[SOLVED] QUESTIONS ABOUT WI-FI EXTENDER

[Oxidane]

1. If you are closer to the router itself than the wi-fi extender (i.e. your computer is 30 feet away from the router, while your router is 40 feet away from the router), is the wi-fi extender redundant? By any chance does this have any negative impact on your wi-fi connection?
2. Does a wi-fi extender give you more consistent speeds at further distances?
3. Is a wi-fi extender basically redundant if it is plugged in right next to your computer?

 

[bill001g]

Repeater cause all kinds of strange issues. You should only use a repeater when you choices are no wifi converge at all or a crappy repeated signal.

The end device will always attempt to connect to the strongest signal. It is not smart enough to know that a direct connection to the router even if the signal is slightly weaker will be better than a stronger signal to the repeater.
Also the device will stay connected to the current signal even if there is a better one until the level gets very low. Proper place of the repeater is critical to reducing this.

Just having a repeater in the house and some device connected will more interference since you have the same data being sent multiple times. Its hard to say but it can degrade the performance of devices directly connecting to the main router via wifi.

It depends what you mean by "consistent". The speed you get in a most repeaters is going to cut your speed by 1/2 because the signals are sent over the same radio channels multiple times. If you consider a area where you get no signal or a very weak signal then it has to be better than a zero transfer rate.
The problems come when people get some "ok" signal in the remote rooms directly connected to the router wifi and think adding a repeater will make it faster. In those cases it likely makes it worse. Again repeaters should be used when you have no signals and anything is better than nothing.

Yup putting a extender right next to the pc is stupid. Even if you connect it to the computer with a ethernet cable it will be no better than a wifi card in the pc. It still get the same signal levels from the main router.