so. long story short, im buying a xbox 360 to play, well, games.. i have an agreement with my neighbors to use their wifi, it works fine with my laptop, but the xbox 360 will have that little antenna wifi adapter, i was wondering if i were to wrap a long piece, maybe 18", of tinfoil around the antenna and have the tinfoil sticking straight up, shouldnt that do the same thing a coat hanger taped to an antenna did to a tv, lets face it it was ugly, but it did the job.
boost wifi signal
- Thread starter foxrider
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AreWeThereYet
Active VIP Member
I would start by asking them to log into their router and seeing what power level they have theirs set on,.. I think max is 10, most don't know and just leave it on about 6 because they don't need to send outside of a house.
Also what does the router put out, B, G or N,.. what is the Xbox set up to receive?
Also what does the router put out, B, G or N,.. what is the Xbox set up to receive?
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gildp67
Active member
You could also look into using a wireless access point or if your neighbors router has removable antennas replace them with powered ones, just acouple of ideas.
meierjn
Active VIP Member
You could also install a repeater.
youngpolarisguy
Active VIP Member
If your running a N conection there should be no reason you cant pick up a good. i use mine at the back of the property over 100 yards from the house to stream music by the fire still get almost a full signal.
polarisdragon800
Active VIP Member
Sorry for stealling a post but i
I have a quick question... How do I turnup the freqauncy on a TRENDnet router? we have it hooked up to our modem and when our desktop computer is connected directly to the router its fast like normal. But when I connect the laptop wirelessly to the router its super slow on the latop?
I have a quick question... How do I turnup the freqauncy on a TRENDnet router? we have it hooked up to our modem and when our desktop computer is connected directly to the router its fast like normal. But when I connect the laptop wirelessly to the router its super slow on the latop?
arcticdodge
Active VIP Member
Maybe make a tinfoil hat and put it on your head. you will then see the "Signs"
mathrulz
Active VIP Member
Most routers can be configured by typing the router ip address into a browser. To find your router ip address type ipconfig in a command prompt and look for router address. You will have to know the username/password for the router to log in to the configuration section. If you don't know it and haven't changed it from new it's likely still the default username/password which you could find in the manual or online someplace. This should let you configure and adjust anything you need on your router - including signal power levels.
Fizzlesticks
New member
Don't touch the router power, the power would not be your problem. Don't talk to a salesman, they sell stuff and well like stuff you don't need. Don't talk to someone who plays games and things ping is the issue and do some reading on Latent connections.
If the router is in your house, then 'N' is great. It will propogate through a few walls etc and give you speed but not distance. The more walls the more packet loss from bad signal quality that increases latency. Outside no issue, Outside in another house, well that is double the walls, double the glass windows etc, higher signal loss especially with higher frequency signal, so games will have higher latency (higher packet loss), no issue to ping though. If someone tells you ping and latency are the same, then don't use their advice. Streamming music, won't show an issue generally as that is one way, games use connection both ways with constant packets sent. Packet loss is the number one issue for on line games like shooters in multi play.
Gamers can have a high ping with low latency and play well. Low ping but high latency and you can't play at all, will get kicked usually automatically by the server. People think ping is the issue, it's not they are just noobs. Latency is always the issue, you can read up on latent connections to understand the issue and you will be affected by it with a router in another house, especially in urban locations. People are transitioning to wirelss N, which frees up bandwith in the unlicensed G in urban areas making it work the way it used too. N is now getting saturated.
Wireless G is a lower frequency, it will go through walls better, into basements etc. The lower the frequency you go with on the singnal, the better its will perform. Issues with G are they are saturated in the City and heavily jammed in the US. If your Canadian and in a city with no free wifi near bye, then it may not be saturated yet. Don't worry about speed, your 54m connection will never get used as the internet you connect to is no where near the theroretical speed of the router, the internet is way too slow for you to worry about that unless you have a fiber optic internet connection before the router. If the router has broadband cable, another story but again way too slow to worry about, not the issue. Cable is broadband, slow and shared with your community, again way slower than your router.
Go for signal quality, not speed, not power.
If the router has capability for wireless g and you are not in the city, absolutely use it. If your in the city and the homes are close then i would stick to N but N works like line of sight. The closer you are too it, the less packet loss you receive, signal goes through glass better than walls so try to line up the router with a window, mount to the ceiling in the house, then try to use your laptop in sight of the window, you will it improve.
Things you can do to improve performance in N (2400).
1) Check your wireless home phone, if it broadcasts and received in 2400, it will affect the N connection, put the handsets in their craddles to stop them transmitting when not actually being used.
