Help solve my home Wifi woes...

[Miklebud]

Preface: Networking noob, trying to increase signal to my laptop and desktop with USB 150/mb wifi adapter.

So I just moved into a new apartment, a finished barn behind a 2 family house. I'm located maybe 50-80ft from the landlord's unsecure Netgear WNDR3400v2, in another building. I bought an ASUS RT-N10P from Newegg recently, in hopes of using it's repeater capabilities.

In theory it worked, but only marginally (I understand it cuts the bandwidth in half). The signal gets broadcast pretty far, enough for my Chromecast to stream fine about 100+ away from the Netgear. Speedtest shows good results of ~10up and ~7down. Pingtest shows dramatic packet loss, and usually get a D* rating... And gaming on FPS's shows a ping of ~40, but will spike to 800ms+ for 10+ seconds at a time, resulting in kicks, lag, and rubber banding. And my Macbook constantly buffers when streaming Hulu.

So, what are my options here?
•I've got the passwords to the Netgear GUI, so I can tinker with the backend.
•Ask to run a cable to the apartment and possibly use the RT-N10P as a WAP? (I've never done that before).
•Buy a bigger, better, faster router (ASUS RT-N66U)
•Flash the RT-N10P to Tomato? (Again, never done this before, don't know the true benefits)
•Buy better PCI Wifi adapter

 

[s44]

You should have asked us first...

Anyway wires is obviously the best. That may be too much of a hassle, though. Alternately you could install two point-to-point wireless units, like the Ubiquiti NanoBridge:
http://www.amazon.com/NanoBridge-Cos...dp/B0055PKSCK/

Seems a little overkill for 50', but it will be way more solid than you've got now.

And holy crap, make them secure the network with WPA2!

A less elaborate (but also less reliable, since you're relying on the signal from the 3700) alternative would be to forget repeating and run a dual-band router in bridge mode on 2.4ghz and AP on 5ghz. But that won't work with the 2.4ghz-only Chromecast.

 

[Miklebud]

I think the possibility of running a wire is a good bet! So, theoretically, they'd run a cable from their router to my place. I'd plug that cable into my RT-N10P and set it up as a WAP. Is it that simple? Any other things I'd need to do?

Also, security isn't a main concern, there are no neighbors. We're in the middle of VT... But I know the connection we're getting is at least a 50+mb connection from Comcast.

 

[Miklebud]

A less elaborate (but also less reliable, since you're relying on the signal from the 3700) alternative would be to forget repeating and run a dual-band router in bridge mode on 2.4ghz and AP on 5ghz. But that won't work with the 2.4ghz-only Chromecast.

The Netgear WNDR3400v2 is a dual band. It broadcasts 2.4ghz & 5ghz. The 5ghz signal doesn't reach, but the 2.4 does (even without the repeater, but only 1 bar).