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Supercharging Your Linksys Wireless Access Point

Posted by timothy on from the all-i-have-is-recent-firmware dept.

kwishot writes "Xam over at www.wi2600.org has documented a relatively simple way to 'turn up the juice' on your Linksys WAP11 Wireless Access Point." Caveats: the outlined method requires a Windows box, recent firmware, and (some) bravery, but no going inside the box or special hardware.

5 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. SNMP? by omega9 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From what i can tell, this doesn't have to be a Windows only hack. The piece of software that Xam states is only built for Win32 seems to be nothing more then an SNMP manager. Now, the Win32 tool might make it a bit easier, but you can hardly call it "requires a Windows box".

    --
    I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
  2. Re:Wireless Phone interference by jandrese · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well, since your phone is probably some analog deal that just blasts out your voice, I'd say upping the power on the access point will just add a bit more noise to your conversation (and probably not help too much in keeping the signal strong when you pick up the phone, although it should help a little).

    A better hack might be to change the channel on your access point to something on the other end of the spectrum since you phone may not be taking up the entire band (unless it's a DSS phone). Or you might try moving your phone's base station and access point to opposite ends of the house.

    PS: Whoever modded this as a troll: what were you thinking?

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    I read the internet for the articles.
  3. Other 802.11b improvements by Arkham · · Score: 4, Interesting
    There are two worthwhile articles over at Macintouch about 802.11b (AirPort in the mac world). I thought they might be interesting to people looking to improve their wireless LAN performance or range.

    Adding WaveLAN Extender - This article discusses adding various antennae to base stations to improve their range.

    Extending TheAirPort's Range - This article discusses some more radical procedures, including some neat stuff with Directional Antennae which allow 802.11b to work as far away as a 57 Kilometers. They also discuss various antennae to add to laptops in order to improve their range.

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    - Vincit qui patitur.
  4. Fun with Wap11 by bwags · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Funny, I just worked on boosting my power this weekend before this post. It works like a champ! This info came out earlier this fall but it is nice to see it all written up in such a nice manner. I have a whole bunch of printouts describing all this stuff and I somehow pieced it all togethter. I have a couple of notes of interest pertaining to this stuff:


    First, I never did upgrade the firmware to 1.4g5 or 1.4g7, I am running 1.4H3. I guess I should upgrade, but that would require me to actually get the AP next to my PC for the USB connection. The upgrade seems to work OK without the latest rev as long as you can connect via snmp. I think I must have the 1.0 hardware since I got this thing Jan 2001.


    Second, I think you can also turn off the SSID on your WAP using these utilities. I have not tried this but perhaps it could help if you are paranoid...


    Finally, The main reason I worked on trying to fugure this out is because my wireless network was running very slow. I finally figured out the reason was the wpc11 linksys pcmcia card that I have. If you have one of these cards make sure to DISABLE the PowerSaveMode in your network configuration (in Windows). Your network will now run significantly faster (500K/sec instead of 50K/Sec in my case). Also when exploring in windows use mapped drives instead of unc names. This seems to also help.


    Hope that helps, BRian

  5. MIB hackery by danish · · Score: 5, Interesting
    After installing the snmp utils (apt-get install snmp) and doing some minor surgery to the MIB so it would parse correctly, I think I've found the element to modify:

    enterprises.atmel.atmelmib.atmelSys.TestModeSettin gsGRP.TestModeRadioConfiguration.0 = Hex: CA CA CA CA CA CA C9 C9 C9 C9 C9 C9 C9 C9

    Although not in the same configuration as the article describes, this may be due to the fact that I've never upgraded the firmware on the access point I snmpwalk'd this from. Perhaps I should get busy on that....

    Any of you people out there with an upgraded firmware, you should try snmpset under Linux or your UNIX of choice and see what kind of results you get... extra points for verifying the change with the Windows stuff in the article.

    Numerically, snmptranslate says that the correct field is .1.3.6.1.4.1.410.1.1.8.8.0, assuming I'm using it right (I called it with the commandline snmptranslate -m +ATMEL-MIB -IR enterprises.atmel.atmelmib.atmelSys.TestModeSettin gsGRP.TestModeRadioConfiguration.0.)