7 Tips to Enhance Your Wireless Network

If you find your Wi-Fi signal is weak, it implies that your connection is not reliable and fast as it should be. Boosting your wireless network (WLAN) signal is not a very difficult task. Read on to know how you can do this yourself.

The tips:

1. Keep your wireless router, access point, and modem router in a central part of your home. If your laptop or PC is on the second floor and the router placed on the first floor, make sure the router is placed on a high shelf in the room. Did you say moving your wireless router is not possible? Try the other tips.

2. If you do not want your connection to be weak, you must keep the router away from the floor, metal contact and walls.

3. Find out if your router’s antenna is removable; if yes, you can upgrade to a high-gain antenna that allows wireless signals to be focused in a single direction. Normally a majority of antennas are designed to be omni-directional, broadcasting in all directions around the router. In this case, if your router is just next to an outside wall, the signals tend to go outside your home.

4. You can get rid of your laptop's PC card-based wireless network adapter and instead have a USB wireless network adapter that comes with an external antenna. This can help increase your wireless range.

5. It will also be advisable to add wireless repeaters for increasing your wireless range. There’s no need to add any wiring. You may just position the wireless repeater midway between the wireless router, access point and modem router.

6. may also try your hand at changing the wireless router’s channel through the configuration page of the router. This can improve signal strength. Do not worry about changing the computer’s configuration, as the new channel can be automatically detected by your machine.

7. Update your network adapter drive or your firmware to increase performance of your WLAN. Choose your vendor well; go for vendors who offer equipments of twice the performance.
These steps should help you a lot in enhancing the performance of your wireless network. In case, you are not satisfied, you may call an Cheap Computer Repair Houston service provider.

FIx Windows cannot connect to "Access_point"

This section provides technical support tips if you find Error message when you try to automatically connect to a wireless access point that uses shared-mode network authentication in Windows Vista: "Windows cannot connect to " "Access_point"

This problem occurs when you try to connect to a wireless network access point that uses shared-mode network authentication.

Steps to fix this problems
To work around this problem, manually create a network profile by using the Manually Connect to a Wireless Network Wizard and by selecting shared-mode network authentication

1. Click Start
Start button
, type network and sharing in the Start Search box, and then click Network and Sharing Center in the Programs list.

User Account Control permission
If you are prompted for an administrator password or for confirmation, type your password, or click Continue.
2. Click Manage Wireless Networks, and then click Add.
3. Click Manually create a network profile.
4. In the Network Name box, enter the name of the network.
5. In the Security type box, click Shared.
6. If the network uses encryption, select the encryption type in the Encryption type list, and then enter the security key in the Security Key/Passphrase box.
7. Click Next, and then click Close.

Steps to reproduce the problem
1. On a Windows Vista-based computer, connect to a wireless access point that is configured to use Wireless Encryption Protocol (WEP) and shared-mode network authentication.
2. Open the properties of the wireless network connection.
3. Click the Wireless Networks tab.
4. Click to select the Use Windows to configure my wireless network settings check box.
5. Click View Wireless Networks, and then click Choose a wireless network.
6. Double-click the WEP-shared mode access point.