I just hooked myself up with wifi in the house as cable was not an option here with wires a mess and the layout etc, I was wondering on any tips or tricks to improve things or settings that will boost perfomance or any of little bits that help a lot etc.
Not done Wifi Properly before and all seems to be running (eventually) but I do not know if I can do more to improve things or not

Get rid or try not to use any equipment running on 2.4GHz, IE cordless phones, wireless TV extenders.

Try and place the AP centrally as possible, if not use an electrical mains ethernet socket to extend the range and plant another AP somewhere in the house.

If you think there is intereferance about that you cant identify.  Invest in one of these.

http://www.metageek.net/Products/Wi-Spy

Dunno if/when these will be available but Id figure it wouldnt be tied to BT either... http://www.techwatch.co.uk/2008/03/19/the-bt-iplate-speeds-up-the-internet/

Not sure just how well they work or if theyre just another one of those "Mobile phone signal booster" stickers that do sod all...

Dont use WEP.

......or if you house is far enough from another residence or road that could pick it up then dont even bother using encryption.

Quote from: MaldonadoDont use WEP.

Who not?

Quote from: neXus

Quote from: MaldonadoDont use WEP.

Who not?

WEP 128 takes at most 30 minutes to eat with a semi-decent lappy.  WPA isnt perfect either, but its much better than WEP.

Quote from: neXus

Quote from: MaldonadoDont use WEP.

Who not?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/04/wireless_code_cracking/
http://wepcrack.sourceforge.net/
http://docs.lucidinteractive.ca/index.php/Cracking_WEP_and_WPA_Wireless_Networks

etc. etc.

Any trapeze gear Im installing now is going in with a minimum of WPA2/TKIP and PEAP offload.

As a home user you probably wont need 802.1x authentication - but I would certainly advise using whatever form of WPA your equipment supports

As for speed, its always going to be pretty poor until 802.11n is properly finalised - but you can get by with 802.11a or g pretty well for the time being. g Will have better range than a. a has a slightly higher throughput. I dont know how well soho devices or cards support a radio though as I dont work with soho gear

a wont be affected by interference by your common or garden household 2,4GHz equipment though

the kit I got is 108mb But currently at 54mb becuase my pc I have the built in Asus wireless and ran out of cash for another pci card at 108mb. I made one of those DIY boosters out of card and foil but I think my antenna is not right for it
ignore all but the white thing, which is what I have. May get just a new antenna or a new card in the future

Thanks for info so fay, will look at changing the web when I have more confidence and knowledge in the settings, not to fussed as there are lots of wifi here in NZ but a lot of nice but dim folk as well becuase so many of them have no passwords at all.

Lets not forget WEP does as its uses. I live at the end of a street with only maybe 3 houses within range. I can only detect one other network in range. WEP is good enough for just preventing someone conveniently seeing it and connecting. The day I see a primary school kid sat in the field next to my house with a laptop surfing the net is the day I upgrade haha...

Quote from: MarkAny trapeze gear Im installing now is going in with a minimum of WPA2/TKIP and PEAP offload.

Is there a reason you choose TKIP over AES?

Ive been looking at the two and found I get better performance with AES but it isnt supported in all firmware. Im using stuff from the Netgear Business range...not enterprise class, but not soho either.

AES has much higher CPU overhead and a lot of the devices our customers use are not powerful.

You cant really compare the two though - one is a method of encryption (And the replacement for DES) and one is a key management protocol

I would enable TKIP in WPA2 where you would not normally find it being used purely for backwards compatibility. Native WPA2 utilises CCMP.