A few days ago the signal strength I receive on my laptop changed and went from an average of 160 to 54, so I'm trying to discover why this changed.
I have a two story townhouse that normally receives 300mbps when on the first floor and directly underneath my DGL4500, and 150-180 when in my living room (downstairs and 20' from router). I get about that same strength when I'm another 15ft away on my back porch. At all times I have 4-5 bars (excellent) on my meter. I am assuming that the number of bars correlates to how strong my signal should be. Is that a correct assumption? If so, what would cause my laptop to show excellent signal, but have such a slow speed? When I move my laptop back to the bedroom the mbps goes back up to 300. My card is supposed to receive up to 450, but I've never received that wirelessly even when the laptop is right next to the router.
Because the signal is the same in my bedroom I've ruled out the laptop card and router. I've not moved any furniture, no cordless phones, the line of sight from the router to the livingroom is the same so its not walls/furniture. If the number of bars went down then I would think the antennas would need boosting, but since I'm still getting 4-5 bars it seems this isn't the issue. I've tried moving the antennas to different positions, but no luck. I'm thinking I need a repeater or extender - would that solve the problem or is the fact that I'm getting 4-5 bars indicating that I'm getting enough juice and an extender wouldn't help?
Nothing has changed - except the signal strength. Any ideas? I'm perplexed.