Increasing Wireless reception

I use my computer at school for lectures, but am unable to get a consistent network connection. Instead, the connection goes in and out, effectively making the connection useless for me. Others around me with newer Mac laptop models do not have this problem and so I am assuming that the wireless reception is not as strong on my older model.
And so, does anyone know of a way to increase my reception? Is there a product I should buy that you would reccomend? Do I just need a new wireless card?
Thank you.

Are you using a QuickTek product? Wondering which one to buy....I'm looking for an antenna for my PB G4. Range at my home is terrible. Linksys router just isn't cutting it.

Similar Messages

Increasing wireless range by upgrading airport card?

I have had my powerbook G4 1.5 GHz for a little over 3 years and its been great for me except for its wireless range is somewhat lacking. When i have little or very limited connectivity people next to me with the new mac books have full reception. Now i know that their computers have new hardware and possibly better antennas but i was wondering if there was any way to increase the range of my powerbook by upgrading some of the internal hardware. I have seen other posts and people have shown products that are external but i feel that would be a last resort since they have a better chance of being broken. Is there any way to increase the reception by installing a new airport card or better antenna?

Hi, El M. Since the day it was new, my son's Aluminum Powerbook with Airport Extreme card has had less than 1/3 the range of my Titanium Powerbook with original Airport card — and the Tibook's range isn't great. If you really want better range, a third-party CardBus wireless adapter is the way to go. Some can use optional auxiliary antennas to extend their range even more, but the card alone will give you a dramatic improvement.

Is my Macbook Pro the only one with lousy wireless reception/coverage

Hi,
I was expecting great things when i received my Macbook Pro last week. I was also prepared to go through a lot of testing for sound issues and heat, as i've read from so many other posts (my MBP seem to have none of these issues in any major way).
I used to work on my Powerbook G4 from 2005 which had a decent wireless reception (even compared to my wife's ibook G4).
But this macbook has the worst wireless reception i've ever seen! When running istumbler on both machines (PB, and MBP) and placing them side-by-side i'm getting a major difference in signal strength.
This is also basically what i see everywhere else with this MBP.
At the same time the MBP has problems connecting to Closed networks (airport extreme AP) and apparantly also lots of other wireless issues with authentication.
Am i the only experiencing this ?
Best Regards,
Lasse,
MBP 2.16, Powerbook G4, Ibook G4, Ibook G3 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
Powerbook G4, Tiger Mac OS X (10.4.2)

I'm curious, when did you get your MBP and what is the serial number of your MBP?
Thanks
i read early on that with the new antenna placement
and whatnot that the macbook pro was going to get far
better reception than the older powerbooks. this may
be true, because i've seen some powerbooks get bad
wireless reception, but my macbook pro gets about the
same reception as my iBook G4. which is pretty good,
so i'm not complaining ... i just think the "better
wireless reception" was overhyped. as far as
connection issues and dropping connections, etc.,
i've had no problems so far, and i regularly use my
MBP in 5 different open and closed wireless networks
with different levels of security.

Wireless Reception Woes - Fixed

I bought my wife a Macbook Pro this March. The first thing we noticed when we fired it up was the poor wireless reception compared to my PowerBook G4. Even kept side-by-side, the Macbook Pro had poor reception and high latency (when it did stay connected).
I knew it didnt have anything to do with my Wireless router (Netgear WGT624), because my other 2 Windows laptops and PowerBook connect just fine. I invested in a QuickerTek Connect @ $200 and it worked as advertised. Personally, I thought it looked ugly and returned it.
I took the MacBook Pro into the nearest Apple store and explained the problem to the Genius there. Given the volume of discussion about this topic on this forum, I would've thought he'd have a knowing smile on his face. However, he said he'd never heard of this issue. He showed me how he was seeing "all the bars" on the Airport icon when connecting from my wife's MacBook Pro at the Apple store.
Nevertheless, I insisted it didnt work at home and he sent it in for repairs. When it came back, lo and behold, wireless networking works just fine - it is on par with my PowerBook G4 now.
What did the repair center do? They replaced the "ANTENNA ASSY". I take it that means they replaced the antenna assembly (the dark gray bar on the hinge between the screen and keyboard).
My advise - if you are having wireless reception issues and your MacBook Pro is still under warranty, take it into an Apple Store for repairs.
Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.5)

I went ahead and invested in a QuickerTek Transciever for MacBook Pro (http://www.quickertek.com/MBProXCVR.php - $200). The wireless reception improved a lot.
While I was reading another post on these discussion board, I came across a suggestion to only enable Wireless G on my router. All this while, my router (Netgear WGT624) was set to use Auto 108Mbps on Channel 6. I set it to "Wireless G only" and changed the channel to 8.
Now I have impeccable wireless reception. I'm going to return the Quickertek transciever and save myself $200
Macbook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.5)

MBP better wireless reception than PD?

