Modifying a home wireless AP

[Chainsaw13]

Originally Posted by T.G

Ditch the crappy stock firmware and install tomato usb or dd-wrt so you can control the radio power levels. With the add on high gain antennas and a decent firmware, you should see a significant improvement. If that isn't sufficient and if your old router is compatible with tomato or dd-wrt you can install on it and set it up as an access point wired or wireless repeater. Wireless repeater will cut your bandwidth in half for wireless devices connected to it though.

I was reading a bit about dd-wrt last night. Sounds like I'll be installing it, plus modding my ap. I was trying to use my ipad in the garage last night, and the signal was horrible. Constantly dropping, even after moving the ap closer to the window nearest the garage.

[T.G]

Originally Posted by Chainsaw13

I was reading a bit about dd-wrt last night. Sounds like I'll be installing it, plus modding my ap. I was trying to use my ipad in the garage last night, and the signal was horrible. Constantly dropping, even after moving the ap closer to the window nearest the garage.

Word of warning, DD-WRT has about a bazillion different releases. The one given by the compatibility database page on the website, while it is often the newest build/version, it's typically NOT the ideal one to install. Find the peacock announcement for the chipset in your router and also the specific page for your router, between the two, will list the most current known good revision, which is typically much older than what is listed on the database page.

Also, micro, mini, standard, mega, etc. - The core features are all the same, most installations are fine with just mini or standard. The larger builds like mega and (lord) humongous just add more business level VOIP, VPN and linking etc features that most people won't need.