As a rule of thumb, if you don't see antennas on the router, it's probably a hunk of crap. You don't need to go gonzo and get a model that looks like a porcupine, an N66 with three antennas will blow yours out of the water. You don't need AC unless your internet connection is well over 100Mb, and even then you've seen how useful the average AC router with shitty antennas is.

As for the NIC, if it's not a reasonable name brand like ASUS, 9 times out of 10 the antenna on those things is garbage. Many times they're mostly empty with a short little length of copper riding up part of the way, the rest is just for show.

>>No. 22025
As I said I just got this one...

The DIR-820L so I don't want to go out and buy ANOTHER router.
I just want to make this one give me another 20 feet of signal that the older
DHP 1320 did.
The 1320 is old, it may have the range but torrents (or possibly firefox) make it need to get rebooted as the firmware is shit.

Will something like the

UNT-W03 AC600 Wireless Dual Bands High Gain USB Adapter Network Card w/ Antenna
on Deal Extreme do ANYTHING?
The problem is the t.v. wii / blueray plaayer is at the end of a hallway and the modem and router are in my room on the other side of the apartment.

>>No. 22025
Also if I have to spend the cash how is something like the DAP-1320 or it's cousins?
would that be worth the investment.
Again, it's pretty much for streaming off of the computer and stray tablet use in the living room with not a lot of downloads.

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When it comes to routers think CPS:
Channel, Position, and "Shielding".

Check what channel other devices in your area are operating on and switch your router to the least congested one. You can check using your phone.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer

Adjust the position of your router, move it closer if possible, if not rotating the unit can affect the range depending on how the antenna is positioned inside it.

Go Ghetto! - Stick a reflective metal dish behind the antenna. Cans work great for external antenna and given that yours appears to be a cylinder you should be fine wrapping can around the rear half.


20ft should be achievable, I've seen people claiming between 5ft and 40ft of range boosts on the shield alone.

>>22026
I'm sorry, I thought you got a new router. Meaning you purchased it not that long ago.

If so there's this mystical thing called returning for store credit, or a refund if you're really determined.

>>No. 22028

The problem with this thing is it has NO external antenna.
It *does* have a USB port however.
- which is why I mentioned the other USB antennas.
>> No. 22029

It is new but I actually got it a few months ago and never hooked it up.
(long story)

>>22030
>The problem with this thing is it has NO external antenna.
It doesn't have an external antenna. It does have an internal antenna.

Sticking a reflector behind it can't do any harm so you may as well try it.

>>22030
Oh. That's what you meant. No, you can't plug a USB NIC into the router and have the router use the NIC. You could use the NIC with your desktop or laptop to get better reception there.

I feel your pain about unused purchases. Last month I ordered a piece of equipment and had it shipped to another site for a coworker to use since he said he desperately needed it. I asked someone to go into his office today since he was out and we needed something in there, and the shipping box was sitting in there unopened. Well, we could use it, so I had it brought over. What do I find? Straight out of the box one of the power adapters is broken. Something we could have had replaced for free if he'd have opened the box when it came in or shortly thereafter, not six weeks later.

A reflector, so long as it's tuned for the RF ranges in question, could certainly work, although it will also result in a completely dead spot behind the reflector.

By way of comparison, with an N66, I can join from over 100ft away. Keep in mind an entire apartment building is sitting between those two points. As in, I'm in the corner of an apartment building, there's a dividing section (walkway, grass, etc.) between buildings, and on the other side of the other side of that building I can join my network. And there's wireless networks in that building, plus all around me. This is the power of good engineering though, as others have pointed out, properly choosing the correct channel(s) for your network is key given your surrounding. Only by walking around with a WiFi surveyor can you get a decent sense of how the WiFi networks look, though you won't see non-WiFi intrusions (security cameras, baby monitors, cordless phones, everything that uses 5Ghz & 2.4Ghz that doesn't use the WiFi standard to connect).

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Look for open-source firmware.

I use tomato router on all my legacy linksys routers, you can boost the signal to the hardware max, something like 300% the out of box setting. If your hardware isn't supported by the tomato project, find another firmware dev, or choose another router that is supported by a firmware you like

>>22104
Realtek SoC means little third party support. That's something to look into before buying a unit, not after, since there's plenty of SoCs that lack support.