[jbischke]

Hi all. I moved into a new place about two months ago and have had continuous struggle getting my wireless network working since then. I have a cable modem and an Airport Extreme which I bought about 2 years ago. I can pick up wireless pretty well within about 20 feet of the router but past that the signal tends to fall off pretty dramatically. At 40 feet I can't pick up a signal at all.

I thought at first that the problem was the wi-fi card in my new MacBook Pro (as I was dropping connex other places as well). I got it replaced but that didn't help at all. I also tested an older MacBook Pro and couldn't get a signal outside of 20 feet either.

I purchased an Airport Express last week to see if that would help. Unfortunately it didn't as it could barely connect to the Airport Extreme outside of about 10-15 feet and therefore didn't extend the range enough to reach where I need to go (40 feet from the router/AeBS). I also tried to purchase a new Airport Extreme to see if that would improve things. It didn't.

I'm now trying to figure out how to move forward. I need to get a strong internet connection 40 feet from the base station which doesn't seem like it should be all that difficult. I guess I'm down to a few options:

#1 - Replace the original Airport Extreme router with a different router. Probably would be the NETGEAR WPN824 RangeMax Wireless Router based on some research I've done.

#2 - Run a powerline adapter so that I can access the network over the electrical lines. It sounds like something like the Netgear XAVB101 Powerline AV Ethernet Adapter Kit will work pretty well for this.

#3 - Move. I really hope it doesn't come to that.

I guess I could also run an Ethernet cable across the entire place...that would be preferable to moving eh?

Anyway, any thoughts on these options or anything else I can try. I've spent countless hours on this and it's really, really frustrating to not be able to do something that seems like it should be fairly easy. It's possible that the construction in the new place is causing these issues. However, I still need to try to figure out a work-around.

Any suggestions?

[ibook_steve]

Have you tried other channels? If there are a lot of other people's networks around, you might have luck with a different wireless channel number. Also, what frequency are you using (radio mode)? Check the wireless options and experiment with different channels and different frequencies. Do you have wireless security enabled (WPA, etc.)? Try turning it off and see if that improves anything.

Steve

[Simon]

Check to see which wifi channels are crowded around your place.

iStumbler will do the trick for free.

[Andy8]

Are you using a cordless phone at home? These can sometimes play havoc with wireless routers.

[shifuimam]

Do you live in an old home (pre-1940 old)? It could be that there's something in the structure of your house that is keeping your wifi signal from getting as far as it should be.

You also could try a Linksys router (or another router with replaceable antenna) with some hi-gain antenna - or make a cantenna (an antenna from a can - the range is ridiculous with them).

If you have any 2.5GHz cordless phones, you're going to have issues - your phones need to be either 900MHz or 5GHz.

[Cold Warrior]

Keep mind though that 5 GHz is one of the freqs for 802.11n. Well-made phones shouldn't cause interference, but I usually don't see well-made consumer cordless phones.

[ghporter]

"5GHz" phones work at 5.8GHz, and N only touches a little into the 5.8 region. A "5GHZ phone" should be no trouble at all.