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[Amicron]

I recently purchased 3 DCS-930L cameras. They setup and work perfectly in my home office. Everything is fine. If I take them into the next room or anywhere else in the house, they don't work at all. The LED flashes green for a moment and then right back to red. No signal. I unplug them and bring them back into my office, and they work perfectly again. It seems as though they have an EXTREMELY short range. Other wireless devices (tablets, cell phones, my X-Box) all work just fine in these other rooms off the same router. I've tried all 3 cameras, so I know it can't be an issue with just one of them. I have a Linksys (Cisco) E3000 router and the signal is nice and strong - all the way out to the end of my backyard. Any ideas? Obviously I purchased 3 of these cameras so I could get coverage around my house. They don't do me any good if I have to keep all 3 of them in my home office. I'm a PC tech myself and am out of ideas.

[Amicron]

Update... I clicked on the SITE SURVEY button in the setup for the camera. It's sitting on a shelf DIRECTLY BELOW the router (not more than 3 feet away) and the signal is showing anywhere from 50% to 70%. Results repeated with all 3 cameras. Something is very wrong here.

[JavaLawyer]

Are there other wireless signals that could be interfering? Did you try shutting off two of the cameras and testing one live camera?

You may want to try using an extension cord and carry one camera out of the room to see exactly how far (and when) the cameras lose connectivity.

[Amicron]

There are no other wireless signals on the same bandwidth. I performed a site survey, and there are no other wireless networks that could be interfering. Aside from my cell phones there are no other wireless signals anywhere around my house.

I've tried the cameras one at a time. Same problem. I can get about 20 feet from the router before the cameras lose signal if I have direct line of sight. If there's a wall in the way, forget it.

I've got several other WiFi devices (cell phones, tablets, X-Box, etc.) that work perfectly fine at much greater distances. I can take my tablet to the end of my backyard (at least 200 feet away) and still get online with it. I doubt it's a problem with the router. It must be a design problem with these cameras. I could see getting one bad camera. Two? Perhaps. Three? No way.

[JavaLawyer]

Given that this issue recurred with all three DCS-930Ls, the router seems to be the only common thread. Although your other wireless devices seem to work well with your router, do you have an alternate router you can test the DCS-930L wireless connectivity?

[three_jeeps]

There are no other wireless signals on the same bandwidth. I performed a site survey, and there are no other wireless networks that could be interfering. Aside from my cell phones there are no other wireless signals anywhere around my house.

I've tried the cameras one at a time. Same problem. I can get about 20 feet from the router before the cameras lose signal if I have direct line of sight. If there's a wall in the way, forget it.

I've got several other WiFi devices (cell phones, tablets, X-Box, etc.) that work perfectly fine at much greater distances. I can take my tablet to the end of my backyard (at least 200 feet away) and still get online with it. I doubt it's a problem with the router. It must be a design problem with these cameras. I could see getting one bad camera. Two? Perhaps. Three? No way.

The modem seems to be the common denomenator.  There are two main factors that affect the RF link: the transmitt power of the sending unit and the gain of the receiving unit.  The distance one can communicate is based on how the two interact.  For example, the receiving unit may have an antenna (or internal amplifier) with lousy gain, so a sender at 50' may have to have more transmit power to get the signal through, versus a receiver antenna that has a high gain. 
I have two of these cameras at one end of my house, sitting on end tables.  I have my router at the extreme other side of the house, mounted on the wall, which is 1/2 story above where the cameras are located.  In the path are 4 walls, and a hall way....a distance of about 60 feet.  Both cameras work fine.

I suspect your router antenna gain is lousy.  Can you try 7dbi or perhaps 10 dbi gain antennas in place of your existing one?  making a 'flag' out of aluminum foil and wrapping it around the antenna may help as well.

Good luck

John

[p2kart]

I registered specifically to reply to this thread...

Everyone seems to think its your router but its not. This thing really does have very very poor range.
It has no external antenna, and its small form factor doesn't leave much room for a good antenna.

I have a Netgear Rangemax 3700, I can walk all the way down the block and still be able to use the wifi on my iphone/ipad/notebook.

