Computer: Do You Have Any Home Wi-Fi Dead Spots?

Have you noticed that in different spots in your own home, your Wi-Fi reception can be questionable at times? It can be annoying but sometimes the remedy is pretty simple.

Rather than go on and on about repeaters and omni-directional antennas and other such high tech gadgets that are more confounding than useful, I've come upon a few easy fixes. Not to mention that in my own experiences, repeaters have not been that successful for me despite the premise of how they would seem to work.

First, you want to verify it's a location issue. Put your laptop right next to your wireless router and make sure it is picking up the signal.

If the signal is fine, great, it's not the router or the laptop.

There are a few remedies for strengthening the signal which could be just as easy as relocating your router to a more centralized location in your home, or raising it up in the room it's in to keep the signal clear of obstructions.

Obstructions? Yep. Materials like brick, concrete, metal and water seem to be developing reputations for signal interference.

Other things that can get in your signal path are things like your CD collection. The mylar on the CD's can refract more than light and if you have a collection right next to your router, or where you sit, if possible, relocate the CD's, the router or where you sit to see if that helps any.

Also, if your router is set to 'Auto Channel", try picking a channel and see if that helps.

There are many options and most of them cost money. My preference is try the old stand by of free first before blowing money on something you may not need. And though there's no guarantee these options will work for you, at least you now have a few ideas under your belt.

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