"Adair Witner" hath wroth:
I'll assume you do NOT have any RF test equipment.
- Use IPerf to get performance statistics at various ranges, power levels, and through varies number of walls. Try it with the speed set to "auto" and also locked to the highest available speed (54Mbits/sec). Also, experiment with various wireless settings. Try to roughly duplicate the IxChariot found on:
Do the test with one laptop, where nothing changes during the test. Don't try to optimize anything or squeeze the last bit of range out of the laptop. Just run the test for a comparison and record the conditions including: 1. Make and Model 2. Firmware and exact version 3. Power setting 4. Range 5. Number of walls 6. Iperf Upload Mbits/sec 7. Iperf Download Mbits/sec 8. Indicated connection speed on client. 9. Any other changes (antenna, 802.11b compatibility, other settings, orientation, position of moon).
Note that I did NOT include signal level and SNR. While these would be interesting, I think they will just confuse the issue. The basic question is "how far and how fast"? An Excel spreadsheet would be handy.
- Fix the wireless speed in the access point to 54 Mbits/sec. Start playing some streaming video or initiate a download from a local server (or get some traffic moving). Start walking away with the laptop until the download craps out. It will be quite sudden and obvious as there will not be any compensation due to slowing down the wireless connection rate when the speed is nailed to 54 mbits/sec. Then, change whatever your testing (new AP, better antennas, etc) and take another walk. The longer range wins. Also try it with various settings such as 802.11b compatibility, frame burst mode, Turbot-G, etc. Leave the settings on the laptop alone.
Keep it simple. Try to change only one thing at a time.