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[Knocks]

My laptop is struggling with the DIR-825 signal when I use it in my room.  It's not a complete dead spot, but works very poorly: only a couple of bars and frequent loss of connection.  

At first I ran two simultaneous networks: N for my laptop, and G for the gaming consoles.  Then I gave up and switched to G for everything, which did help a bit, but still terribly unreliable.

I understand that the Wi-Fi technology will always have dead spots, but my room is less than 40 feet from the living room where the router is.  Also, my previous routers worked fine, including a WRT54G and a newer dual-band Linksys router.  I did a lot of research prior to buying the DIR-825 and loved it the first couple of months while my laptop was located in another room where the signal was perfect.  But the way it is now, this router is practically unusable.  Are there any solutions I can try before putting it up on craigslist?

[Gadget]

Knocks,

Several forum members have swapped out the antennas.  There's a thread on the forum providing all the detail you'd need (and a lot you don't).  I haven't done the swap but judging from the posts the higher gain antennas can make a huge difference.

Edit to add: Here's a link to the thread: http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=3159.0
Notice the first post is December 2008 but it picks up again a year later and the current last post is earlier this month.

Cheers

[Knocks]

Buying additional hardware is the solution, seriously?  People in that thread are talking about getting the signal to travel through multiple rooms, some of them multiple floors of a house.

I'm trying to get it to work through 1 adjacent room down a short hallway with only one wall in between the router and the laptop.  And this is just to get a 2.4Ghz network to work, even though that's not what I bought this router for.

Will later revisions of this router work better?  I can probably raise hell at Best Buy and swap it out for the same model (even though it has been several months) if getting a revision B will work better.  Mine is the original hardware version.

[claykin]

Rev B will help a little bit, but not much.  You can find some comparisons on www.smallnetbuilder.com.

A couple things to check.  Is the wireless signal strength set to 100% on the Advanced wireless setting tab?  If you are running 'g' check to see if you are on auto channel select in the 825.  If so, try to change to channel 11 or 6.  11 usually works better and has less traffic.

What wifi client is in your notebook?  Some have receive/transmit strength settings in their control GUI or in Device Manager in Windows.  Also, maybe upgrading the driver for your wifi card might help.

I agree with you, don't bother with high gain antennas.  I have had very mixed results using them especially with routers using an Atheros design.

[lotacus]

get inssider and see how many networks are around. change your channel, proper antenna alignment, bring the router higher off the ground, all the simple things that people often overlook, can improve a signal. I have no problems with my signal any where in my house, though it's only a 2 story, but signal is great. I don't concern myself with trying to acheive a signal that i WONT get, given all the circumstances that create and interfer with wireless signal.