[qualey2]

the investment of a new router this week..
I am looking for some recomendations and some suggestions and long with a few questions.

Current setup :
1 pc running win xp pro sp2 amd 2.0, 512 megs ram, 2 hd's #1 160 gig's #2 is 80 gig's.

2 Mac laptop running osx 10.2.8 20 gig hd, 400mhz processer

the network set up is as follows Verzion dsl into a asante fr3002al router connected to the pc via cat5 cable, no issues here :-D .

Now for the trouble spot, the wire-less singnal to my laptop is horrible. I have a smallish apt on the second floor, (and no other wire-less singnals from neighbors to interfear with mine) I have the router mounted has high up as I can get and the recption to my living room (aprox 30' or so) makes me feel like the laptop is on dial up at times.

I have the latest firmwear installed on the router and the newest driver that will work installed on the laptop. As stated above it is a asante router with the asante wireless adaptor (pc style card) in the back pointing upwards. The pc style card that I have in the laptop is a farallon skyline pn 473.

The suggestion part comes in now, what kind of router would you recomend? I am looking to buy retail ( cant do on line shopping no CC ), and looking to spend about a $100.00.

My question what are my chances that my current card in the laptop will work with a new router. I figgure pretty good but you never know.

If any more info is needed let me know.

[John Strung]

Your current card should work fine with any router. You might do a Google search for tests on various routers to see what range they might have. Or look at the reviews at http://www.practicallynetworked.com

After my daughter fried my old SMC 7004AWBR, I replaced it with a DLink DL614+ and was quite disappointed with the range of the DLink.

The SMC had two antennae and the Dlink one. I don't know if that made the difference, but some people suggest that two antennae give you better range.

I have seen advertisements for routers that are supposed to have greater range. I think Linksys might be one.

However, your problem may be at the other end. Cards in portables generally don't have much in the way of an antenna.

I have two Linksys WET11 Wireless to Ethernet Bridges at home that I use to connect an old Performa 6400 and a trayloading iMac wirelessly to my router. The WET11's are external devices that plug into the ethernet port of a computer and have a much larger antenna than an internal card. I find I can get good performance with the WET11 in a second floor bedroom connecting to my router in the basement, when the builtin wireless card in my PC will barely pull a signal from the first floor.

[drive-thru]

From experience I would say stay clear of the Netgear WGR614. I have version 1 at home and the wireless connection keeps dropping out. It needs to be unplugged from the power supply to be reset. The newest version may have fixed this but I wouldn't take the risk.