Question for previous owners of PowerBooks who have upgraded to a MacBook Pro.
I'm thinking of upgrading to a new MBP 17". Do MBP's have better wireless reception than PowerBooks? I have a powerbook G4 17" 1.5ghz, my friends MacBook (white) has way better reception. The MacBook can see about 10 local wireless networks and connects with good reception while the powerbook rarely sees more than three, and I get barely any signal strength if any at all from the visible networks.
Christo

I can confirm what sig says, to an extent. My MBP does have slightly better reception than a PB, but it's nowhere near as good as an MB (or my iPhone/iPod Touch). I haven't had any issues with dependability. The main issue is the aluminum casing, since the MB and MBP have the same wireless card.
All of them are more than adequate for my needs, though. The MBP gets full strength from my wireless network; so does a laptop with a polycarbonate case, but the latter does see more of the neighbors' networks.

How's the wireless reception?

Sorry if this should be in the Networking section...I wasn't sure. But I was just wondering how well the reception is on the MBP? I have heard that the old Powerbooks had trouble connecting to access points because the aluminum casing hindered this. Any troubles getting wireless reception in places where plastic cased notebooks received it easily? Thanks in advance for any help.

I use a Dell Latitude D600 and a 15" MacBook Pro at both work and home and I find that the Dell usually reports a full strength signal and yet the MacBook suffers with bad reception. I originally thought this may be a channel problem but this is not the case.
At work we are currently using a Linksys access point and my laptops are about 20 meters from it. Dell reports full signal and MacBook reports about 2-3 bars strength.
At home I use a Belkin Pre-N router and everywhere in the house or garden the Dell reports full signal strength where as the MacBook Pro really suffers in the garden or upstairs.
Now the strange thing is upstairs I have an iMac G5 17" and that reports a full strength signal. Sit the MacBook Pro next to the iMac and the signal is no where near as good.
I am convinced that the antenna on the MacBook Pro suffers more purely because the case is aluminium (or whatever it is!) and this is the problem.
Can anyone shed some light on this?

Increasing Wireless Bandwidth

Hi,
I'm looking to combine three 54Mbps Wireless radios to increase wireless bandwidth, load balancing and redundancy. My intention was to create an etherchannel using the connected Cisco 2960 switch ports but I have read this is not a recommended solution. Could anyone provide details of a recommended solution and the required devices? Thanks in advance for your help.

If you're in a L2 scenario with lots of VLANs, then you can setup your three bridges and push different VLANs over different bridges - it's crude but it works. Obviously you'll need to run spanning tree!
If you want to do this properly though, you should be using 2.4GHz & 5GHz, not just one or the other.
Failing that, you could use other more dedicated equipment like Laser Links, or go to a manufacturer that specialises in high-capacity / high-reliability bridge links, as this kind of thing isn't really on Cisco's current portfolio.

Laptop Wireless Reception Very Poor

I've been using my PowerBook G4 for years on the kitchen table with excellent wireless reception until a few days ago when overnight it went completely. A hardware test proves the airport extreme card inside to be intact. Eventually I got a full signal back but only in the same room as the router (not even in the next room). My daughters intel MacBook continues to work absolutely fine so I don't think its to do with interference and I've tried changing channels on the router. Anybody got any ideas?

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Are you using an Apple Airport base station?
Does the problem occur when the microwave and any wireless phones are not in use? Are you in a single family home detached, rowhouse, or apartment complex?
If the latter two, maybe one of your neighbors has enabled something in that frequency that causes interference.

Wireless reception very poor on HomeHub 3

My wireless reception with my previous HH 2.0B had become very poor. The signal was starting to drop to 1 bar when the laptop was only 10 mtrs away from the hub. There are no thick walls or major obstacles in the way.
I discussed at length the problem with BT technical help and after eventually speaking with a supervisor / manager it was agreed that if I started a new 12 month contract they would send me a HH 3. They would also slightly reduce my monthly charge.
The HH 3 duly arrived but there is absolutely no difference in the wireless reception. There is certainly no improvement on the HH 2.
Has anyone else had this wireless problem and any possible solutions? It is very frustrating and bearing in mind all the adverts that the HH 3 is supposed to be the best it's very dissapointing.

