extending an n router's range

[nZa]

edit: this is longer than i was expecting, my bads.

i'm pretty comfortable with both windows and osx computers, however i'm kind of an idiot when it comes to wireless networks, so i apologize in advance

the problem i have is that i'm temporarily squatting with a family member. the cable internet modem is located at one end of the house, and my quarters are located at the exact opposite end, upstairs. if you drew a straight line from my laptop/xbox/etc to the router, there is one floor and 7 walls in between my devices and the router.

my previous setup was an older linksys g router, then i had an older linksys g range expander mounted on the second floor, between myself on the router. this worked, however the speed took a huge dive over that distance. if i was near the router, i was getting about 18mbps throughput, however in my quarters it was down to less than 2mbps throughput. if i hardwired my laptop into the router, i was getting around 40mbps. i'm not good at math, but that seems like about a 95% loss in speed between the modem and my laptop.

my new setup is a d-link n router (DIR-825 for those familiar with it). i have been unable to have the linksys g range expander work with this, and quite frankly, i'm unsure if i want it to, that's why i'm here. with the new d-link n router, i am getting about the same 2mbps in my room, which needless to say, i'm not exactly drooling over.

fwiw, the only reason i upgraded to the n was that i was hoping to get better range and speed than my previous setup, but that didn't exactly happen.

what options do i have? is there any way to speed this up without running cat5 cables all over the attic and down through walls? i searched online and only found ONE n range expander from what seemed like a no-name company and it was nearly $100.

sorry for the wall of text. for those of you who didn't TL-DR, i'd appreciate ANY input thanks in advance for the brave.

 

[Collin Bl]

Having recently found that the New Airport Extreme has much, much better range the the older flying Saucer shaped one, here is what i would do. Get one of the latest Extreme 11n Airports and see if there is too many solid walls etc to get a good strong signal with it connected to cable modem. If not then i would get a new Express 11n and mount it downstairs under your room and extend it off the Extreme Network. Try and avoid as many solids as possible - one of my first attempts showed that a bookshelf was a bit of an impediment, but in the end lined it up out the window to and thru to next building.

 

[scathe]

one other problem is that even though the router can get a strong signal through, your computer is not so capable (the airport card just isn't as strong), so you will get a loss going out, this may sound weird, but tcp packets do get checked, so even if you achive getting a strong signal to your room, your speed might not improve at all

sry to hear your repeater doesn't work :-/ or I guess expander is a repeater or a wds repeater (full repeater has 2 anthenna, wds uses one to switch back and forth)

your best bet would be, in fact, to run a cable as far as possible and then put an AP on it, you might be able to use the "extender" as an AccesPoint, this wouldn't need to be in your room, just keep it in the attic above your room

 

[nZa]

well, guess i'll go invest in about 100' of cat5 lol

thx for the help guys !!