Laptop has good connection, desktop does not.

[NetworkingDunce]

Just moved into a new duplex and found out that my laptop has a decent connection to the router, but my desktop does not. I'm looking for a way to correct this.

My laptop has an Atheros wireless adapter and my desktop has an ASUS PCE-N13 wireless card installed. On the Atheros I get 10 Mbps. On the ASUS, when I can maintain connection long enough to run the speedtest, I get 0.30 Mbps, and these are both in the same room, so obviously there's a problem with the desktop.

So I'm wondering what my options are. I can't move the router closer to my desktop, as it's in the other unit of the duplex (the internet is shared between the two units), but I do have a bunch of wires on our side so I was wondering if I could set up another router over here that would use the same network, but broadcast a stronger signal to my computer. I don't know if that's possible though, as my username is self-descriptive.

I tried buying a USB wireless adapter (LinksysAE1200) and that didn't do a damn thing. In fact, the USB wireless adapter couldn't even SEE the network, much less connect to it. So obviously that's going back tomorrow. I was wondering what my other options are. Was thinking of buying this or this to replace my current card, or maybe even this since it seems to have such stellar reviews.

Any experiences with any of those? Or have other suggestions for what I might do next?

 

[Dngrsone]

You could try an external antenna attached to your wifi card; move it around to try and capture a better signal.

 

[johnb35]

Try updating the driver for the asus card. I would actually recommend getting this wireless card if you were gonna get something different. This should work out well for you since what you need is something that you can move to obtain the best signal since it does have like a few feet of cable to move around.

If one of those cables is coming from the router then you can buy another router and hook it up in your unit and get much better wireless signal.

 

[NetworkingDunce]

Forgot to mention, but I have updated my drivers and they didn't seem to make any improvement.

Also, no idea if the wires we have on this side are attached to the router. I doubt it, as I'd assume they've the same set up on their side. It's just wires coming out of the ceiling as far as I can tell: no idea where or if they meet.

One other thing: what's the difference between a router and an access point? I've seen some routers that advertise as both, but it seems that you can buy just access points, which just look like routers to me.