my wireless network only has a 5m range :(

Hi I bought and have set up the following wireless stuff:

Ebuyer 11mbps PCI Wireless Card

Belkin 802.11b Wireless Cable/DSL Internet Gateway Router

The idea was to connect the router to the cable modem and the pc downstairs with wires and then connect to the upstairs PC wirelessly, but... when the router was downstairs the upstairs wireless PC could not detect the network at all. I moved the router upstairs next to the PC and it worked fine, saying 'signal strength: excellent', i then tried moving the router a little further - to the room next door and it says 'signal strength: low' and it sometimes disconnects and reconnects. This is with the WiFi card only being about 20ft from the wifi router.

Any idea why the range is so crap? is it cos i bought cheap hardware or have i set it up wrong, or is the hardware defective..?

perhaps this should be in the 'Help' forum, i don't know. feel free to move, mods :)

Is there anything between the 2 areas that could cuase interference? Metal walls, pipes, a digital phone etc. Have you tried moving the router?

its basically just the celiing between the two points. I've moved it around a fair bit and its seems distance is the problem, not position.

Well it really should work over such a short distance....
My wireless network works across the street into another house!
Can't see why there's such a problem unless an antenna is faulty

anyone know wether the problem is likely to be with the router or witht he wi-fi card? is there any way of telling?

bring another pc round with a wireless card and try that....that should tell you if the router is ok....go from there

Try changing channels.

Yeah, true Caged...try changing the channels on the router! That will see if there's any interference from other stuff affecting it

if the channel change doesnt work then i would say it is deffo the wireless card. reason for this is my mate bought an unknown brand one and has crap signal all of 10m away, and I bought a belkin one for £50 and i have full signal through a thick wall and around 20m away.

Could also be router playing funny games - my linksys befw11s4 v 3.2 started playing silly buggers yesterday - had to resort to reloading firmware and resetting wep keys before it started playing nicely again - would drop the connection every two minutes.
not nice.

i had a similar problem when my pcmia card went dodgy the other week...
might be a faulty card.