Range problem maybe?

[mikehende]

My garage is situated at the back of the house, the router is located in the house, I used to get my pc [wireless] to connect to the net but now it stopped all of a sudden, the signal was always "low" to begin with. I am guessing that this may be a "range" problem? If so, what can I do to get to connect? The wife said that we can get another router which will give more range but that will be a ways off so I am looking for a cheap temporary but effective option in the meantime, any ideas please?

[jflan]

I use an antenna that is simslar to this one.
Mine is Zonet ZWA 2006 and it looks identical to this DLINK.
I'm cross house and shooting through two wood-frame sheetrock walls.
In my situation the antenna made the difference.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833127046

It was also very interesting to "see" all the neighborhood networks that were unknown to me while using my PCI card antenna :)

[compusimple]

probably cheapest solution is to run a cat 5 cable.

elliott

[mikehende]

Thanks for the link, right now I'm looking at this one

http://cgi.ebay.com/LINKSYS-WIRELESS-G-RANGE-EXPANDER-EXTENDER-WRE54G-NEW_W0QQitemZ150054586067QQihZ005QQcategoryZ71503Q QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Think it might work?

p.s. Running a cat5 cable is out of the question since the Garage is detached from the house which means I will have to go "underground" for this.

[dbarrow]

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

The CANTENNA will cost approx $10 in parts for the connectors.
Best result I had was a 1 lb 4" coffee can.

There are a number of range boosting commercial antennas but their price is considerably more.

Check for any electrical items, phones, microwaves or other sources of interference between your garage and router. Try different channels (neighbor may be knocking out your signal). Run NetStumbler or your network wireless util to see if there is another connection on the same channel with a stronger signal.

[jflan]

Thanks for the link, right now I'm looking at this one

http://cgi.ebay.com/LINKSYS-WIRELESS-G-RANGE-EXPANDER-EXTENDER-WRE54G-NEW_W0QQitemZ150054586067QQihZ005QQcategoryZ71503Q QrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Think it might work?

p.s. Running a cat5 cable is out of the question since the Garage is detached from the house which means I will have to go "underground" for this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?Item=N82E16833124037

[mikehende]

Yeah, got it for $36 brand new off of Ebay yesterday, should have it by this weekend, will let you all know how it works.