Hello, I have had low internet connectivity issues for a while and was not doing anything about it because I was still able to play poker and such, and blamed my internet provider at first. Now it seems I need to turn off the internet security to get a better wireless signal which is strange, so I think I can improve it.

I think I had the router security disabled anyway, but I recently lost internet after a storm (Comcast, New Jersey USA) and when it was restored, I noticed that when I put the Linksys router security back on (tried both WPA personal, WPA-2 personal), I could not get internet on my desktop. It is upstairs in another room from the comcast modem/separate linksys router. The modem does not have wifi so it is meant to have a router connected to it, I guess.

I have windows vista on my desktop, although my new laptop with windows 7 had difficulty connecting with the router security on as well. My mom and sister were able to connect to the internet on their laptops with windows 7, they say, but I did not test this myself yet.

I bought the router from newegg or similar site (WRT320N linksys) and I think it was discounted because it was sent back to the company, perhaps that was a bad idea in case of damage or defective parts potentially giving it a low signal. My father has a laptop at least 3-4 years old that can connect from the separate garage apartment next door, although my new laptop could not connect there, and he only gets about 3/5 bars.

I am wondering if I should buy a new router, use 2 routers at once (is this silly? or possible? lol) with one in the garage apartment or my room, change internet providers, or perhaps there is just damage to my desktop and I should get it looked at/get a new one, although it has a core i7 and is a few years old but seems okay otherwise. I should reformat soon but need to save HEM/tax records and that seems a little time consuming but could help. Any advice or further questions for me are appreciated! Thank you for your time.

if your problem is signal in other parts of the house you could get a wifi-booster.

do not run your router without WPA2 security configured and on. lots of big security reasons that I won't go into.

the strength/quality of the wireless signal that you get off of your wireless router (very likely) has nothing to do with your internet provider. it seems likely that you are, but it's worth asking: when you enable WPA2 on your router are you configuring a password which you in turn configure on your computer for it to use to connect to your router? that is necessary.

different devices have different wireless radios with different strengths/weaknesses and will achieve different connection qualities in different situations. if one has 3 out of 5 bars you should probably be able to get at least 1 bar on any device, but not necessarily. when you are saying that you can't connect and your father can, is it the case that your laptop cannot even see the network or just that you can't get connectivity?

there are various things you can do to increase the wireless coverage you have in your house, but given that some devices don't have any trouble, I expect that there are some other things that need to be worked out with your devices that do have issues.

I just remembered that the messages I got from windows when I couldn't connect were "limited connectivity" and 'cannot connect to the router/access point' and it said maybe too far away, even though it had 4 bars. It seems when I have 2-3 bars normally I get randomly disconnected, although 4 is usually enough to be stable.

I configured the WPA2 password to be the same on both how it used to work with the security on, and it originally dropped me about 1 bar in signal strength, but then I suddenly couldn't connect at all so I turned it off. No point in having a protected internet I can't use at all, although I can turn it on tomorrow and try again, it is very time consuming because my parents have the router wired to a very old computer. I just finished college over the summer and I'm living at home so I wasn't really dealing with it for a while and forgot about it.

I will have to check tomorrow with my laptop because he is asleep. I just know it wouldn't connect to the internet.

If there is a problem with my desktop, maybe either it is the wireless receiver in it that somehow sucks (well it is HP after all) or there could be some software issue potentially? Do you know if a newer router could help at all? much cheaper to replace than computer/parts usually

hm, are you sure that your desktop supports WPA/WPA2? if you post the model of the wireless adapter you have we can figure it out.

it is possible that successful connection to a particular wireless network results in you seeing "more bars" of signal. the wireless router could detect that there is a client that is far away and increase its broadcast signal strength and/or use beamforming to direct more of the signal your way. that could cause the difference of apparent signal strength that you note between security off (you are connected) and security on (you aren't actually connected).

if you use your network without security then it is possible for anyone nearby to see anything you do that isn't encrypted. pokerstars, full tilt, gmail, etc, all use secure connections by default, but other sites do not (not sure what facebook is doing by default these days, etc).

i apologize for not reading this thread for a while, thanks for all the information! i will get it fixed soon.

i bought it premade from HP because i thought they were good for some reason back in 2008. HP site http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d..****e_r0003#N305 says 3 choices:

56K bps data/fax modem (external USB modem) & Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g/n & external antenna

802.11 a/b/g/n PCI Express x1 wireless card & Bluetooth Flicker (USB)

Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g/n & external antenna

i am not sure which one i chose or how to check but i do not seem to have an external antenna so i would say the middle one, although i forget if it came with USB bluetooth, I think I have some form of wireless card internal. Anyway the computer is 4 years old or so and i used to play poker on it with security with minor disconnections from time to time that would reconnect within 1 minute (gamers across usa seem to blame this on comcast which was why I was considering changing but I think the main issue is on my end now). It should be good enough to connect to standard router security, has a core i7, everything used to be fine but it is possible that i am an idiot and broke it somehow over the course of time. maybe the wireless adapter needs replacing.

i tried looking on HP's website to see exactly what wireless adapter you have but it just does not seem to say (it is likely the middle one of what you wrote above, but it doesn't tell us exactly what it is).

i would try downloading the most up to date driver for the wireless adapter from HP's website, uninstalling the current driver, and installing the new driver you just got from HP. if it used to work but now it does not, this stands a chance of fixing it.