WGU624 + MA401 = little or no range at all.

I have had an older Netgear MR814 routher for some time, using it in
conjunction with a Netgear MA401 card in a Dell Latitude L400 laptop.
This has worked fairly well, the range isn't great but it gets me
around the house.

I recently bought a refurbished Netgear WGU624 with the idea I would
eventually upgrade the card in the laptop so that both could use the G
or 108Mbs speeds. I also thought the range might improve. Anyway, as
I was away most of the summer I never got to hooking up the new router
fro a couple of months. Once I did I had a few difficulties, but
eventually got it running and upgraded with the latest firmware. Now,
I'm still using my original card in the laptop, so I'm still at
802.11b. The range is abysmal. If I move 20 feet from the router, the
signal drops 50%. If I go 1 floor away, I lose it completely. It is
in the same location as the old router. So it is unusable for
wireless. I hooked the old router back up, my thought being I can at
least keep the new one for a hard-wire backup for my home network as I
can't return it.

Netgear support will not help me, and that is another, very
disappointing story (can you spell "off-shoring"). Suffice it to say I
will never buy another Netgear product, and I have always used them,
but I can't support companies that do this (I know, pretty soon I won't
be able to buy anything). But I digress...

My question is: do you think the problem is the mix of an older card
with the newer router, or just a bad router? Is it worth it to get a G
card? Has anybody had good luck with this router? Is there any kind
of a tweak that might help?

-Jim

Jim, first of all B has better range than G. most people dont realize
that. Secondly,,, these routers cost $20. just get new linksys and
supercharge it yourself.
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/06...a_60_link.html

Robert Kim
2611 s highway 101 suite 203
cardiff ca 92007
http://evdo-coverage.com
http://wireless-internet-access-provider.com


jtpr wrote:
> I have had an older Netgear MR814 routher for some time, using it in
> conjunction with a Netgear MA401 card in a Dell Latitude L400 laptop.
> This has worked fairly well, the range isn't great but it gets me
> around the house.
>
> I recently bought a refurbished Netgear WGU624 with the idea I would
> eventually upgrade the card in the laptop so that both could use the G
> or 108Mbs speeds. I also thought the range might improve. Anyway, as
> I was away most of the summer I never got to hooking up the new router
> fro a couple of months. Once I did I had a few difficulties, but
> eventually got it running and upgraded with the latest firmware. Now,
> I'm still using my original card in the laptop, so I'm still at
> 802.11b. The range is abysmal. If I move 20 feet from the router, the
> signal drops 50%. If I go 1 floor away, I lose it completely. It is
> in the same location as the old router. So it is unusable for
> wireless. I hooked the old router back up, my thought being I can at
> least keep the new one for a hard-wire backup for my home network as I
> can't return it.
>
> Netgear support will not help me, and that is another, very
> disappointing story (can you spell "off-shoring"). Suffice it to say I
> will never buy another Netgear product, and I have always used them,
> but I can't support companies that do this (I know, pretty soon I won't
> be able to buy anything). But I digress...
>
> My question is: do you think the problem is the mix of an older card
> with the newer router, or just a bad router? Is it worth it to get a G
> card? Has anybody had good luck with this router? Is there any kind
> of a tweak that might help?
>
> -Jim

"robert evdo hsdpa kim" <evdo.hsdpa@gmail.com> hath wroth:

>Jim, first of all B has better range than G.

Baloney. For roughly equal speeds, 802.11g has much more receiver
sensitivity than the equivalent 802.11b speeds. For example, the
DI-624 router has speeds at:

Mbps Type PER dBm Mbs Type PER dBm
54 OFDM 10% -68 11 CCK 8% -82
48 OFDM 10% -68 9 OFDM 10% -87
36 OFDM 10% -75 6 OFDM 10% -88
24 OFDM 10% -79 5.5 CCK 8% -85
18 OFDM 10% -82 2 QPSK 8% -86
12 OFDM 10% -84 1 BPSK 8% -89

There's a 3dB improvement in receive sensitivity for 6Mbits/sec OFDM
versus 5.5Mbits/sec 802.11b. That's about a 70% improvement in range.
In addition, 802.11g is much less susceptible to reflections and
interference problems than 802.11b. Lastly, the 802.11g hardware
tends to use later chipsets and designs which are usually (not always)
a substantial improvement over previous 802.11b only incantations.

Why do you think the 802.11b had better range?

>most people dont realize
>that. Secondly,,, these routers cost $20. just get new linksys and
>supercharge it yourself.
>http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/06...a_60_link.html

Yep. Install DD-WRT v23 sp2. Been doing that. The only problem is
that the WRT54G/GS really have a not so wonderful radio section. The
Linux router section is cool, but I'm not impressed with the RF
section (based on very limited testing at home).


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