increase signal strength

Hi,

I have a mac but my house just got a DLink 655 Extreme N wireless router because two of my housemates have PCs. As the router is on the third floor and my room is on the second, my signal strength is not what it could/should be. I am wondering if anyone has suggestions for things I can do to improve the signal strength. I was thinking either larger antennas or hi gain antennas. But I was also thinking about seeing if DLink sells repeaters so I could put that on the second floor. I bought my mac in the summer of 2006, so it's 2 Ghz intel duo and version 10.4.11. If anyone has any specific advice of what to buy or what to do to increase my signal strength, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks.

You could increase signal strength by connecting via ethernet. Or you can get an AirPort and give your housemates the hexadecimal password. You can get the hexadecimal password by going to the Airport Utility (/Applications/Utilities). Then, you go to the "Base Station" item on the left side of the menubar, and go down to "Equivalent Network Password".

Thanks for the advice.

However, I'm not sure I can convince my housemates to spring for a more expensive airport extreme and there are no jacks to put an ethernet cable in my room. Is there anything that you recommend that I could do with or for my existing DLink-655 router?

I have no idea how secure these are or how fast but what about one of those kits that lets you run your ethernet connection through the power lines. Plug one in by your router and then one in your room. I have heard that there are security issues but it might be worth some investigation.

Is the connection really that weak? There is a router in my house responsible for delivering connections to everyone in the house. It is on the main floor, providing connections to the top floor and the basement.

Hi,

The connection is there. But obviously, the more people using it at one time, the weaker it is, and it is difficult to play any streaming video. I normally have to wait a while to buffer. I'm just looking for something to give the signal strength a little boost.

any possibility that by adding a better antenna to the router it might increase the strength?? it's something that I've been thinking about for a while now, any1 have any experience with this sort of thing? I think that the output strength of the router probably isn't matched just with the little tail-like antenna ...