I see any wireless router not much more than a gimmick, very easily the reverse would happen in my home.
There is so much that interferes with wireless in the home and the neighbour’s home and occasionally the people across the road. I can pretty much see the testing scenario for wireless routers and very likely far removed from what would be considered average home!
Take my set up when the home plugs are not burning out, the main computer sits around 3 metres away from the Hub type A, connected wireless has about ¾ reception and stutters with streaming. My daughters computer sits in what many would consider a dead spot has full reception streams IPlayer alike no problems. Move the hub in any direction a matter of Cms then it goes wobbly in the dead spot, this happens with 3 different manufactures of routers with varying extremes. |The type B Hub simply can’t be convinced to put its wireless in the dead
spot. Not very scientific but a average user home, I believe and I'm convinced wireless is as much use as a clairvoyant.
Mortgage Advisor 2000-2008
Green Energy Advisor 2008-2010
Charity Health Care Provider Advisor 2010-
I'm alright Jack....

Increasing wireless security access to TC

Hi again,
My TC is currently on WPA/WPA2 Personal with 8 characters password. How can I increase wireless security - like adding MAC (or better way of doing it)? I am not expert in this so please advice step by step.
Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the Discussions forums,
Have you tried setting the workgroup name in AirPort Utility? Select Manual Setup, then navigate to Disks > File Sharing and fill in the workgroup name of the XP machine. Make sure it's the exact name you've entered in your network settings of the XP laptop. Then you need to add the TC's IP to the list of trusted networks/zones in any firewalls you have installed on your XP machine. I had to add 10.0.1.1 to my list of trusted networks in my McAfee firewall for my machine to recognize devices connected to my TC (including other computers).
Second, you need to install Bonjour for Windows in order to install the printer on your XP laptop.
Also, if you would rather not go through the workgroup setup, there is a program called AirPort Base Station Agent (included in AirPort Utility for Windows) that loads into your taskbar and mounts and maps the TC's HDD automatically for you.

10.4.3 Kills Wireless Reception

Since upgrading my G4 17" PowerBook to 10.4.3, my wireless reception has been terrible. After the upgrade I had to be on the same floor within 15 feet of my Airport Extreme and my Linksys router. (The latter was a freebee from my ISP.)
When I spoke to the AppleCare representative he queried the Apple forums and said that some customers have had this problem and solved it by downgrading their Airport firmware to 5.5.1 (from the current 5.6). I did this and got modest improvement (and obviously no improvement to my Linksys), but my reception is still much poorer than before the upgrade to 10.4.3.
Does anyone have a better suggestion?
Thank you.

Rick, thanks for your added suggestions. I was not lost, just took a computer break over the holidays.
I've tried everything you have mentioned and have seen no improvement. Note that I have an Airport Extreme and a Linksys Wireless router. (I have used both since the AEBS works best if I am in range, but the range has always been significantly worse than the Linksys.) Hardware architecture and environment have not changed. (No fishtanks in my house - just a chinchilla and a humain society mut!) The problems started when I upgraded my PB to 10.4.3. (Also, I have a laptop PC from work that continues to work fine.)
Since my previous post I have also:
1. Upgraded my Airport Extreme firmware to v5.7. Of course this would have no effect on the Linksys.
2. Per the advice of a AppleCare representative, I installed AirPort Update 2005-001 (http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/airportupdate2005001.html) on my PB. Since I normally keep everything up-to-date using 'Software Update', 2005-0001 should have already been installed. However, the AppleCare representative suggested that I manually apply this update since the Apple developers have seen cases where the manual installation corrects problems. Wild, huh?
Anyway, still no improvement. I'm hopeful that 10.4.5 cleans up this mess. A quick search of the forums indicates that others are fighting similar issues.

Boosting wireless reception on iMac G5?

