Channel Number Conflict

No. Nobody can solve interference problems if you have ten access points spewing RF everywhere. Buy some CAT5 cable and forget about wireless.

Have you set the channel and SSID as the default on the various Pc's connecting ?

Rob

I'm not sure about this, I receive 43 different access points and lock on without any problem. My situation is different though, I have a high gain antenna pointing at a building that is emitting

43 wifi signals. You could try a few things, such as putting a reflector on the antenna of the Edimax, however this will make the signal stronger in one direction only. That means you would need to place the Edimax in a place where you could aim the signal so it covers all of your normal laptop using positions. Same goes with the laptop, you could set it up with an external antenna that is directional, then you aim the external antenna at the Edimax. This helps in reducing interfering signals if they are in the null area of your external directional antenna. It also and increases the strength of your signal. That's as much as I think I know! Mike

I have set the SSID on vista and fedora but neither gives me the option to set the channel ID. I'll look into this. Thanks.

I am moving to a new house and thinking about installing ethernet points in different locations. I'll have to see how many access points there are first.

~ I have an Edimax EW-7206APg with the following settings: ~ ~ Broadcast ESSID: Enabled ~ MAC Filtering: Disabled ~ DHCP Server ~ Running mode: AP ~ Security: WEP ~ ~ I've had no problems with this since I bought it two years ago. But ~ recently, the connection started to drop intermittently. The first ~ time it happened, I noticed that another Access Point in my area was ~ broadcasting on the same channel. So I changed mine and it started to ~ work again. Now the situation is that there are nearly 10 Access ~ Points around my house. Therefore, whatever channel number I pick, ~ there is always a conflict with another Access Point. ~ ~ If I go close to my Access Point with my laptop, it works fine. But as ~ soon as I go a bit further away (as far as five metres) the connection ~ drops. I have tested it on both Vista and Linux Fedora with the same ~ result. I have also tested it without any encryption and with ~ encryptions other than WEP with the same result. ~ ~ Could anyone help me troubleshoot this please? ~ ~ Thanks.

Option 1: sticking with 2.4GHz

1. Find out what all APs are in your vicinity, what channels they are using, what RSSI you're receiving their signals at, and (harder) what their duty cycles are.

1. Pick the least bad 2.4GHz channel accordingly; set your AP to use it. (Bear in mind that, in 802.11b/g, an AP centered on a given channel will interfere with two channels on either side of it, e.g. an AP on channel 4 will interfere with 2 thru 6.)

Option 2: get a 5GHz AP. This will offer up many more non-overlapping channels than 2.4 gives you, plus which there is usually much less interference in 5GHz in general. The downside is that 5GHz propagates significantly less well than does 2.4GHz.

At the same time, investigate getting a better performing AP / client. This may involve hardware replacement or simply a software update. For example, right now there are 14 2.4GHz APs audible at my desk, yet my 2.4 GHz wireless connection is working with no difficulty.

Hth,

Aaron

Great! Thanks. I'll look at both options.

You shouldn't ever need to set a channel ID on the client side, this is something that is only set on the AP side.

The only exception is adhoc networks where there isn't an AP in play.

Are your PCs attempting to connect to the other access point SSID as you move away from your own access points?

or does your access point signal simply reduce the further away you are?

If the PC's are attempting to connect to the other points then you haven't set your access point SSID as the default on the client PCs.

Don't use Windows Zero config.

Also some access points have a setting which applies extra filtering to counter interference - check the mode - also try "B" to see if the problem still applies.

If the signal strength is just falling away as you move away then maybe the access point is not transmitting very strongly and faulty. What is the indicated strength - less than 54G?

As previously mentioned, a corner reflector on your access point can help shield out interference, but much better is plenty of foil sheeting between you and the interference point - provided it's a wall we are talking about.

Rob

I am moving to a new house and thinking about installing ethernet points in different locations. I'll have to see how many access points there are first.

consider a plan b, when i moved, did 1 ap (wap/router) by the internet modem, and one of the router ouputs as input to a powerline networking thing many others available, just happen to have this link handy for one of my netgears

three oddball tests i did, you can actually use it (powerline bridge) to effectively go from one wap/router thru the powerlines to a second wap router.. you can have multiple transeiver sets/bridges (with different id's) on the same powerline if you happen to have 4, one room with plugs on two seperate legs of a transformer (some houses have , you can even bridge one powerline to another

beats the heck out of running wires all over ps, they also make coax-ethernet things (same link), haven't tried em, so have no clue how well they work

Duh - what channel are you using ?