With The Neighbour

Hey experts.

I Got a signal strength problem.

Ok I just moved out on my own and I gave my router to my neighbour and she's letting me use her internet for free. how cool eh?

At first, the signal was low (as in very low, low, high, and very high) and adaquate enough for my standards and use. I played online poker for 12 hours at least, it worked with no problem.

So the problem came the following day when I was playing, it disconnected me so i clicked the box in the bottom-right and it told me the strength was low. I've checked it for a day now and it has stayed low.

I don't want to continue bothering my neighbour with this problem, but going up there once to unplug it or to move it in a better location wouldn't be too harmful.

I still have internet now (as i am sending this e-mail), I just can't play online poker anymore and I wanted to.

so let's try to tell you everything that you can analyze so we can try to get this signal to stop dropping.

ok,

1. i'm in the basement of a house and my neighbour/the router is on the 2nd floor. (which means i'm somewhat directly below the router)
2. 54.0 MBPS
3. firmware 3.20
4. I password protected it...(just thought i'd mention)
5. AP 2.4GHz mode Ready. Channel : 1 TxRate : best SSID (whatever that is)
6. I tried flippin the channels
7. It was warmer the day it was most strong.

So the main thing is I would like to try to do some tests from the router console menu (http://192.168.0.1/) to try to increse the signal before I decided to physically go up there and run some tests.

Could you possibly lists some things i could check from my computer and then list some measures i can take if i have to go back to my neighbours unit, for example, I still havn't just unplugged the router for 60 seconds to see if that would solve it (here's hoping it will). another example i could think of is to move the router around a little (i may only be able to move it to the other side of the computer desk, but i can try it) and lastly i think that i might be able to scrape together 20 bucks for a cheap signal booster if you all suggest it would help. (do they have those? and by they, i mean the guys at staples or best buy) .

Many thanks for your experienced opinions,
J . H .