My question is, when you are using dual band networking stuff, are some apps looking at a single band and reporting it as 50%?


Background reading:
So Ive just swapped out my old Netgear PCI wireless card, and replaced the DG834v3 router with some linksys dual band gubbins. Yeah I know that Ive gone and got the cheap and nasty stuff before anyone says I should have bought whatever else is out there...

Anyway, Ive not done dual band stuff before and my networking knowledge is shakey at best. Its always been a battle to get a decent signal in my room, given the router is on the floor below on the other side of the house.

As a result of this battle I use a gadget to check download speeds and monitor wireless traffic on my computer. The Wireless G netgear signal used to be reported as 60% on a good day.

Now Ive swapped out the hardware, the signal is ranging from 10-50%. The weird thing is though that even at 10% the signal is strong enough to be usable.

The other thing is that in the task bar I have a Linksys manager as well as the windows network thing, linksys is showing excellent/full strength, whilst windows is showing ok/half strength connection. And the wireless traffic graph seems to be showing that the speed is capping out 300kbps, even though I think more traffic is occuring?

(and yes the pci card is also dual band before anyone asks)

The pci card (WMP600N) has 2 antennas (antennae?) the router has 3 internal (WAG320N).

Im not too fussed about getting advertised speeds, as my net connection is much lower than those speeds and thats the primary function.

Which brings me back to my question, if the network is 802.11n with multiple spatial streams and non-overlapping channels, do the network strength monitor applications take this into account, or do they only monitor a single stream/channel?

Another question I have is that with the pci card, I can swap out the antennas for other types/brands. I have a high gain antenna I used on the old pci card, but will it have any negative effects if I have 2 different antennae connected?

Annoyingly Ive done my usual of changing multiple things at once so Im not 100% sure what has made a difference. Signal is now at~70% (from 10-30%)

Change 1:
I moved the router from one corner of the room (far corner) to a shelf just under the roof on the nearest side of the room. The room in question is a ground floor extension so the signal has had to go through not just the 1st floor, but likely the side of the house, extension roof, and several brick walls. Im not sure how moving it 6 would have made much difference, given that a few weeks ago I tried moving the router into the centre of the house, but even then signal wasnt quite as good as it is now.

Change 2:
I also had a bit of a play with the wireless settings on the router. Though the router is a dual channel affair that supposedly do Wireless G and N at the same time, the wireless N signal was always absolutely dire and as default most devices connected to the G.

In the settings theres an option for mode, with 4 choices: 130mbps at 2.4ghz, 130 at 5ghz & 54mbps at 2.4ghz, 270mbps at 2.4ghz, 270 at 5ghz & 54mbps at 2.4ghz

The default setting was the last one, 270 at 5ghz & 54mbps at 2.4ghz. I changed this to 270mbps at 2.4 ghz and wham, 70% signal strength on Wireless N, which previously was 10%.

Could it have been interference between 2.4 and 5ghz frequencies causing this? Or was it really just randomly finding the sweet spot in the extension for signal strength?

So the new and improved speeds offered by Wireless N are through sheer brute force of signal strength, rather than some clever frequency manipulation gubbins?