The Members Forum

One of the most common networking questions is "How do I increase the range of my wireless connection?" There's nothing more frustrating than no connection, dropped connections, or poor throughput—all of which can be caused by a signal that's not reaching from your router to your laptop or netbook. The problem is, there are any number of reasons why the signal might be too weak.

Maybe it's sheer distance. You may have a room in your home or office that is simply too far from your wireless router. Maybe it's the layout of your home: If the signals have to bounce around too many corners to reach your endpoints, that can cause problems. Maybe it's interference with the signal. If you live in an apartment building, your home might be inundated with signals from everyone else's routers. Maybe it's structural interference. If your furnace, washing machine, and dryer are all between your router and your laptop, that doesn't help. Maybe it's the software you're using. Routers need software updates just like everything else—and sometimes the firmware they initially ship with is surprisingly buggy.

Those are just a few of the possible reasons your connection might be poor (or nonexistent). Fortunately, there are many ways to extend your wireless signal, and most of them simply involve a bit of tweaking to your wireless network or adding some affordable components. We'll walk you through ten of the most useful fixes for your connectivity woes.

PC Mag has the details HERE!