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Wi-fi boosters

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Blueblur

Blueblur

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I'm in the market for a wi-fi booster. The location of my bedroom in my flat, where I tend to do online gaming and surfing the net on my laptop is on the "edge" of the wi-fi signal that comes from the router in the living room. It's ok, but I only get 3 out of 5 bars signal max, depending where my laptop is in the room. This occasionally interrupts streaming on Netflix etc, which is annoying. I want to boost the signal so I'm drowning in background radiation.

Does anyone have a wi-fi booster in their home? I'm talking about one of the ones you just plug into the mains. I'm not looking to pay more than £25, and I want one that is easy to set up. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Come on techno-nerds, lay it on me!

Cheers!

BB 

 
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Blueblur said:
I'm in the market for a wi-fi booster. The location of my bedroom in my flat, where I tend to do online gaming and surfing the net on my laptop is on the "edge" of the wi-fi signal that comes from the router in the living room. It's ok, but I only get 3 out of 5 bars signal max, depending where my laptop is in the room. This occasionally interrupts streaming on Netflix etc, which is annoying. I want to boost the signal so I'm drowning in background radiation.

Does anyone have a wi-fi booster in their home? I'm talking about one of the ones you just plug into the mains. I'm not looking to pay more than £25, and I want one that is easy to set up. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Come on techno-nerds, lay it on me!

Cheers!

BB 
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Apple Airport Express Base Station could be an option for you, but it could be an expensive one. I would recommend that you first see if it's compatible with your wireless router.

 
Blueblur said:
Thanks dkw. So you just plug in one near the router and the other one where you want the signal to be stronger and that's how it works?
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Yeah, plug one in at the router, ethernet cable to the router and the other in  another room. It uses the house wiring to deliver the signal.

 
Anyone know why since I took in a lodger my Internet is really slow and often keeps saying can't find server? I know he is a big user of the net and skypes his missus in Prague or somewhere but this happens even when he's at work.

I can't really tell if he's left his computer downloading as he lives in a self contained bit above my garage, I'm on virgin and I think speed is 50mb, It is odd as I can be downloading and seeding and my missus could use her laptop as normal, now we are both struggling.

Any help much appreciated.

 
Yep, you have just taken in a member of anonymous, chip! Be prepared for a dawn raid.

 
When he's at work, go into your router control panel and look at your attached devices, if he is still connected to the net, you can change the wi-fi password and reboot the router, this will kick him off and stop it auto reconnecting, then when he gets back and knocks your door for the password, tell him no to leave his pc connected to the network whilst he's away.

 
Thanks coco, problem is I have no idea how to

Go into the router control panel.

Now I'm on my mobile as I can't get on at all...

 
Open a browser and type:

192.168.0.1. Or .2 into the address bar, that should take you to the router control panel. If you haven't changed them then username will probably be "admin" and password will be "password". Which ip you with?

 
Chippy said:
Anyone know why since I took in a lodger my Internet is really slow and often keeps saying can't find server? I know he is a big user of the net and skypes his missus in Prague or somewhere but this happens even when he's at work.

I can't really tell if he's left his computer downloading as he lives in a self contained bit above my garage, I'm on virgin and I think speed is 50mb, It is odd as I can be downloading and seeding and my missus could use her laptop as normal, now we are both struggling.

Any help much appreciated.
Click to expand...
Chances are he's using bittorrent configured badly. It's trying to connect to hundreds of different systems at the same time and the router is struggling to cope.

If you know which port his torrent client is using you can do something called port forwarding where the router doesn't manage these hundreds of connections and just automatically forwards everything for that port to his PC.

You need to know his internal IP address (depending on your router, you may be able to see it in your router admin menu) and which port his torrent program is using (he's going to need to tell you this).

There'll be a guide somewhere telling you how to configure port forwarding on your router.

Outside of that, you can ask him to limit the number of connections in his torrent client (up to 75) and see if that helps

 
Thanks for the advice all, I must admit I tried to open the browser and type that IP address and it came up with a screen asking for my passwords, I don't see the person who set up my modem i the first place anymore and have no idea what the passwords are so I didn't do any more.

It has righted itself tha last day or two and I'm not sure if it was a problem with Virgin or if the lodger has been using his computer less, I 'll see how it gos for a few days.

 
Chippy - if your lodger has logged onto your Internet and you don't know the password... does that mean you have open wi-fi? i.e. anyone in the vicinity, neighbours etc, can use your wi-fi which is probably why it really lags.

 
Chippy said:
Thanks for the advice all, I must admit I tried to open the browser and type that IP address and it came up with a screen asking for my passwords, I don't see the person who set up my modem i the first place anymore and have no idea what the passwords are so I didn't do any more.

It has righted itself tha last day or two and I'm not sure if it was a problem with Virgin or if the lodger has been using his computer less, I 'll see how it gos for a few days.
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Try admin / admin or admin / root . most common defaults.

It may have the username on a sticker on the router itself.

 
Dkw, you'll be pleased to know I bought the wi-fi booster and it works a treat! I now have full-blast signal bars in my room. Piece of piss to set up as well.

Thanks, Officer Dibble of the Shed End Constabulary.

 
Blueblur said:
Dkw, you'll be pleased to know I bought the wi-fi booster and it works a treat! I now have full-blast signal bars in my room. Piece of piss to set up as well.

Thanks, Officer Dibble of the Shed End Constabulary.
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My pleasure old chap, now where were you on the night of the 20th?
 
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