Wireless strength fine on 2 Laptops but not on 3rd - where would i start?

Hi, hopefully this is easy for someone - if not i am looking at replacing a laptop, or smashing it up in frustration

We have 2 Mac laptops and one HP one. With a Netgear router + Netgear booster, the macs can get good/very good signal pretty much throughout the house.

But the HP laptop just seems to take ages to connect to the internet unless it's sitting next to the routers. Take it next door and its down to one bar of strength and runs like a dog - the Macs sit next to it working away just fine!

I'm not sure where to even start with this - is it even possible that wireless cards affect strength? or do they simply work or not?

Any quick starters for 10 appreciated.

thx.

You don't say if your using the internal wireless on the laptop or an addon card. If you are using the internal wireless have you tried turning it off and adding a third party adaptor of any kind. The adaptor can be USB or PCMCIA.

Also what OS is on the laptop and does it have the latest drivers?


Regards

Fred

thanks Fred for first response.

I am using internal wireless and have not tried and adaptors (being limited in techy stuff i hadn't thought of that) Are you recommending I do this (is it an off-chance or something which is known to help?), and can you recommend any particular type or one which is good value?

The OS is Windows home XP, running with SP2. Is that what yuo mean by "drivers"?

Thanks
Kenny.