Wireless strength very weak, what to do?

Paul6552

Hello community,
I have an Alix board with an 12dpi antenna and a 300n wireless card.
http://www.amazon.de/CSL-Stabantenne-Signalverst%C3%A4rker-Omni-direktionale-Wlan-Stick/dp/B00DZSKCUW/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1387900247&sr=8-4&keywords=wlan+antenne
http://www.amazon.de/TP-LINK-TL-WN861N-WLAN-Mini–PCI-Adapter/dp/B009ODRRDM/

So the problem now is that the TX power is set to 99 but the signal is very weak. In my situation I have a three floors and in the middle of the house there is the system installed.

Only one wall between me and the router, but the signal is too weak, that i get a good signal.

Is there something else that i can configure on the router? There are many options in this firmware and I am not sure if I have configured the router very well.

The next thing is, when I take my router from home (wrt54g, dd-wrt), i have a very strong signal, although I think it should work better with pfsense, because there is installed a 12dpi antenna.

So hopefully somebody can give me some tips or explaination in my situation

Thanks

doktornotor

@Paul6552:

So the problem now is that the TX power is set to 99 but the signal is very weak.

Anything beyond 30 is useless and usually not honored at all…

@Paul6552:

Is there something else that i can configure on the router?

Considering you told use nothing about the configuration… kinda impossible to answer.

Paul6552

@doktornotor
I think you are the fastest writer in this forum, are you never asleep? ;)

Anything beyond 30 is useless and usually not honored at all…

But only with the value 99 I have a signal strength like a normal wireless network. With the value 30 I have nothing X)
So there must be a problem. On the wlan card there are two connection points. I have put the antenna on left, point 1, because on point two I havent get any wlan signals. Dont know If this information can help.

The configuration - maybe my full configuration is helping? My configuration does something with cp, some firewall rules and configure wlan. Nothing more.

You can find my full configuration of pfsense here:
http://webftp.kasserver.com/
Username: f0091e7d
Password: onlyforshare

I know it is very time consuming to look at my configuration, but I hope you have a little time.
Thank you

GruensFroeschli

Are you really sure that you are using a 12dbi antenna?
If you use this wrongly you will have a situation very fast where your EIRP is above the legal limit.

Do you have a datasheet of this antenna?
There should be a diagram how the power is radiated.
Example:
http://www.digdice.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/panel-18dbi-ver.jpg

As you can see the gain is only in one direction and in every other direction has actually a negative gain.

Paul6552

Couldn`t find a fact sheet of this antenna.

The only information I got was from amazon.

12dpi
Radiation: Omnidirectional 360 degrees horizontal / ~ 12 degree vertical
Frequenz 2,4GHz
Impedanz: 50 Ohm

@GruensFroeschli
Maybe you brought me to the right direction

Three floors:
In de second floor there is the antenna.
360 degree horizontal - meaning - in the same floor like the antenna is there is a good singnal, 12 degree vertical is not very good, maybe therefore I have a very bad signal in the first floor, I will readjust the antenna and will check the wlan signal.

Thanks will give feedback later

//Edit
My driver number is correct, checked this twice, and TX and RX are on the same number. No improvements.
Also the shifting of the antenna brought no more wirless strength

Waiting for pfsense 2.2 - maybe there is a better wireless support

pfSensible

I know this is kind of an old post, but we had a similar problem…

It seemed like the wireless signal was absurdly weak. I had just installed the wireless card and I really hated that tiny little connector, it was very shallow. I pressed on it very hard to make sure it had a good connection, installed it, put the hard drive back in and closed the case.

The signal was HORRIBLE. I opened the case again and the connector had popped off the card. I put a small plastic binder clip to hold on the connector on the wifi card.

It is a long shot, but maybe it is something that simple.

Paul6552

Thanks for your tip, Problem with weak signal is still here, but this is not the solution for the problem

tech1

i see that this is an older post. i have experienced the same problem and found it not to be my wifi but the walls in my house at one time had led based paint on the walls that was painted over.which turned out was blocking the signal. to check take a multimeter and set it to continuity then find a spot on the wall and stick the probes in. if it beeps, there is a high chance there is led based paint on the walls.