Looking for help with wireless connection.

[Bananahammoc]

Okay so let me try to explain what the problem is and what I would like to do. My girlfriend and I play World of Warcraft. Our modem and router are on the main floor (moving them is not an option). She used to play with me in the basement, which is directly underneath the modem/router. Our wireless connection wasn't amazing; we disconnected at least a few times a week, but that wasn't really a huge issue. At some point I actually fed an ethernet cable down a hole and fixed that issue for myself. My girlfriend decided a few weeks ago that she didn't want to play in the basement anymore, so I moved her computer to her room on the 2nd floor. This room isn't directly over the modem/router though.

Ever since I moved her computer here, she has been having connection issues. It seems fine a lot of the time, but then when she's playing she will often (especially in raid combat, if anyone knows the game) start lagging. The weird thing is, it won't fully disconnect her from the game as it usually does. Instead, she'll experience 5-40 second lag spikes. Everything/everyone will be running on the spot, her abilities would not cast, etc. Afterward it usually returns to semi-normality, only to start up again within 30 secs.

So the question is, what is the problem? I just built her a new computer, it has an i5 3570, an ATI 7870 for a video card, 8gb of ram, 600W PSU, 1TB HDD, I don't remember the motherboard, but I can go look at it if necessary. I'm using a Cisco Linksys EA4500 wireless router, and the wireless adapter is a D-Link DWA-525 wireless N 150 pci adapter.

Some additional info: I've got a D-Link DIR655 wireless N router just sitting around, we got the new one because we thought that the D-Link one was giving us problems, but it turned out that changing the router didn't help (so I assume the old one is fine). I also wanted to ask about using that router to somehow pick up the wireless signal from the main router and then connect it to her computer via ethernet, but I have no idea if/how that would work.

Edit: I also have another DWA-525 adapter, but it might not be working properly. If it would help narrow down what the problem is, I can swap it in, as well and swapping the other router in.

Thanks in advance.

 

[electrontau]

You can use the spare router as a repeater. You need to find a place in 2nd floor that gets a steady signal and set the repeater there. There are several links showing how to configure a router as an access point.
https://www.google.com/search?q=configure+router+as+access+point&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a


Another solution is called "ethernet over power". It is a device that connect to router and plug into wall power socket. Ethernet signal is transmitted over the power line and the second device get the signal and sent it to computer or an access point. Here is one example:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833181158

Lok'tar ogar! For the Horde!

 

[Bananahammoc]

Alrighty, I'll try that. Funny thing is, I did try something very similar to that... http://www.tested.com/tech/298-how-to-use-an-old-router-to-expand-your-wi-fi-network/ is the one I used, but I may have screwed it up. I don't recall what the problem was at the end, but it didn't work. I think the problem was that the 2nd router wasn't transmitting any signal, or it wasn't transmitting a signal with usable internet. But I'll try it again, and I'll attempt to make sure I do it 100% correctly.

 

[das_stig]

I would use the DIR655 as AP connect using the cable from your room, you can hook in the back too. The DWA-525 are a bit sucky, son had one and would get the same result, swapped that out for a Netgear repeater and happy as pig in ****, low pings and speedtest says he is getting 30MB DN/6MB UP

 

[das_stig]

On the DIR655, you neeed to disable DHCP, Firewall, basically anything that would make it function as a router. Leave WAN IP as DHCP and set LAN IP to something within your network range and connect it to a LAN port not the WAN port.

 

[Bananahammoc]

Okay so I just followed electrontau's linked guide, and I remembered what the problem was. The guide says I need to connect my 2nd router to my router. I don't get how that is a solution. My main router, on the first floor, is not going to be moved. If I understand correctly, I need to attach my 2nd router via cable to my primary router. Then what? I can't just have a cord sitting in the main floor, it'd be right at the entrance. What I was picturing was having the 2nd router on the top floor, wirelessly picking up the main signal and re-transmitting it with more strength throughout all of the upstairs. Is this what the guide is pointing me toward?

By the way, this is what I did. Before plugging in/connecting my 2nd router, I checked all the necessary info from the main router.
I got its IP, which was 192.168.1.1
I changed the DHCP thing to 192.168.1.33-82 or something, just as it shows in the example (I wanted to make sure the numbers I chose would work, lol)

I turned off my wireless adapter (which is connecting me to the internet/main router), and connected myself via ethernet to the 2nd router (after resetting it). I turned off DHCP serving on it, changed the wireless info to be the same as my main one (same WPA2 password, same SSID) and made the channel 6 (the main router is set to 11). I then changed the IP of the 2nd router to be within the same subnet, like the guide said. Changed it to 192.168.1.2 (which was also in the example). When I clicked yes to reboot router, it wouldn't allow me to get back to the router page. I don't know if I did this right, but since I changed the IP on the router I tried to connect to that address, so I typed 192.168.1.2 into the address bar. Nothing. So I thought maybe now I could only connect to the 2nd router through the primary one... So I unplugged the 2nd router from ethernet, re-enabled my wireless adapter, and tried to connect to my primary router. Internet wasn't working. Don't know what to do from here.