BUT with this 930L its at 50% with a distance of 8 feet.

The whole point of this was to webcam my dog while I work, the ideal location for my webcam is about 18 ft from the router almost line of sight, and it wont even connect properly.

D-Link, I was amazed at how well and easy it was to setup, then I moved it away from the router. This product would have been a solid 90+% in my books, but this range problem makes this product a POS. Its going back to the store tomorrow. What a piece of junk!

[TD99]

For what it's worth, I have six DCS-930L cameras scattered throughout my house (3400 sq ft.). All cams are downstairs, while my router (TrendNet TEW-633GR Wireless N) is upstairs in the computer room. I even have one camera in the garage and another in the backyard. Range seems fine for the most part. Once in a while they would show as offline which would be resolved by cycling power, but that hasn't happened since upgrading the firmware to v1.02 build 3 two weeks ago.

Just my 2c.

[just_user]

Here is my story; about a month ago i bought 2 of DCS-930 (not 930L) Wireless N Home Network Camera. I setup the first one just fine. Immediately i placed it in another room which is about 12 mt away from my router. Still everything was fine. Then i setup the second camera which was unable to find the 1 mt near wireless router. I thought it was a one time error. But it wasn't. Second camera could only manage to show the signal as %30-40 of my router which has a 7dbi external antenna. I needed 2 cameras minimum, so i bought another one while i sent the second one to the dealer. The brand new one was also the same.
Trying millions of possibilities (also with the router), calling every expert, calling dlink service, calling the dealer and searching the net i could't manage to work the signal better.
1 camera works great, others don't. So fyi, if yours work fine you are lucky. If not, don't waste your time for a solution because even the dealer/dlink service don't accept the word "there is a problem with the camera".

[JavaLawyer]

Here is my story; about a month ago i bought 2 of DCS-930 (not 930L) Wireless N Home Network Camera. I setup the first one just fine. Immediately i placed it in another room which is about 12 mt away from my router. Still everything was fine. Then i setup the second camera which was unable to find the 1 mt near wireless router. I thought it was a one time error. But it wasn't. Second camera could only manage to show the signal as %30-40 of my router which has a 7dbi external antenna. I needed 2 cameras minimum, so i bought another one while i sent the second one to the dealer. The brand new one was also the same.
Trying millions of possibilities (also with the router), calling every expert, calling dlink service, calling the dealer and searching the net i could't manage to work the signal better.
1 camera works great, others don't. So fyi, if yours work fine you are lucky. If not, don't waste your time for a solution because even the dealer/dlink service don't accept the word "there is a problem with the camera".

Are both cameras working, but the throughput is lower when both cameras are in use? If this is the case, did you try throttling down the image size and FPS?

[just_user]

I don't have any problem with throughput. Lower signal receving cameras work fine 1 feet distance to router (which i has 7dbi antenna)   Or anywhere when wired. I tried each one alone on network with all possible settings, but the problem is Low Signal Reception on Wireless Networks. Only 1 camera works great, the other 3 not.

My opinion; people having the same problem with model 930L have updated the Firmware and solved their problem (thats is what i understood from other posts). My model 930 doesn't have any new firmware, so i need one.

And i don't know whom i can reach and tell my problem. Here, everyone ignores this problem.

Can moderators move my posts to DCS-930 forum page. Thanks.

[JavaLawyer]

Can moderators move my posts to DCS-930 forum page. Thanks.

There's nothing preventing you from re-posting your question in the DCS-930L forum for other DCs-930L owners to see.

[JavaLawyer]

My model 930 doesn't have any new firmware, so i need one.

Are you referring to the DCS-930 or DCS-930L? You make references to both models in your post.

Firmware for the DCS-930L can be found here: http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=40700.0. If you are referring to the DCS-930, it looks like only v1.00 is available: http://tsd.dlink.com.tw/downloads2008detail.asp

[just_user]

My cameras are DCS-930 (sadly). And yes, only v1.00 is on the support site. Hope they can hear me and make firmware update for this model (at least for this issue).

Thanks.

[JavaLawyer]

I don't see the DCS-930 on the product listing for the U.S. website. Was/Is the DCS-930 sold in another region?