WiFi signal woes

[Joel Crane]

Well, here I am at Boise Bible College in Boise, Idaho going to school. Of course, I brought all of my electronics with me.

There is school wide WiFi, but no ethernet in the guys dorms. My only option is WiFi. My laptop gets decent signal, usually 4 bars in Zero Config with about 38mbps. I'm using a D-Link AirPlus 802.11G PC Card in it.

My desktop is a different story. It also has a D-Link AirPlus, but in the PCI variety. I have an 8dbi antenna on it, and I'm getting one bar and at most, 11mbps, usually 2 or three. Did I mention that the card is sitting nearly line of sight with the building that has the AP in it, in the middle of a window?

So here is my question. Am I dealing with a poor PCI card, or should I invest in a directional antenna?

[Joel Crane]

Well, here I am at Boise Bible College in Boise, Idaho going to school. Of course, I brought all of my electronics with me.

There is school wide WiFi, but no ethernet in the guys dorms. My only option is WiFi. My laptop gets decent signal, usually 4 bars in Zero Config with about 38mbps. I'm using a D-Link AirPlus 802.11G PC Card in it.

My desktop is a different story. It also has a D-Link AirPlus, but in the PCI variety. I have an 8dbi antenna on it, and I'm getting one bar and at most, 11mbps, usually 2 or three. Did I mention that the card is sitting nearly line of sight with the building that has the AP in it, in the middle of a window?

So here is my question. Am I dealing with a poor PCI card, or should I invest in a directional antenna?

[arnold2008]

A directional antenna or beam antenna is an antenna which radiates greater power in one or more directions allowing for increased performance on transmit and receive and reduced interference from unwanted sources. Directional antennas like yagi antennas provide increased performance over dipole antennas when a greater concentration of radiation in a certain direction is desired.The answer to your question would be go in for a directional antenna.
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[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Joel Crane

So here is my question. Am I dealing with a poor PCI card, or should I invest in a directional antenna?

You might see more success in going with an external, USB based unit that you can position in different locations to get optimal signal...

[Joel Crane]

Tried that. Got myself a D-Link RangeBooster N card, and there isn't a whole lot of improvement.

I've discovered that the problem with the network isn't so much signal quality, but packet loss. Sometimes, its as low as 3 percent, usually, its as high as 50 and even 70 percent packet loss.

The school network is composed of multiple bridges and repeaters (A total of 5 repeaters i believe).