What are the best WiFi settings for my situation?

Question

I am trying to tweak my WiFi settings on the router and on my laptop so I can enjoy using the WiFi at my attic. For now I only get headaches because I cannot move freely around with my laptop at the attic because at some (further away from the router) spots the connection drops. This is really frustrating.

The distance between my laptop and my router is 6.5 to 9 meters with one concrete and one wooden floor between it.

First I started looking for the right channel to use as there is much WiFi traffic at my location, I choose 13 because it looked like the one which is the least used one by looking at these results (my network is WLANGZX):

Large image>1<

Large image>2<

Now I am stuck because I don't know which options I should use?

This are all the option screens:

In the picture above the following settings have been used:

Option                          Available Options                           Selected Option/Value

802.11 Bluetooth High Speed     Enable/Disable                              Disable
802.11b Preamble                Long and Short/Long                         Long and Short
AdHoc 11n                       Enable/Disable                              Disable
Dynmic MIMO Power Save          Enable/Disable                              Disable
Green Tx                        On/Off                                      Off
Network Address                 Value:                                      NULL
Receive Buffers                 1 to 512                                    512
Roaming Policy                  Very Low/Low/Normal/High/Very High          Normal
Scan Valid Interval             20-120                                      60
Transmit Buffers                1 to 512                                    512

Which settings should I change here? Most of the settings I don't know what they do.

Here are settings from the routers webpage:

Changing the channel is not needed, right? I choose a good one?

(I do not have the 5Ghz band available :( )

And if I hide the SSID would the connection be better?

Does the encryption type matter in case of connection stability and for a long distance-connection?

And what about the password lenght?

Also, are there any Windows 7 tweaks which could make the WiFi connection better?

Thanks in advance for your time and effort. This could help other many users aswell.

Notes:

-ofcourse all my drivers are up-to-date

-The router is 802.11g ONLY

Answer 1

First, ensure that the router is off the floor and away from walls and metal objects (such as metal file cabinets).

As regarding channels: Just try them all one-by-one at a time when the neighbors are probably at home.

Some more ideas are to be found in the article Top 10 Wi-Fi Boosts, Tweaks and Apps.

Idea number 2 is probably the best, to enhance your router's wireless antenna with aluminum foil : If your router is near an outside wall, half of the wireless signals will be sent outside your home, so much of your router's power is wasted.

There are many ideas on how to do that, going from this idea, further explained here, that results in:

And up to the very simple :

Answer 2

I don't think you can use Channel 13, its made for Europe or something. Here's what you want to do:

Make a list on paper of all the networks, excluding the ones that are very weak.

Your basic channels are 1,6,11. Other channels overlap with each other.

If someone else uses channel 4, round it up to 6. Channel 3, round down to 1, and so on. Count all the numbers 1,6,11 people, then pick the lowest one, and choose that. This isn't scientific, I made it up just now.

To test reliability, run: ping -t or ping -t www.google.com

move around and see how much it varies in milliseconds.

Encryption type and other settings usually don't matter for speed, use WPA2-AES personal. You can also try decreasing the speed of the network, for example instead of 54mbps you can lower it to 36mbps but I don't know if that really helps stability.