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Improving Wi-Fi signal in a Mac only household?

edith headedith head 5,106 Posts
edited February 2011 in Strut Central
Sorry for the lame tech support topic. A while back I had asked for help about this dead spot in our house and asked for opinions about either a wifi repeater or powerline adapters. I actually tried both and returned them because I needed a PC to set them up and it wasn't as straight forward as I had hoped. I've managed to live with that deadspot but now with getting another tv and depending a lot on boxee, airtunes, netflix, hulu to stream to the tv, I really need to find a way to fix this.

Please let me know if you can suggest any solutions for Macs and thanks!

  Comments

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    Apple Airport Express?
  • edith headedith head 5,106 Posts
    i actually have an apple airport express, but it says i can't use it to extend my existing wifi network if it's a thirdparty router (cisco) and not and an airport base station. is this a lie?
  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    I have one and iwas under the impression that i could cop another one for my bedroom to strengthen the signal.

    Or i would cop an Airport Extreme and bring the regular Airport to my bedroom.
  • LazerLazer 796 Posts
    we do what Batmon says, works fine. ISP router (cisco, motorolla, whatever) to airport extreme, then use an airport express to extend the signal. works great.
  • LazerLazer 796 Posts
    we do what Batmon says, works fine. ISP router (cisco, motorolla, whatever) to airport extreme, then use an airport express to extend the signal. works great.
  • vintageinfantsvintageinfants 4,537 Posts
    i think there's something called a "repeater" that just plugs into any rooms power source and acts as a strengthening antenna.
  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,899 Posts
    If you're looking to stream video or run a home server of some sort to play video around the house, you really need a strong signal (The higher the quality of video, the better connection you'll need to not have stutters). I'm serving HD video through out my whole place to multiple systems, but only because I have a great N router with strong signal throughout my place.

    I brought this up in that old thread, but I've had seriously good results. Take a vegetable strainer and put it behind the wireless router pointing in the direction you need better signal. I've had this work on a couple of setups.

    Or doing this is fairly simple.

    http://www.instructables.com/id/Uni-Directional-WIFI-Range-Extender/
  • Hotsauce84Hotsauce84 8,450 Posts
    Lazer said:
    we do what Batmon says, works fine. ISP router (cisco, motorolla, whatever) to airport extreme, then use an airport express to extend the signal. works great.

    I didn't even know this could be done. Thanks holmeses!
  • edith headedith head 5,106 Posts
    DOR said:
    If you're looking to stream video or run a home server of some sort to play video around the house, you really need a strong signal (The higher the quality of video, the better connection you'll need to not have stutters). I'm serving HD video through out my whole place to multiple systems, but only because I have a great N router with strong signal throughout my place.

    I brought this up in that old thread, but I've had seriously good results. Take a vegetable strainer and put it behind the wireless router pointing in the direction you need better signal. I've had this work on a couple of setups.

    Or doing this is fairly simple.

    http://www.instructables.com/id/Uni-Directional-WIFI-Range-Extender/

    Thanks Dor! I have to admit that i am uptight when it comes to appearance in my home and our router is in the hallway, so I want to avoid going the vegetable strainer route. we have an N capable router, but when i am in N mode, I can't connect using my ipod touch so I had to scale it down to a G signal because I rely on it a lot for apple remote and other apps. we have a 50ft Cat5 cable running from the router to my computer in the living room as well as one for the Playstation 3 to work around the dead spot and that has worked well, but I want to avoid having another long cable because for this room, the cable would be in plain sight and an eyesore.

    Would it be possible to use one of those 50 ft cables from my router to hardwire it to a second wifi router back there? would that work on boosting the signal?
  • vintageinfantsvintageinfants 4,537 Posts
    i have a similar question..... i have many things in my house that network wirelessly. i have a pc, a pc laptop, a playstation 3, a wii and a macbook pro all poppin' off on the daily.

    let's say for instance i'm playing some online video games on the playstation 3 [basement] and someone starts to the use the macbook [top floor], the wireless signal to the basement will dump out, and i'll throw a remote control at a wall.

    secondly, if the mac on the top floor has been used at any time in between logins of any other device, i'll have to go downstairs and reset the wireless router entirely [unplug for ten seconds kinda thing]..... and this happens without fail, every single time.


    do mac's really hog that much of the signal from other devices? are they made this way? are they that much stronger? is there a way to even out the distribution so i dont end up with a technological civil war on my hands?
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