Wifi over a large distance

So I recently moved into my buddies new place. He is not very tech savvy but is one of those guys who thinks the world runs well off wifi. I am living in his detached garage that has an apartment suite above it that is super nice so I was pretty excited about living there.

Here is the issue I am having. I play WoW which is very gay I know. But it is a very demanding game bandwidth wise. I can't really quit because I enjoy the game and my team is internationally ranked and it keeps me out of the bars. He has a brand new Vaio that gets signal perfectly yet my 3 year old desktop that was built for graphics and run speed cant even pick up the signal. I also have a new xbox slim with the built in wireless card which pics up only 1 bar of signal.

Here are the solutions I have considered.
1. Start another service with the cable company for the garage = $$$ and he doesnt like that.
2. Wireless Booster: not really sure it will help the situation since it is a large distance and alot of walls.
3. Run an ethernet cable: pretty ghetto but would solve the issure entirely. He wont go for it.

So does anyone have any insight as to make the booster work to the spec I need? Or do you have any other suggestions.

Thanks

 

I always love a wired connection when playing xbox because no speed is being compromised. Since he doesn't want to run an ethernet cable, I would try out a wireless booster. If it doesn't work, then I would just return it to the store you got it from.

Here is one that seems pretty good IMO. I'm running the matching wireless router and love it.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/NETGEAR...3081.p?id=1218240386270&skuId=1243081&st=wifi booster&cp=1&lp=4

 

DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE POWER LINE ethernet adaptor FROM NETGEAR
http://www.google.com/products?q=power+line+ethernet&hl=enIT IS NOT BAD, it is pretty good. also easy to use.

 

I've heard you can make a booster out of a pringles can...never tried it though.

 

I've read that rumor somewhere as well haha. Don't really buy it lol.

I would try the cable. get a long one and hide it running to your room. I believe i read in popular mechanics that the best wireless speed from the best router will at best only be 4/5ths the speed of a direct connection. just my two cents, cause I'm by no means a tech junkie. good luck.

 

Get a router that works as a bridge, and connect it to his wireless. Google is your best friend on this.

Get a bigger antenna on your wireless card, and his router, if not internal antenna's.

The bridged router would work best, as you could run your gear (xbox, PC) wired to the router, and connect wireless to the base router.

 

Thanks for the responses. I tried the netgear setup but it wouldn't pass a signal through two electrical panels. The wireless bridge sounds like an interesting idea.

 

Living in a garage playing WOW.... You must be a real ladies man LOL... just kidding.. but you should just buy all the supplies and run a Ethernet cable under ground out to the garage.. you can make it all professional with wall plug ins and everything.. to do it yourself would be cheap.

 

fixed

^^Yeah this one.

i have a bridge in my house only two rooms apart from my office to my living room and it sucks, it wont even stream small file size movies like 750mb low resolution crap. barely streams music. i hear power adapters are even worse thats why i wont even attempt to use one. hardline it all the way then get a cheap old switch and run both the xbox and your computer

 

You can build one (they call them cantennas) cheep. Here is a link for a place that sells them.

http://www.cantenna.com/

If you want to build your own (there really easy to build) here is a link with detailed plans

http://cruftbox.com/cruft/docs/cantenna.html

 

If it's for you, shouldn't you be paying for it? If all your other options don't pan out, and the game means that much to you, just pony up the cash. Like they say, you have to pay to play.

Frank

 

Anything wireless will give you significant packet loss. Best thing you can do is to go with a hard wire and put amplifier on coax cable that goes to modem.
Get a long pvc pipe(s) from home depot as well as a can of great stuff (foam). If you are using multiple pipes then you will need to use connectors. PVC is super cheap. If you cant bury it (just a few inches below ground) then at the very least grab a couple of black/brown spray cans while at home depot and paint pvc pipes. Lay them along building or along the fence and once dry they will blend with everything.

To play wow effectively (I assume you raid)... you need less than 120ms ping and no more than 60 packet loss. 250 ping will get you by but you will be lagging like crazy during boss fights.

 

I understand. I ended up buying a laptop since I needed to upgrade anyways. That will allow me to be hard wired if I need to be. Thanks for the criticism btw.

 

Is there a phone line out to the detached garage? If so Corinex makes a phone line adapter that works flawlessly. If not then you're stuck with running a new line. Wireless is way to unreliable.

 

If you do go the hard wire route go with cat 6 cable since it has lower attenuation over longer distances. Cost difference should be minimal.

 

If you run a conduit and seal the ends with something removable you can pull in a string with the ethernet cable and then you can use the string to pull in a new line if the existing one goes bad or needs to be upgraded.

Direct burial ethernet cable is available too if you want to avoid the conduit.

 

First, try to relocate the router. Maybe you can put in a more central spot, or away from interference.

Next, are we talking wireless b, g, or n? Each standard has better distance. I'm guessing if you have older gear and he has newer, it could be one reason for discrepancy. Try moving to N (this may include the router).

Personally, I would avoid any USB network device. From experience, they have a big problem with slowness - not sure if it's with them entering low power states, latency, or what.

Actually, wouldn't you want a dedicated wireless bridge? I thought a router that has to act as a bridge ends up halving its bandwidth speed due to the transmission (up/down on one link). A regular bridge most likely has the gear to negate that I'm guessing?

If the OP does this, bury it at a significant depth, equal to underground sprinkler pipe or wires. The idea here is to prevent someone cutting through the line. A good trick is to dig your trench, lay the wiring as you will, add back half the dirt to the trench, and then bury some caution tape. Finally, add the remaining dirt. People will dig up the caution tape before cutting down to your line.

As joneill03 said, go with CAT6, otherwise CAT5e at minimum.

 

Dexter any chance you could expand upon this? I am pretty sure there is a hardwired phone line out there. I looked at their website and they only have the power outlet adapters that didn't work when I tried them.

Thanks

 

I haven't heard of anyone doing that since 99-2001 when I was on the team that helped test the Intel Anypoint device. Our device came in either an internal PCI card or an external box that connected to your parallel port (USB was emerging technology, remember). In testing it worked great, considering the device handled up to 1.6 Mbps and the fastest home internet speeds were 700k or less. Gaming was great, file transfers were reasonably fast. Armed with a screwdriver, setup time took a few minutes.
However, it was a late-to-market product and people thought they needed 10/100 hubs instead.

I'm pretty sure that if you could find phone line adapters, you are going to run into the same problems we did - phone line copper can only handle so much. After all, I think DSL around here still maxes at 256k.

I think a better device might be MoCA, where you use the coax cables. Check out this device from Netgear (yes, it's spendy, about $120 at newegg though)

EDIT: another thing, which I've confirmed from multiple sources:

That could be dependent on the device. Early models had problems that I think are smoothed out now. I would be tempted to try the D-Link gaming models - just check with the store's return policy and give things a spin.

 

This is what I use at work running from two buildings over a thousand feet apart on decaying phone line direct bury. I have no issues with streaming video or connectivity.

http://www.corinex.com/index.php?pa...category_id=6&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=87