help with wireless adapter

Good evening.

I have a Linksys wireless router (WRT150N) and three computers. Two
of the computers are laptops, which came wireless-ready. The laptops
get a 'very good signal' anywhere in the house, including right next
to our one desktop. This desktop did not come wireless ready, so I
installed a Linksys wireless adapter (WUSB300N). The wireless
connection never gets better than 'very low' signal. I have updated
the driver for the adapter to the latest driver available on the
Linksys site.

Can anyone think of any setting in the desktop that might help?

I am running XP Pro on a Dell with Celeron 1.8 GHz and 512 MB of RAM.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kathryn

On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:48:37 -0700, kbutterly <kbutterly@yahoo.com>
wrote:

>I have a Linksys wireless router (WRT150N) and three computers. Two
>of the computers are laptops, which came wireless-ready. The laptops
>get a 'very good signal' anywhere in the house, including right next
>to our one desktop. This desktop did not come wireless ready, so I
>installed a Linksys wireless adapter (WUSB300N). The wireless
>connection never gets better than 'very low' signal. I have updated
>the driver for the adapter to the latest driver available on the
>Linksys site.

Did you update the WRT150N firmware?

>Can anyone think of any setting in the desktop that might help?

Oh yes... Let's grind through the logic.

Both your WRT150N and WUSB300N are both Pre-N MIMO compatible. My
guess(tm) is that the other laptops, that came with internal wireless
devices are NOT Pre-N MIMO compatible. Is this correct?

It could be that the WRT150N and WUSB300N hate each other in the Pre-N
MIMO mode. MIMO is made for speed, but that usually means lousy
range. If you've set the WRT150N for something like "use MIMO if
available", it's going to run in MIMO mode, giving you great speed
when close, but crappy range.

Go to this page in your router:
<http://www.linksysdata.com/ui/WRT150N/1.01.2/Wireless_Basic.htm>
and try different settings. I suggest you try the following:
Wireless Mode: B-G Mixed
which effectively disables MIMO. If that magically fixes the problem,
then come back and I'll recommend some other changes on this page. If
you insist that MIMO has to work (because you paid for it), then there
are also some other tinkering on that page that will help. However,
whatever gets changed from the displayed defaults, it's going to be at
the expense of feature or performance reduction. There's no free
lunch and what we're trading is range for speed.

>I am running XP Pro on a Dell with Celeron 1.8 GHz and 512 MB of RAM.

Dell what model? I like numbers.
--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

On Thu, 28 Jun 2007 00:05:12 GMT, Jeff Liebermann
<jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us> wrote:

>Go to this page in your router:
><http://www.linksysdata.com/ui/WRT150N/1.01.2/Wireless_Basic.htm>
>and try different settings. I suggest you try the following:
> Wireless Mode: B-G Mixed
>which effectively disables MIMO. If that magically fixes the problem,
>then come back and I'll recommend some other changes on this page. If
>you insist that MIMO has to work (because you paid for it), then there
>are also some other tinkering on that page that will help. However,
>whatever gets changed from the displayed defaults, it's going to be at
>the expense of feature or performance reduction. There's no free
>lunch and what we're trading is range for speed.

One different thing to try on this page:
<http://www.linksysdata.com/ui/WRT150N/1.01.2/Wireless_Advanced.htm>
Leave the previous "Basic Wireless Settings" page at the original
defaults, but change the "N Transmission Rate" from "auto" to the
lowest speed (0-13.5Mbits/sec). This will leave MIMO functional, but
slow it down so that it might just work at whatever range your doing
your testing.

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@cruzio.com
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS