Wireless Mouse Booster

[luthierwnc]

Hi All, I've scoured the net and found the same problem a lot but solutions seem fleeting. We have an HTPC in the den and my wife plays games sitting on the couch. She uses a little desk for an auxiliary monitor and mouse sits behind and lower than the surface on a pull-out tray. Without line-of-sight, the mouse often skips or just stops. She is about 9 feet away from the PC. The mouse is a wireless Logitech 2.4ghz gaming mouse with a unifying dongle.

Short of risking yet another mouse with claims of good range, is there a way to make the receiver more sensitive? Running an extension USB cord would have limitations but other than that, I have some advantages;

my downside is only that I need to get another mouse anyway
I'm very handy with a soldering iron
I don't care what it looks like and
I kind of enjoy wanking with electronics projects.

Maybe there is a way to put a router antenna on a dongle or something off-the-wall like that. I could also make a custom desk.

Intelligent solutions are welcome too! Please share your experience, Thanks, sh

 

[punahou1]

I would think that by running a UBS extension cord from your pc to the receiver would do the trick here. I have one of the newer Microsoft mice and it runs just fine at about 20 feet (well 10 feet if the signal is going through the wall). My pc is in one room and is also connected to my TV which is in the room next door.

 

[luthierwnc]

I did something like that with a 6' USB extension cord. I ran it pure sideways from the HTPC. Although it still wasn't line-of-sight, it works well. My next move was to order a white 10' extension so it blends in with the decor a little better. Thanks, sh

 

[punahou1]

I did something like that with a 6' USB extension cord. I ran it pure sideways from the HTPC. Although it still wasn't line-of-sight, it works well. My next move was to order a white 10' extension so it blends in with the decor a little better. Thanks, sh

Hi there - Six feet is really the upper limit for UBS 1.0. Sixteen feet is the upper limit for UBS 2.0. Assuming you are using 2.0, you should be good. To go beyond these distance limits you would need what is called a "UBS hub" which functions like a signal booster.