Another computer one: are 'hi-gain' wifi adaptors effective?

[swee'pea99]

My PC keeps losing its connection to the router, which is way up in the attack. It comes back after anythung from a few seconds to a minute or two, and it's not that big a problem...but it is a bit irritating.

At the moment it uses an old Belkin PCI adaptor. I've been looking on ebay, and have noticed various so-called hi-gain adaptors. Do these actually make a difference? Are they better at hanging onto a feeble signal?

 

[Markymark]

I would have either one of those devices than runs wifi through the mains circuit or buy a TP LINK device that you can put on your top floor to increase the wifi upwards.

 

[Born2die]

You need to periodically turn off and on routers or so I was told it seems to help my dodgy connection issues

 

[Dan B]

Go for one of the powerline adaptors: if it works (and assuming you don't live next door to a radio amateur) it'll be vastly superior. The "range extenders" halve your bandwidth, because they have to receive then transmit on the same channel, and the laws of physics say you can only have one device transmitting on a given channel at any time

You don't need to periodically turn off and on routers unless there's something wrong with them. It's no different to rebooting a PC

 

[Svendo]

Lo cost bodge: homemade cardboard and tin foil parabolic(ish) reflectors, orientating the aerials perpendicularly to the direction of transmission to the furthest receiver (i.e. horizontally to go up a lot). I got wifi two floors up in our terrace with attic conversion doing this. Sometimes needs two tries to get going but then it's fine.

 

[fossyant]

Wired if you can. Powerline adapters are good if you can't get a network cable to the router. We've got 2 PC's, an Xbox and a NAS hard drive wired to the router now. This leaves WIFI free for the printer, multiple phones, laptops and tablets. Gone are the days of just 1 internet device eh !

 

[swee'pea99]

Thanks. As luck would have it, the thing seems to have become stable since I posted, so I shall sit tight for now - but I'll return to this thread when it all goes tits up again.

 

[Markymark]

Might be worth checking that a neighbour isn't using the same wifi channel. 1,6 & 11 are the best but not if anyone close is also using them. Could be why your losing connection at different times as someone else is using theirs at different times.

 

[Acyclo]

I have a cheap Chinese copy of the Alfa USB wiffy adapter. It's very very good. Cost less than a fiver. <Google> Aha, here's one now: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/500mW-Hig...SB_Wi_Fi_Adapters_Dongles&hash=item416f558f77
This one is a bit more expensive but still cheap. I had a look inside mine to see what the chip was, in order to find the correct driver for FreeBSD, and it turned out to be a standard Ralink RT3070, with NO OTHER components. So the gain is just down to a decent antenna, no linear amplifier at all. It works perfectly with FreeBSD, so Windows and Linux should be fine and it has greatly increase the range compared to a 'standard' USB wiffy dongle.

 

[Born2die]

Wired if you can. Powerline adapters are good if you can't get a network cable to the router. We've got 2 PC's, an Xbox and a NAS hard drive wired to the router now. This leaves WIFI free for the printer, multiple phones, laptops and tablets. Gone are the days of just 1 internet device eh !

I use a dual router simpler solution net/printer uses 1 side nas the other think it was about £80 like this one