problems with o2 wireless and laptops

[whisperer]

also please excuse my lack of knowledge on this as well.

In my flat we bought O2 wireless and set it all up and it works fine. Except that we have some very thick walls in the flat being a very old building and the signal doesn't quite reach all the rooms.

My flatmate had an old (possibly called) router which got set up to (as far as i understand it) pick up the signal from the o2 wireless box and spread it on further round the flat. I hope this is right even if not the right terminology.

Anyway, my problem is that my laptop won't stick to my preferred wireless selection. Even though on my preference list I have put the non-02 wireless network (called ooh shiny) at the top and even now I'm only sitting about 5 feet away from it, my laptop keeps insisting on swapping to the o2 wireless at the other end of the flat. This is even though the signal strength of o2 wireless is low and the speed is slow it won't stay on ooh shiny.

Currently i am on o2 and the ooh shiny is full strength. if i go in and swap them round so i connect to ooh shiny my laptop just changes it back!!!!

My preference is definately set for Ooh Shiny and ooh shiny has the better signal strength so can anyone help me on how to beat my laptop up so it'll stay on ooh shiny like i want it to?

Thank you for any suggestions

[Disturbedguy]

Im not sure, not having messed with wireless an awful lot, but isn't there a way when you list the wireless networks to remove one's you don't want to use from the list?

[whisperer]

but i sometime want to use the o2 wireless, if i'm in the living room on the sofa etc and ooh shiny won't reach so unfortunately i want to keep both if i can

[Stringent]

You might want to make sure that the channels on the access points are different. e.g. run one at 11 and the other 8 or something.

[finlay666]

Change the order of preference, that way you connect to the shiny one first, then the o2 if you can't connet to the first one.

[iranu]

^ That's probably the best solution. I don't suppose there is an option to connect to the network with the highest signal strength?

I'm currently using 02 and their service and support is outstanding.

[5cupa]

moved to networking forum as you may find more help here.

[whisperer]

Thanks for all your help and suggestions.

The preferences are listed in the right order.

The only thing I have now changed to see what effect it has is to place the less preferred option right at the bottom of my list rather than just below the preferred option. The intervening networks include uni wireless, parents house wireless etc which aren't in the area.