The rural community I live in has recently set up a satellite-based WiFi network for the locals to use. The main signal is brought in, then repeated out to several remote access points within the community. One of these points is directly opposite my house, about 300 yards away. This access point is an Airport Extreme base station, set to repeat out the signal.
I can "see" the nearby access point with both our iMac G5s and also with our iBook. The iBook gets usable signal strength (3 bars), but neither of the G5s get enough signal to be useful (0-2 bars). Both iMacs have Airport Extreme cards. The iBook has a plain Airport card.
I have reseated Airport cards and antennas, and checked for a fully-seated antenna connection. I'm confident this is not the problem. Plastic tab on the antenna lead is removed. I have changed channels several times.
Is there any way to boost the reception of these iMac G5s? Any way to set up an external antenna to improve reception? Any way to setup our network to make this work?
In an ideal world, I'd hope for some solution that all our computers could use, even the iBook. We do have a Windows machine we could use as a network hub, but I'd prefer to keep it in the closet where it belongs.
Resources:
2x iMac G5 (Airport Extreme card)
G3 iBook (Airport card)
15" gooseneck iMac G4 (no wireless card)
S6010v Compaq Presario (NIC card yes, wireless card no)
D-Link DI-524 Wireless router

I've read over and over that reseating the antenna and trying different channels is the way to solve the problem. Apparently, you have to reseat the antenna cable with much more force than you'll probably think is appropriate (check the archives for confirmation of this).
However, I have a question - for those of us with Rev. B iMac G5s, how do we do this? Apple provides instructions for the Rev. A models, but I don't have an Airport card where they show it. Does anyone know, and has anyone successfully reseated it on a Rev. B machine?

Poor Wireless Reception

My 18 month old Macbook does a poor job of picking up wireless signals unless it's close to the base station. For example, if I'm two rooms away in my home, the signal fades to nothing and I have to walk the computer toward the room with the base station to bring a signal back.
My daughter's Macbook has no problem - signal strength shows as strong in the menu bar all over the house. My iPod touch similarly seems to have good reception (although not as strong as indicated by my daughter's 'Book.
It wasn't always this way - I used to receive a strong signal everywhere in my home. Can the Airport receiver in the MacBook somehow degrade over time, or become damaged in some way?

There is a very good chance it has something wrong with it. You need to see about getting it serviced. There are lots of places that will fix it if your not under warranty anymore. Just do a search for MacBook repairs and you will find lots of places that can help.

How good is the HH3's wireless reception?

I have 4/5 bars in all rooms in my house but in my room I only have 2 bars I have a built in n adapter and a g router. The hh3 is wireless n. So could that boost it to 3 bars?

dylanere wrote:
I have 4/5 bars in all rooms in my house but in my room I only have 2 bars I have a built in n adapter and a g router. The hh3 is wireless n. So could that boost it to 3 bars?
No, all wireless "n" does is increase the connection speed when you have a good signal.
This link may help.
Wireless connection problems
There are some useful help pages here, for BT Broadband customers only, on my personal website.
BT Broadband customers - help with broadband, WiFi, networking, e-mail and phones.

WRT54GS2 as second router to increase wireless range

All-
I have a primary Linksys router, WRT110 that works great. I am trying to set up a WRT54GS2 as a downstairs wireless to increase range. I have a CAT5 running from the WRT110 to the WRT54GS2 and is connected from LAN to LAN and have them configured as follows:
Primary WRT110:
I.P: 192.168.1.1
Subnet 255.255.255.0
Start I.P: 10 to 50
DHCP enabled
Wireless mode : mixed
Band: Auto 20/40mz
WPA2 security
=================
WRT54GS2is configured as follows:
I.P: 192.168.1.2
Subnet 255.255.255.0
DHCP Disabled
Advanced Routing / NAT:Enabled
Wireless network = Mixed
Channel = 6 = 2.437mz
============
On both routers I have the same SSID and same security key.
On the Status page of the WRT54GS2 I have the following:
Login Type: DHCP
I.P and Subnet Mask are blank.
Any ideas where I erred? I've read quite a few posts relating to this and can't seem to find the problem.
Thanks!

Is the SSID broadcast enabled on both?
Is the device "within 15 feet" connected to the first router or second router? What happens if you switch off the wireless on that computer and then switch it on again?
What happens if you disable the wireless on the first router completely? (Wireless network mode to Off). Can you see the signal of the second router?
You could also use a network sniffer like Netstumbler http://www.netstumbler.com/downloads/ to scan for networks. It should show you the signals of both access points.
What are your full and exact Wireless and Wireless Security settings on both routers?

Increasing Wireless reception

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