2) Your cell phone uses a licenced frequency but saturates the band if connected to wifi when you get home and yes in 2400. Your phone transmitts every 30 second, with a high speed burst, causing momentary bandwidth use around 180k telling the network where it is etc, if you are not using it (cell) turn off the wifi conenction at home. If someone is using it then the bandwith is up to 240k for music DL and slowing you down. (monitoring programs for bandwidth usage and you can see the cell phone spikes on a wifi connection)
3) Clean signal quality, Desktop computer with antenna works better than laptop with internal antenna especially with metalic cases on laptops, get a crappy looking, often in the way, cheap and external antenna.
4) Using windows 7, no need to update the network in your laptop it's always latest driver but routers change and get updates, they need to be manually done and can fix some issues in G, several issues every year in N. Get help with that, if needed.
5) Get a friend who works in telecom, to come over with an outdoor rated cat 5 cable to run between the router, across the ground (buried) and back to your house and plug in to it. Cat 5e will work well for the distance between homes. You can also set up another router off the new cable in your house and have great service.
If the router is in your house, then 'N' is great. It will propogate through a few walls etc and give you speed but not distance. The more walls the more packet loss from bad signal quality that increases latency. Outside no issue, Outside in another house, well that is double the walls, double the glass windows etc, higher signal loss especially with higher frequency signal, so games will have higher latency (higher packet loss), no issue to ping though. If someone tells you ping and latency are the same, then don't use their advice. Streamming music, won't show an issue generally as that is one way, games use connection both ways with constant packets sent. Packet loss is the number one issue for on line games like shooters in multi play.
Gamers can have a high ping with low latency and play well. Low ping but high latency and you can't play at all, will get kicked usually automatically by the server. People think ping is the issue, it's not they are just noobs. Latency is always the issue, you can read up on latent connections to understand the issue and you will be affected by it with a router in another house, especially in urban locations. People are transitioning to wirelss N, which frees up bandwith in the unlicensed G in urban areas making it work the way it used too. N is now getting saturated.
Wireless G is a lower frequency, it will go through walls better, into basements etc. The lower the frequency you go with on the singnal, the better its will perform. Issues with G are they are saturated in the City and heavily jammed in the US. If your Canadian and in a city with no free wifi near bye, then it may not be saturated yet. Don't worry about speed, your 54m connection will never get used as the internet you connect to is no where near the theroretical speed of the router, the internet is way too slow for you to worry about that unless you have a fiber optic internet connection before the router. If the router has broadband cable, another story but again way too slow to worry about, not the issue. Cable is broadband, slow and shared with your community, again way slower than your router.
Go for signal quality, not speed, not power.
If the router has capability for wireless g and you are not in the city, absolutely use it. If your in the city and the homes are close then i would stick to N but N works like line of sight. The closer you are too it, the less packet loss you receive, signal goes through glass better than walls so try to line up the router with a window, mount to the ceiling in the house, then try to use your laptop in sight of the window, you will it improve.
Things you can do to improve performance in N (2400).
1) Check your wireless home phone, if it broadcasts and received in 2400, it will affect the N connection, put the handsets in their craddles to stop them transmitting when not actually being used.
2) Your cell phone uses a licenced frequency but saturates the band if connected to wifi when you get home and yes in 2400. Your phone transmitts every 30 second, with a high speed burst, causing momentary bandwidth use around 180k telling the network where it is etc, if you are not using it (cell) turn off the wifi conenction at home. If someone is using it then the bandwith is up to 240k for music DL and slowing you down. (monitoring programs for bandwidth usage and you can see the cell phone spikes on a wifi connection)
3) Clean signal quality, Desktop computer with antenna works better than laptop with internal antenna especially with metalic cases on laptops, get a crappy looking, often in the way, cheap and external antenna.
4) Using windows 7, no need to update the network in your laptop it's always latest driver but routers change and get updates, they need to be manually done and can fix some issues in G, several issues every year in N. Get help with that, if needed.
5) Get a friend who works in telecom, to come over with an outdoor rated cat 5 cable to run between the router, across the ground (buried) and back to your house and plug in to it. Cat 5e will work well for the distance between homes. You can also set up another router off the new cable in your house and have great service.
Ping (as in ping time) is latency, it's the time it takes a packet to go out and back. Jitter is the word you mean when you say latency here. (Variance in ping times - typically an indicator of the quality.)
Other than that, a really good post! (5 being my favorite answer!)
And for the record for anyone else, specifically the second post:
That isn't power level. This is the channel. If you were my neighbour, I bet I could set it to 1 and make it work better than yours, but that'd be a parlor trick. Changing to 10 seems to help, but it's actually probably more to do with there being a pile of interference from every other router also being on 6 and 10 just happens to be open.
You (normally) can't adjust power level, or if you can, odds are it's already at it's maximum out of the box. You'll see something like dBm for power level, and it'll be something like "tx power 21dBm". Cranking this as high as it goes makes little sense, the analogy is someone shouting in your ear and you can't understand what they're saying so they should yell louder, hearing and comprehending being two different things.
Returning to the original post: there are ways to improve your signal strength, but a coat hanger ain't gonna do squat. That said... Mileage may vary. :O
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