the manual shipped with the router.
Almost all electrical devices can itnerfere with the signal, though I doubt the thermostat is the cause of your problems. Walk the path from the router to the place you want to receive like the radiosignal would, a straight line from Router to LPCthat is.
What do you encounter?
How many walls?
How thick are they, are they reinforced? (when they are that will contribute to the low signal)
How many electrical devices do you 'meet' while on the way from A to B?
All those devices, walls, even doors, can cause a low signal so I guess there's something in the way, big time. Use netstumbler to change the angle of the antenna's this can really improve your signal also, try moving your computer around a bit, so the antenna is pointing in the direction of the router

EDIT: About the two productlinks: a better antenna can improve your wireless reception, though I wouldn't buy the desktop antenna, but a direction specific (sorry for my bad translation hope you understand) antenna, so you can concentrate the sending/receiving towards the router. The accespoint can solve your problem since this accespoint can act as a repeater which does exactly as it's name is, you place it between the router and receiver, it picks up the router (and computer) signal and passes it through at full strength though I think your problem can be solved by a little finetuning of your hardware, the antenna's and the placement of your computer.

Good luck