Any free tool to install on laptop to seek out bad wi-fi spots in the house?

Hi Guys

We moved into our house 2 years ago and we have a 'problem-child' room where the wireless has always been an issue from day one. I have a desktop in there for my toddlers to play their games or watch cartoons off the HDD. But now as they grow older, I'd like to introduce them to online educational games (nickjr.com, etc) but due to the wireless issue, my desktop never stays connected for more than 15 mins.

I've upgraded the wireless card to a Linksys and same result. Even when it's connected, it signal strength is very low and when the drop happens, it totally loses my wi-fi network. I have WinXP on that PC and my router is running the newest firmware and my PC has the updated drivers as well. At this point, I think it's more of a geographical/router placement issue.

Are there any free tools that I can install on my laptop and then test the range on my router? Also test for interference if needed.

Even better would be some tool that can produce audio to indicate 'bad' spots. I guess now I'm asking for too much....

Appreciated.

 

Try inSSIDer, meets most of your requirements.

 

The range of your router is effected by many things. The material of the walls, what kind of lights you use and interference from other electrical or radio items can also cause problems. You can take a laptop if you have one and check to see how it does in there room. Once you confirm it is a signal problem for both machines then find out were it starts to get better. Putting the router in a more centralized location of the house can help. If you have a second floor the router should be upstairs. I do not get my signal from dsl and I am guessing you do. Running a cat5 line from the modem or router to the desktop would give the best results. I have used an extreme range internet adapter and picked up signals from a good distance before also. If you go with a range extender you will loose around half the signal strength.

 

Thanks guys.

I'll try inSSider

 

Hi downloads,


This looks like a sweet tool, I will have to read up on this.



Thank You,

 

xirrus wifi inspector is useful, too

http://www.xirrus.com/library/wifitools.php

 

If your wireless card supports it, netstumbler will work too: http://www.netstumbler.com/

 

Netstumbler doesn't work on Vista/Win7 in most cases.