Wireless range

first there are networking forums on toms and always has been. however since you here the best thing to do is check the route the signals take to you computer. avoid microwaves, cordless phones and blietooth devices. forget about the last two if you use 802.11a standard. range is like latency on monitors they only mention the peak. when speaking of indoor range they usually define walls as being made of plasterboard, however if you have a supporting wall made out of concrete or brick and maybe even has a steel support frame this will drastically reduce the signal strength. it might be best if you ty to move the router/accespoint to different places and try transferring/downloading large files to see what sort of consistent speeds you get. if the signal is weak but you still get good speeds, signal strength shouldn't matter too much. you might however suffer from packet loss or even signal failure.

btw what standard do you use, sounds like g but better check.

unfortunaltely g is the best there is. a gives a higher throughput, but less range. i only advised it because it uses the 5 ghz range instead of the usual 2.4 ghz range. it would be best to get a higher gain antenna. that would be help pick up the signal better. does you current antenna on the desktop wireless card screw in if so shoud be easy to swap.

i aint no expert so might have to wait and see if anyone else posts up. you mentioned a booster. if your worried about bandwidth, what sort of stuff do you use your network for that requires so much?

if it isnt major data transfer and just internet then seeing as it is capable of a maximum of 54Mbps and say you had a broadband connection of 2Mbps then even at half its bandwidth you'd still have 25Mbps more than you would need. the main thing you need is signal integrity. if you can transfer a large file or even a collection of small files between the two comps and use the task manager to measure network usage. if it is pretty constant there is nothing you need to worry about.