is the linksys WES610N worth it?

[TheKillJoy]

Hello Techs,

I am brand new so forgive me if i'm posting to the wrong forum.

Ok, my deal here is that i have a wireless router/modem (Cisco DPC 3825) that is from my ISP and I have my laptop in the top level of my house and the router/modem is in the basement with a kitchen in between.

I sometimes lose signal strength or it just drops the connection all together on my laptop. I also have a Xbox on the top level that has problems as well.

I have 2 Xbox's in the house (one on the main floor and one in my room top level) that I would like to connect wirelessly with a better signal strength than what i have right now because right now the Xbox (not mine) on the main floor gets better signal strength than mine.

The one problem I see is that the router/modem only broadcasts at 2.4GHz and there is a lot of clutter on the network also including 3 laptops, 2 Xbox's, 4 24 GHz wireless phones (not sure that it matters but might as well list it), 3 Apple Products (iPad, iPhone, iPod), and 2 Blackberry's all using 2.4Ghz.

So my questions to you tech's are:

Would it be worth getting the Entertainment bridge upstairs where the laptop and Xbox are to cover the top floor or are the walls between the router/modem and bridge going to kill my connection to the bridge?

Would it be worth calling the ISP and turning the router/modem into just a router?

Is there any other things that I could try before I start creating holes in my house to run CAT 5e to the top level?

Please help me out.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated and if you need more information on the situation let me know

-TheKillJoy

 

[etaf]

can we see some xirrus screen shots - just to monitor the signal - it sounds like signal strength - BUT it may be interference
it may be worth leaving it running for a while so we can see the graph and if the signal is changing at all

NOTE the signal strength note below

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Run Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector
Download and install
If you cannot access the internet with this PC, then you will need to copy the program across to the faulty PC

http://www.xirrus.com/Products/Wi-Fi-Inspector.aspx
Direct link to the program is here http://wpc.475a.edgecastcdn.net/00475A/XirrusWiFiInspectorSetup.1.2.0.exe

{If the above link does not work heres another link http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_download/fid,77196-order,4/download.html}

Then run and install the program - on a wireless enabled PC/Laptop
if you get an error - You need NET Framework installed for the WiFi Inspector to function.

Run the program

A user guide is available here http://www.xirrus.com/Products/Wi-Fi-Inspector/xirruswifiinspectorguide1-2-0.aspx

post a screen shot of the program running - if there are a lot of networks showing can you click on "networks" top lefthand area - so we can see all the network information, and also post which network "Adapter Name" (1st column) is yours on the list

To post a screen shot of the active window, hold the Alt key and press the PrtScn key. Open the Windows PAINT application and Paste the screen shot. You can then use PAINT to trim to suit, and save it as a JPG format file.
To upload it to the forum, open the full reply window and use the Manage Attachments button to upload it here.
Full details are here http://library.techguy.org/wiki/TSG_Posting_a_Screenshot

Note:
For a reliable (or robust as the Xirrus user guide says) wireless connection you need a signal of about -70 dBm or better.

If you are using the Mac OS then use http://www.istumbler.net/
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