I have my DIR-655 router set up on the first floor because my son's tricked out gaming rig is in the basement while our office is on the 2nd floor. On the router, I tweaked settings to give him priority speed when he is gaming. Although he complains about his speeds and connectivity, it is the best in the house. In our 2nd floor office -- which is one floor and 30 ft through a wall away -- my signal strength varies from 45% to 70%. There are times when neighbor's networks show greater strength than mine does. I live in a house so the physical distance is much greater plus there are two exterior walls, no matter where their router is placed. The adapter in the office computer is a D-Link DWA-556.
I downloaded WiFi Analyzer and InSSider in order to find the best channel to be on. Previously I was on 11 but there were two neighbors with strong signals so I moved to 1 b/c there was no interference there. Now, my signal strength is less and my neighbor's have moved to channel 5. I am confused. This happened in less than 5 minutes. BTW, my son is at work so his computer is idle.
One other question is about my computer specs. My office computer is older and has an AMD Athlon 64 x2 4600+ processor. Could the older processor have any effect on my wifi signal? My router is configured to WPA2 encryption with AES cipher, channel width 20/40 auto, mixed g/n signal (because my laptop is g). Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Theresa