Improving Linksys WRT610N Range

[Carnagerover]

Improving Linksys WRT610N Range With Expresscard

Just thought that i would update, as I received the Linksys WRT610N today, yay;

So far so good, I'm more than happy with it, I can get good connection speeds in the lounge and in my Bedroom, I can get 11MB\s in the lounge, where the router is situated, but that does vary, i also get between 6-8MB\s in the bedroom. Definitely the best I have had so far.

The only place that has trouble now is the spare room, not so great in there, but i think the culprit maybe next door as i think we both steal each others bandwidth from time to time.

When I look in my WIFI stats now I see the following;

My connection, WIFI has a signal of 100% on Channel 1 in the lounge

The next in line is my neighbours connection at 61% on Channel 6

This must be having a negative effect on my bandwidth, hence the reason i bought the dual band really in the first place.

What can i do to maximize my connection, i have made sure we are not on the same channel is there anything else i can do ?

I believe the router is running in 20Mhz mode.

Its weird as when i am in the spare room, if I am connected to the Linksys with the built in WIFI i get a steady 2-2.5MB\s, if I am connected to the Linksys with the DWA-643, I get anywhere from less than 1MB to 4MB\s, sometimes when I am first starting a transfer, it will start at 3MB\s for example and then it will kind of stall, then work its way back from nothing up to around 1-2MB\s.

I am not sure if this is a issue with the range on the DWA-643, I wouldn't have though so as it has quite a high signal in the spare room but it must be closer to the neighbours router as there connection is not that much lower.

Although the built in WIFI will have a much bigger annetna so I would imagine this helps no end with a steady stream.

This must be what is affecting me in the spare room as it works like a charm everywhere else.

Anyway thumbs up for the linksys

 

[tipstir]

Just thought that i would update, as I received the Linksys WRT610N today, yay;

So far so good, I'm more than happy with it, I can get good connection speeds in the lounge and in my Bedroom, I can get 11MB\s in the lounge, where the router is situated, but that does vary, i also get between 6-8MB\s in the bedroom. Definitely the best I have had so far.

The only place that has trouble now is the spare room, not so great in there, but i think the culprit maybe next door as i think we both steal each others bandwidth from time to time.

When I look in my WIFI stats now I see the following;

My connection, WIFI has a signal of 100% on Channel 1 in the lounge

The next in line is my neighbours connection at 61% on Channel 6

This must be having a negative effect on my bandwidth, hence the reason i bought the dual band really in the first place.

What can i do to maximize my connection, i have made sure we are not on the same channel is there anything else i can do ?

I believe the router is running in 20Mhz mode.

Its weird as when i am in the spare room, if I am connected to the Linksys with the built in WIFI i get a steady 2-2.5MB\s, if I am connected to the Linksys with the DWA-643, I get anywhere from less than 1MB to 4MB\s, sometimes when I am first starting a transfer, it will start at 3MB\s for example and then it will kind of stall, then work its way back from nothing up to around 1-2MB\s.

I am not sure if this is a issue with the range on the DWA-643, I wouldn't have though so as it has quite a high signal in the spare room but it must be closer to the neighbours router as there connection is not that much lower.

Although the built in WIFI will have a much bigger annetna so I would imagine this helps no end with a steady stream.

This must be what is affecting me in the spare room as it works like a charm everywhere else.

Anyway thumbs up for the linksys

I am sure someone from Cisco/Linksys is listening! Have fun!

 

[Carnagerover]

Hi,

Just trying to get some idea how much damage neighbouring WIFI routers are causing my setup, if they are running G/N set up's how much of a problem is that likely to be for me.

I would imagine the closer i am to it the more potential damage, hence my spare room problems ?

Also what exactly is the difference between 20mhz and 40mhz, it defaults to 20mhz but my spare laptop only connects at 130mbps when it is on 20mhz.

 

[thiggins]

I have split this off into a new thread. Same for the Belkin N1 posts. Please start new threads when you change topics. Makes it easier for others to find topics of interest.

