Inexpensive Methods of strengthening/repeating router signal/help on my house

[Badgerman of DOOM]

Hey there folks. If you haven't heard I'm moving into a house with 7 other people come Friday. I've been unofficially put in charge of making sure internet reaches everyone. It's a 3 story townhouse, so I have 2 ideas- either the router goes on the second floor, middle and I hope to Jesus that an omnidirectional antenna reaches everyone, including the basement, or I place it on the tip top floor with one of those special one-direction antennae that are like twice as strong. However it occurred to me in both situations I might have to find some way of ensuring the signal is strong all around the house. I remember reading somewhere here about a way of strengthening signals, a do-it-yourself project someone made and was thinking of finding a way to do that instead of spending cash on a fairly expensive wireless repeater. Any thoughts/ideas/advice/opinions/boner?

[HeK]

Locating the router in the middle area of the house should work. As long as it's not a cheap model with a poor amplifier or antennas.
But really, wireless is shitty. Hard wire as much as you can.

[Badgerman of DOOM]

Locating the router in the middle area of the house should work. As long as it's not a cheap model with a poor amplifier or antennas.
But really, wireless is shitty. Hard wire as much as you can.

Problem with wiring is that we're renting. I always prefer hard wire to no wire but the issue here is we really can't do it ourselves efficiently, what with the house being 3 stories and all. And going through walls is kinda out of the question for that same reason too.

[CaffeinePowered]

[quote author=HeK link=topic=5885.msg220192#msg220192 date=1314251233]
Locating the router in the middle area of the house should work. As long as it's not a cheap model with a poor amplifier or antennas.
But really, wireless is shitty. Hard wire as much as you can.

Problem with wiring is that we're renting. I always prefer hard wire to no wire but the issue here is we really can't do it ourselves efficiently, what with the house being 3 stories and all. And going through walls is kinda out of the question for that same reason too.
[/quote]

[HeK]

Or 3M command strips.

Use vents, or tuck in the corners and run along the stairs.

[Kirby]

Or 3M command strips.

Use vents, or tuck in the corners and run along the stairs.

Don't forget under rugs too.

When I was house sitting for my company's owner one thanksgiving week, I had to wire 'errything. (He has only wireless, I played EVE at the time, not kosher)

I busted out my 1000' cat5e spool and got to work. I had that shit strung off the ceiling from everything in sight (2 Yorkshire Terriers in the house) in a few cases I even had to go an extra room around because there wasn't anything to string from in a direct route.

The moral is wire that shit, who cares how ridiculous of a cable you have to lay to get a wire to everyone. Because if you don't and you're in charge of the intertubes, guess who's on the short list of people to complain to every time the wireless drops a hot steamy one (Which will be every day with 7 college kids sharing a residential connection)



P.S.

Windows are holes in the walls already drilled for you.




A good idea that I used to do while doing a multi story LAN party, have the modem/main router on the middle floor, and from each router port, run a separate cable to each different floor. Cap that cable with a simple 5 port switch that everyone on that floor can plug into. It makes for more, shorter wires that are easier to deal with. This also will leave a few ports open on each floor for future expansion if need be. A really easy way to do that is to run the cable to each floor out one window and in another on the destination floor.

[Vlambo]

My roommates and I just ran Cat6 on the floor. its just kinda pushed out of the way so no one trips on it.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Basically, what Kirby said.  Also, there *IS* access to all floors somewhere.  It's just a matter of finding it.