WiFi range: Is it supposed to be this bad? Could Linksys be limiting access point range to sell range boosters?

[CZroe]

I have two Belkin 802.11b cards and a Linksys 802.11b/54g (Preliminary 802.11g) router. I bought the router because range was crap between the two cards in AdHoc mode (I had to leave them right next to eachother to get 11mbps, less than a foot) and I couldn't bridge my card in XP without causing problems (I didn't want to continue using ICS and NAT when my ISP allows multiple PCs/IPs).

Range is better, but not much. I have about 75% strength in link quality and signal strength from the next room within line-of-sight. I can't get it to stay at a steady 100% even when I hold the laptop inches away from the access point. Of course, I'm not saying it should stay at 100% from this distance, but it should at least remain in "Excellent" range (It keeps dropping to "Good" or "Fair" when I'm only 5 feet away). Does this indicate interference? I live in an 80' trailer and I can't even go to the bathroom in the middle of the trailer without it loosing connection... and not a flaky on/off kinda loss, I mean staying lost until I get back in the living room or the room right next to the access point.

It irks me. I thought 802.11g has increased range and considering that it (inter)operates at the same frequency, I thought it would at least be a pretty strong access point for older 802.11b cards also. Could Linksys be purposely limiting the range of their wireless access points just to sell the range booster upgrade? I noticed that they started selling them around when they started making 54g products :|

Oh, and I noticed one other thing. I always leave "Transmit rate" set to "Fully Automatic" and in AdHoc it fluctuates depending on distance. With the router, it doesn't fluctuate at all. My utility always reports 11mbps even at the limits of its range before crapping out.
I have tried different channels. I noticed that my 900MHz wireless Wavebird controllers on channel 14 affect channel 11 in AdHoc mode, but they're turned off. I've also tried 802.11b channel 1 and am currently on Linksys' default channel 6.

 

[Cat]

Bump for an interesting question.

 

[Snoop]

Have you tried a different client pc card?
I use an orinocco/lucent card and can go to any room in my house, as well as my neighbors house and still get a decent signal.
Also, I believe all access points including your linksys, have around the same range as they all have a cap on signal strenth.
Only other thing I can think of is to try updating the firmware on your cards at Belkins website.
GL

 

[CZroe]

Originally posted by: Snoop
Have you tried a different client pc card?
I use an orinocco/lucent card and can go to any room in my house, as well as my neighbors house and still get a decent signal.
Also, I believe all access points including your linksys, have around the same range as they all have a cap on signal strenth.
Only other thing I can think of is to try updating the firmware on your cards at Belkins website.
GL

No, I have no other brand of cards to test. I have two of them though, & I have tried them both so I know it isn't that mine shipped with a broken internal antenna or anything.

I'm told that WiFi has an average useable range of about 150' in less-than-optimal environments without line-of-sight. An Orinoco is ABOVE average Mine cannot maintain a connection from a distance of around 45' from the access point. in an 80' trailer, I should have no problems

BTW, a cap enforces an upper limit. I'm suggesting that Linksys may be dipping beneath that a little to sell the stackable range-booster add-on (Which probably brings it back up to the FCC's capped limit). I actually can't find any specific 802.11g/54g reference in the description on their site, but it was released at about the same time and 54g is 2.4GHz so it should be compatable.

 

[mschell]

I've never seen any WiFi setup hold a 100% signal strength regardless on proximity and have found very little throughput differences between 95-75%. 75-50% saw a 10-15% reduction in TP but a whopping 50%+ reduction in throughput from the half to quarter signal strength. This is using a Linksys router with Linksys cards.
You could have some strange EMI somewhere reducing your range but this might be hard to TS. Interference usually just causes the link quality to drop. There are some software progs that analyze the link quality and let you know what's causing poor throughput - can't remember the name however.

 

[Hanny]

i have a linksys 802.11b router and a wifi cf card for my pocket pc, also a usb adapter for one of my comps.

with my pocket pc i checked the range on it, i get 100% in all 3 rooms in the upstairs of my house (where the router is). and about 80% in the basement two floors down (also with all the kitched appliances in between).

maybe it has to do with all the stuff being linksys, but i doubt it.

the model numbers are the wcf12 cf card, befw11s4 router, and i forget which usb adapter. anyways the usb is always at full signal stregth according it xp, and it is certainly always running at 11mbps.

 

[CZroe]

It tried the whole setup at a friend's house. The range was about the same without line-of site as with line-of-site at my home. I found that the best channel at home is 3, where I can get 100% link quality from this next room if I hold the laptop JUST RIGHT. If I cup my hand around the WiFi card or even turn around the card looses connection. From 100% to 0% with a difference of only a few inches sounds pretty serious. What the hell?!

 

[OverVolt]

It's gotta be interference only thing i can think of.

 

[CZroe]

I unlpugged every electrical device in my room. I unplugged every electrical device in the kitchen. I unplugged every electrical device in the router's room including the cable modem (Link quality was all that mattered in this test). I even unplugged my laptop. I then plugged in only the router an booted the laptop on battery power. Channel 11 was impossible to operate on. 1 was nearly as bad. 6 was a little better. Channel 3 (My previous setting) was no different. One website I read mentioned that channel 1, 6 and 11 have no "overlap" and that one of those should be the clearest, but not in my case. During this test, cupping my hand over the card would always cause the quality to dip to poor or disconnect.

I need a different brand client card to test, but I can't imagine that Belkin would still be in business if it really is a problem with their model

Because I've tried two of them, I doubt they both have an abnormal problem.

 

[Tripitz]

Didn't Tom's hardware do a review of the Linksys G access point and found that it had some serious problems dealing with the .b standard? You might want to check there. They were very disappointed with the results and said it really required some serious firmware updates for it to be a viable setup, if I remember correctly.

 

[CZroe]

Yes, and it didn't work with my cards at all before the upgrade. I don't see haw range could be affected if the upgrade fixed compatability but it is possible