[prism123]

So I bought a router to get internet in the lounge in my dorm and it gets a pretty weak signal in said lounge which is down the hall. Its usable but not great, and only in certain spots in the lounge. The signal has to pass through a bunch of thick walls, and possibly an elevator shaft. The room isn't really that far, but the signal is weak, way worse than it would be at that distance in a normal house.

Anyway I'm thinking of returning the router, a netgear wrg614 v7 I think not exactly sure how to check, and ordering a wrt54gl and boosting the xmit settings after installing dd-wrt, but this would be kind of a hassle so I would only do it if it will improve things noticeably. so will it?

[dave133993]

The power output on the screen is default to 70 but can go all the way up to 251 mw. In radio language that is nearly 6db of increased signal. However that does not mean your laptop or pc has that same power.. You can use dd-wrt to set up a relay from one wireless router to another as extenders. Kinda like a cellular environment.
I am a cell tech just in case you were wondering

[Cato2]

It does up to a point, and depends on your WAP hardware. See https://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=38317&highlight= for a discussion of coverage through thick walls at the moment - if your house is not too big, a simple omnidirectional or sectoral antenna is not too expensive and gives a huge improvement. Antennas improve the reception of signal by WAP, as well as transmission - boosting the power only involves transmission.

Also, there are legal limits on the radiation you are allowed to emit in most countries, which are partly there for safety, so that's another consideration. In the UK it's essentially 100 mW including the gain from the antenna.

[GunTolo]

sometimes..boost the xmit can make your router very hot, but it depend what you need, that's your own risk. I think you can try to change the antena for increase the signal ...

i don't know that i'm lucky or not, but my GL with 200 mW + 24 dbi grid antena still work since 1 year ago until now

[gforcegt13]

GunTolo, where did you get the 24dbi antenna and how far away can you get a signal?

[redhawk0]

Lets not forget about the noise you amplify also when you increase the Tx power.

Over 100mW and you will start seeing SNR decrease. And over 100mW it is still advised to add some sort of active cooling to the unit.

Your best bet in this case is to get a better antenna as already mentioned.

redhawk