Wireless Routers and access points can be a major pain to deal with. Wireless, by it’s very nature is flaky! Sometimes, just a matter of inches can mean the difference between a good signal and none and at all when moving your notebook.
Many of us depend on our wireless networks to function. Freedom from cables and locations have made our world truly mobile, in a way that’s hard to return to wired, tethered data access. However, with that freedom also comes frustration. There’s nothing more frustrating than a wireless connection that intermittently drops, or grinds to a crawl.
Most of the time, you just wind up rebooting your laptop or unplugging and replugging the power to your wireless router. Sometimes that helps, sometimes it doesn’t.
Many manufactures make wireless devices. Linksys/Cisco, Apple, D-Link and many others. Most of the tools, especially troubleshooting tools, that come with these routers and access points are very lacking. The good news is, there are some excellent open-source solutions to help you, and you might be surprised by just how good and feature rich they are.
Introducing DD-WRT
DD-WRT is probably my favorite release of an open source firmware replacement. DD-WRT is based on the Open-WRT firmware kernel with its own feature sets. DD-WRT was originally designed for use with just Linksys routers, but now is available for many others too. With DD-WRT you get many options and choices, along with some very nice tools, that don’t come built in to your router by default.
DD-WRT will allow you to change the signal strength, output wattage, processor clock speed, define numerous access methods, and a lot more. DD-WRT even allows you to create a Wireless Distribution System by linking many access points together to create a massive wireless network without the need for cabling!
Even if the hardware of your router turns our to be flaky, and its not the software that came with DD-WRT will let you schedule your router to reboot on a nightly basis, or even more or less often. DD-WRT comes with many information screens that show client connectivity, signal strength and more.
Fig 1: DD-WRT Informational Screen
You can get DD-WRT for your router at: http://www.dd-wrt-com/
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