The 2.4 GHz band has three non-overlapping channels: 1, 6 and 11. Standard 802.11b/g WLANs operating in each of those channels will not interfere with WLANs on the other channels.

Once you get into non-standard technologies, then there could be interference problems. But I think your problem is more due to the performance difference in adapters.

20 MHz is the bandwidth of a standard 802.11b/g channel. 40 MHz is the bandwidth of two channels operating at the same time. This can improve throughput, but at the expense of interfering with other networks.

 

[Carnagerover]

I just looked at this and though i dont remember making this thread

Will create new topics next time its just all the different posts were linked from the start and followed on from each other.

Right so if I was operating in 40Mhz then i would run the risk of interference as for example, running in both channel 1 and 6 to gain the extra throughput ?

As for the adapter, there is no real way for me to improve on that other that buying a Laptop with built in N wifi. I can't buy a better antenna for it to improve the range.

Are you saying that the range is the problem ?

What is weird is that i have a 70% signal in the Spare room but still have these slow throughput problems in there, so i can only imagine it is distance and maybe a little channel interference.

What i need is a USB VS Expresscard vs Cardbus comparision for all the latest N adapters showing which is the best for range and throughput, so if you want to get that underway in the next couple of days that would be ideal

 

[Carnagerover]

Also and more importantly,

Do you think that when I use get the large sudden drop in wireless performance that this is the same that you mention in your review.

I have noticed this a couple of times now when copying files, I currently have the 5GHz switched off as I am not using it.

I can be transferring a file or and it will start ok and then it will freeze on the windows vista copying application for around 10 seconds and then it will start counting the speed from 0kbps and go up from there ?

This has happened to me when I am copying files in the bedroom so this problem is no longer exclusive to my spare room.

I think part of the reason I find Wireless both fascinating and infuriating lies with the fact that you can have a Laptop in the exact same place and do two separate files transfers, one then the other. The first one will go at say 9MB\s maybe dropping just under 8MB\s. The next one will go at 6MB\s and then maybe drop just under ?

All my wireless stuff has done this and the fact that I can't do anything about it makes me a little sad, but there are no guarantees with wireless, I know this but thinking I get keep getting it better spurs me on and at the same time costs me more money, I could try another wireless Expresscard but I have to draw the line somewhere.

 

[thiggins]

Draft 11n is still in its infancy. Drivers and firmware are constantly being tweaked and different vendors roll out new versions at different rates.
Interoperability among the different chipmakers is improving, but each vendor is focused on first optimizing performance within its own devices.

It could just be that the DWA-643 (which uses an Atheros chipset) and the WRT610N (which uses Broadcom chipsets) have different algorithms that cause the behavior you are seeing. This may change over time, but then again, maybe it won't.

As I have said before, for best operation with draft 11n, you need to to use "matching", i.e. from the same product family, adapters and wireless routers.

Or, you could just try setting the router to 11b/g mode and see how that works.

 

[Carnagerover]

Hi,

There is no Linksys expresscard available in the UK yet, so maybe that's my problem. I have just today taken delivery of a DG834GT today, which is a Netgear which uses a Broadcom chipset the same as my DSLAM, at my exchange.

I put some custom firmware on there, and it is running fine with my provider, I am also using it as a Wireless G point for my Wii, I now have my Linksys running in Wireless N only mode on channel 1 and my Netgear modem working as a bridge with the wireless access point on for my Wii on channel 11, which is wireless g, and anyone else that would like to use a device in the house.

 

[Carnagerover]

I haven't noticed the throughput problem yet with no wireless security, but I haven't really been testing either.

I am currently running 40mhz N only Wide Channel 3, standard channel 1,Auto on 40mhz doesn't seem to work at all so I have to specify the channel.

It would seem that WPA2 is causing the throughput problems from what i am reading, more testing required

New firmware available from Linksys website for anyone who is interested.