Help - Weak Signal from Router

[piperpilot]

Our wireless router broke so we bought a new Linksys A&G Router yesterday (Item No. WRT55AG). Hooked it up and upgraded the firmware to June 2003 version. Despite playing around with the channels, etc., the best signal I can pick up from the new router on my iPAQ 5455 using the WLAN is 64%, and that's when I'm standing right in front of it. Spent a couple of hours on the phone with Linsys technical support without a solution, so I'm thowing this problem out to you. We researched this product extensively before we bought it and for $300 we expected better performance from it. Any ideas?

P.S., We reset the router and did several soft resets of the iPAQ with no change in the results - stuck at 64%.

P.P.S. - The router is not near a 2.4 GHZ cordless phone.

[that_kid]

couple of questions, what kind of signal were you getting on your 5455 with the old access point? Do you have the latest wlan firmware on your 5455(when I installed the wlan update on my 5455 I could nevere get a signal greater than 60% but my range was unchanged). I have 3 linksys wap 11 aceess points and yesterday I brought 2 wap54g AP's(mostly for the enhanced security features) and I've noticed that the output power of from the wap54g's is lower than my wap 11's. I guess the lower power has something to do with the different chipset and radio used in the newer units.

[Janak Parekh]

That_Kid has a point. Apart from an outright defect, APs vary all over the map in actual transmissive power. The only suspicious thing is the 64% rating when you're next to router. Out of curiosity, have you tried it with a laptop? HP iPAQ 5xxx's used to have issues with "g" routers...

--janak

[piperpilot]

With the old Siemens router that we used to have, it used to be 100% when I was standing right in front of it. It was only a 802.11b router. It worked fine the day before we went on vacation. When we returned a week later, the wireless portion of it stopped working. In other words, the PC to which it had a wired connection could still access the Internet via the cable modem; however, I could no longer pick up any signal whatsoever from the iPAQ. To make sure that the iPAQ was not the problem, I drove over to a Starbucks and accessed their wireless network. It worked fine. So, we decided that it was the router that was broken. Tried to call Siemens but they were no help at all, then tried to go buy a replacement and discovered that Siemens no longer makes wireless routers, so we went with the Linksys, which got good performance reviews.

As for the iPAQ, the only WLAN update that I have not done is the one that came out in late July/early August. I believe that firmware update will give me 802.11g (draft) capability, so right now, I am using the downward compatibility function of the Linksys 802.11g (draft). I will do the iPAQ firmware update on Tuesday when I get back to the office.

I can't hook up a notebook to the router because I don't have one. I have an old Dell Pentium II running Microsoft XP. My husband has the true dinosaur--a Gateway 486--and he's the software engineer! He said that computer cannot be connected wirelessly to the network.

Further update: Just got back from CompUSA and exchanged the Linksys for the same model after the tech support people at Linksys said the router that we had was probably bad. Set up the new one. Signal is still 64%.

Any thoughts?