I can't take it anymore! Router problems.

[»X«]

Thanks man for the informative reply. I shall try all you suggested. I didnt know about output power, then again, what I know about wireless isnt worth knowing tbh.

Hopefully It shall arrive tomorrow. I shall put Tomato on it straight away and then try my luck to see how things shape up.

One final question, which will sound stupid. Does the encryption method effect signal strength? For example, does an unprotected network reach further out than one say on WEP? Just curious. I never have left my network unprotected, yet the dude across the road, his is unprotected.

I told him about it and he joked that it wasnt a problem. To prove it was, I picked up his signal, found the default config address, which was 192.168.1.1 I think, username admin, password, password and I was in. Enabled encryption and looked at my watch. 15 minutes later he was at the door, stunned I could do it. And I dont know what I am doing, someone with an agenda could have a field day I'm sure. :p

[+BudMan MVC]

No the method will not effect range -- you should be using WPA2 or min WPA, the only reason would still use WEP is if you were stuck with hardware that did not support atleast WPA.. Which you should be looking to replace soon ;)

As to what you did across the street :rofl: Yeah should change his mind about encryption real quick -- you should of started printing out fun stuff to his printer(s) as well!

Something like "Secure your Wireless dip****" in big bold letters normally gets their attention -- you would be amazed at how fast a open network gets secured after printing out a few copies of stuff like that ;)

[»X«]

Got the router today and its fantastic. Installed Tomato right from the start and it works like a charm.

I went into the advanced settings and saw the option "Transmit Power". It was set to 42. I upped it to 90 and then testing the wireless range.

I can now pick up wireless at the door to the garden, which before was impossible :D .

But there is one more query, the range of the power is (range: 1 - 251; default: 42). Would my router die if I upped it beyond 100? Even close to 200?

To make this whole wireless situation perfect I would like to receive the signal in the garden for laptop use in the summer etc.

And one final thing. Now I have this router, do I need to up the connections with uTorrent back to its default? Would that see an increase in speeds?

Edited September 3, 2008 by _X_

[+BudMan MVC]

Yeah 25 connections per torrent are going to lower your speeds.. Just make sure to set your upload limit to no more than max 80% of your upload bandwidth and you should be fine. But sure increase the number of connections per torrent and max. The number of slots upload per torrent really depends on what your upload speed is.

Sure you could try increasing the output power a bit, if you take it too high you risk shortening the life of the router. As to how much I am not sure -- do some research on it. If your looking to increase your range -- you could also look to get some better antenna for it.

Glad you happy with it!! the GL with 3rd party firmware is really a good combo -- you might want to try out dd-wrt or openwrt.. both also great!! tomato is kind of the bottom of the 3 when it comes to features dd-wrt is next and then openwrt is for the real power users that want to do all kinds of fun stuff with the hardware ;)

[»X«]

Its going great so far. However the signal strength issue, although not the end of the world, is still bugging me. I bumped it up to about 200 and the signal is better but not good enough. I guess I shall leave it. I don't want the box burning out because I want the internet in the garden :D

Thanks for your help budman. Muchly appreciated.

[+BudMan MVC]

if you bump it up too high you can start to have issues as well.. I would suggest you just get some better antennas for it.. or atleast 1 you don't have to use 2. Just turn off diversity.

[»X«]

These are my settings for wireless.

Although I have bumped up the signal power its still not picking up too well.

[+BudMan MVC]

As I stated you bump up the power too much and your going to have issues.

How far away is this garden you talk about from the router? Where exactly do you have the router placed? I fail to understand why people have so many issues with router issues.

Seems people in the UK have quite a bit -- are you living in a castle? Are all the walls in the house lead lined stone?

My sister in law has a 5000+ sqare foot house.. quite large. She has great signal anywhere in the house from a crappy as wrt54g v5 running dd-wrt with the power set at 70.

Again I will state -- there are no setting in there that are going to increase your range, other than the power! If you want more get a better antennas!

edit: does tomato default to setting one antenna to transmit and the other receive? That should really be on AUTO for both.