Possibly the only thing more frustrating than having no Internet at all...

[rallamajoop]

Stringing a 20m cable down the hallway is sounding like a better idea by the day.

That trouble I was having with our new wireless network when we first got Internet connection? Has only gotten worse since. Since the first couple of days after we got the network set up the wireless signal strength has dropped from being mostly decent-ish to consistently borderline, with the result that I now have dodgy Internet access maybe about half the time on a good day. There's a mystery network from (presumably) somewhere else in the neighbourhood which is now frequently registering a stronger signal than the one that's been set up in our own house. We're all pretty new to the trials of getting a wireless network working around here, but that seems like a pretty damn good sign that either we've got something set up very wrong or some of our hardware is on the defective side. Advice from anyone with more experience with this stuff would be so very appreciated around now. -_-

While I'm asking around, anyone got any good advice on figuring out what size one is likely to take in shoes ordered from the cosworx website? Reliable sources tell me that American shoe sizes are pretty similar to Australian ones (despite what certain less reliable websites claim), so I'm probably about a size 6-7, but I'm figuring it's a good idea to at least talk to someone else who's ordered from them before I shell out the money for a pair of boots that may or may not fit me when they finally arrive.

Comments

[lleytondurst.livejournal.com]

few things: what brand/model/etc of wireless router are you using? also what devices are you connecting to it?(laptops, ds, psp, consoles etc) and is it all devices causing grief?

if its brand new, chances are the router itself is fine(unless its defunkt in some obvious way).
placing the router in a central location if possible is a great start to signal boosting/coverage if possible, also placing it out of line-of-sight of microwave ovens and cordless telephones.
microwaves and (most)cordless telephones operate in the 2.4ghz range and can mess with the wireless signal. cordless phones can be obtained in other frequencies though (1.8, 5, 5.8 etc).
placing it ontop of a bookshelf at least something so its not on the floor anyway helps.

try changing the wireless channel of your router (if it lets you) the signal your picking up from the neighbours may be running on the same channel yours is set to(best to try a few different channels, sometimes they can conflict even when different channels although this isnt common)

hopefully some of the above helps a bit. if not theres a few slightly more advanced things you could try with the router.

[rallamajoop.livejournal.com]

We've only got the one desktop computer with a wireless card (Shasta's has one in theory, but it appears to be dead right now) and not a lot of leeway to move the modem to a more central location considering where the phone jack is, which was making isolating the problem a bit tricky. But, in a stroke of inspiration I just tried unplugging everything from the modem except the power cord and moving it to a few places around the house and just looked at how the signal strength varied, and it turns out that moving it about a metre and a half to the right and putting it somewhere higher up makes all the difference. So we're going to have to get hold of some longer cords, but otherwise it should be fixable. Thanks for the advice.