WiFi problem

[x213a]

Please could I have some advice with the following problem?

My BT master socket is situated in a boiler room with no power that is accessed through the bathroom! My SKY connectivity plugged into the extension sockets is intermittent at best. SKY have now told me I have no option other than to get my master socket re-located or to connect via WiFi.
I now have a power lead running through my bathroom with the supplied Netgear router in the corner.I can connect perfect with high signal with my laptop but my PC in the bedroom (5m away) only picks up a very low signal and sometimes fails to connect. Sometimes it connects but will not let me access the internet. I have tried switching router channels etc but there was no change. I think the problem may lie with my wireless card in my PC. I know it's a D-link and at some point I uninstalled it ages ago. I then re-installed it by taking a few lucky guesses and downloading the drivers again etc. Does anybody know how I can find out exactly what sort it is so I can install it correctly? I'm not computer savvy enough to dismantle my pc and start delving inside.
Is there any solution to this?

Cheers.

[Jofm5]

Okay,

First things first.......

Your BT Master socket is in a boiler room that has no power....

Are you entirely sure that is the only master socket in your home ? it seems highly unusual for that to be the location as BT would not normally expect you to sit in a boiler room to answer your phone - after all if you had a cordless phone you would require power to run the cordless base station. I would question that being the master socket from the start unless your one hundred percent sure. Do not take the call centre in india's word that it will be the socket with the BT logo on it as you can have multiples of those. If you have a BT line from a telegraph pole, follow the cable to your house and observe where it breaks into the walls - thats where your master socket will be.

If you are encountering problems with an extension being run off of the master socket then you need to establish what is going on with that. If its a cheap extension kit e.g. something from argos then yes it can encounter noise - a good way to check is plug a normal phone into the extension and listen for static on the line. A good extension will give a minor degredation of dsl performance but nothing drastic.

Finally, your wifi connection.... your dsl router does not have to be connected to the bt line for you to test your wifi connection. try putting everying in the same room and see what happens - I would suspect if you had driver problems you would get no connection rather than a bad connection.

If you could provide more info on what you have done to establish connection spead/reliability we can try some more things to eliminate the problems. Of benefit would be to find out if your router is 802.11 A/B/G or N and if possible what your wireless adapter is compatible with - We can then narrow it down from there.

[x213a]

Thanks for the reply.
I'm basing my assumption on the one in question being the master socket because it's the only one with the removeable faceplate. It is also labelled as such. We live in a rented loft conversion of a cottage. Maybe thats why it's in such a weird place??

To test connection / reliability so far I've been through every one of the SKY checks (asked every time I've had to phone them). Router plugged into test socket in master socket, swapped micro-filters around etc.


Of benefit would be to find out if your router is 802.11 A/B/G or N and if possible what your wireless adapter is compatible with - We can then narrow it down from there. Yesterday 23:08



I'm at work until 6am so will post what info I can glean when I get home. How do I find what my wireless adapter is compatible with though? I know it's a D-link but thats about it.

Thanks for the help:)

[Jofm5]

The removeable faceplate means very little, it only means that when you remove the faceplate you can plug your device in below where the bottom plate was removed - you can have many of these around the house - the intended convention is that the advanced face plate is used on the master socket and extensions have a basic socket - in reality - the guy from bt will use what will serve the purpose as he is being measured on performance - so if they do not have any of the basic face plates left - he will use what is to hand (they are the same but a tad more expesnsive).

[x213a]

Can the drop in speed / connectivity between a master and extension socket really be as dramatic as SKY have informed me? They say they cannot do anything with an extension socket and have had to keep lowering the speed, capping it at 1.3meg etc just so the line would hold.
It got to the stage where everytime the PC had been off for a while the connection would drop (amber light or no light on router) and I had to make a phonecall..any phonecall, then the connection would start again about a minute into it.

I'm 4k from the exchange and my line can apparently support 2meg.

[Jofm5]

The simple answer from sky's point of view will be yes it can - and in reality it can.

But to be more realistic... it depends on a number of factors.


If you are 4k from the exchange and when you add another 10m on with an extension cable it drops by half then you need to be logical as to why that has happened.

If you go to argos and by a cheap telephone extension cable you will get a thin wire with two cores to carry the signal, this is not the same sort of cable between your house and the exchange.

If however you spend money on a shielded cable (it will have a copper braid surrounding the two cores to stop interference) then you will get a minimal drop in performance because the noise from other electrical appliances is shielded from the signals on the cores within the cable. This is the principle reason why most ISP's ask for the master socket - the 20ft you extend with crappy cable can be way worse than the 4km with proper cable.

So if you get a proper shielded cable for your extension lead, the loss over distance would be no more than adding the loss over the 4k to the exchange your already at.

You pay for what you get lol - it can be that dramatic if you use cheap cable, you can improve it by making sure that you have shielded cable so as to prevent the interference. have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_pair

Dont pay more for a cable if its not shielded, but if you pay for shielding then you minimise the noise from appliances and will achieve no worse a distance than if you were connected to the exchange directly. Avoid running a cable next to AC cables where possible and definately not near a pump motor.

Every cable when active will act like an aerial, you just need to shield against it - or add distance so the interferance is weak.

[x213a]

What do you suggest I try next? There are 3 sockets. The one that I presume to be the master socket, the one in the bedroom that has so far failed to hold connection and one more in the living room.
Is there a way I can obtain the line stats myself after trying each combination?

Thanks.

[Jofm5]

Whats the router your using ?

Your wifi problem is sperate from your dsl problem so lets sort that first.

Depending on your router we could look at the stats from it to measure the connection quality in each socket.

[x213a]

The router is the standard SKY issue Netgear one (black). Sorry, I cant state the exact model until I get home and take a closer look!
I cite the colour because when SKY ask they ask black or white.

[Jofm5]

I dont hold that much confidence in sky, yet I cannot ciritcise as I am unfamiliar with both.

I would say disconnect your router and whilst its in the same room sort out connectivity to that before you move on.

To do this you need to be able to get to the router menu which is most likely on http://192.168.2.1 or http://192.168.1.1 (put these addesses in a web broswer to acess your router configuation). Once you have that stable you can get to getting your internet stable.

[x213a]

I have looked at my router settings but they dont mean much to me. I saw I had channels 1-13 and 11 was selected from default. I have tried swapping to different channels etc. I also note there are different modes. I think it was set to A & G or something like that. I have wep encyption set also and allowed mac access for the laptop and the WII.

[Jofm5]

ok,

WEP is wireless encryption, you will be asked to set a key - and you require the same key entered on whatever device you want to access it.

The best way is to get it working without encryption beforehand and add that after, do it one step at a time.

Dont worry about the channel - the preference on channel is only important if you have a high number of users of similar equipment in the same building.

Your modes, A, B,G,N are about the bandwidth that will be available. you will only be able to communicate on a compatible mode - so if you have a 802.11b card it should be able to do a/b but may only be able to be able to do 802.11b.

Whilst your modem may be able to do 802.11n if your wifi card is so old it can only do B then dont waste time by letting it negotiate through the spectrum.

[x213a]

I know my D-link card is at least 3 years old.

How can I nail down exactly the make of D-link card my PC has installed? Without opening it up that is. Is there a way of detecting it or searching for automatic updates for firmware online etc?

Cheers:)

[Jofm5]

It will do 802.11g if its 3 years old,

You wont need to open it up but as an older card it may not do the more secure mechanisms for securing your channels.

If you set your router to WEP (wireless ecryption protocol) it wont work if your connecting to something expecting something else.