Desire Advice: SB drops out

[utowana]

I have a problem that just does not seem to go away. I have a 3 SB household, two of which (one wired and one wireless) stream effectively and in an uninterrupted way. The third, located furthest away from my Belkin Pre-N wireless router, takes as long as a minute to start playing (I load something from the server, the VU meter shows streaming (deflection) but no sound, and often drops out after about 2 minutes of playing, will stay silent for as long as 15 min, and then start playing again. I'm running SC 7 (downloaded yesterday) and the performance is identical as with 6.x versions. I'm not a networking expert, but my working theory has been that it is taking a long time to "buffer" enough info to get the stream started, but the behavior I describe seems to contradict that a bit. I have 58-60% signal strength on the misbehaving SB. It is on a second floor on the opposite end of the house, with router located in the corner of the basement (so it punches thru 2 floors and across the house). I know, not perfect, but all other wireless devices work nicely with this set up, including another SB and the laptop I'm typing on.

I've considered purchasing WAP, as I can get a cable to the mid level of the home, but I don't want the hassle and fussing it would take to wire the upstairs bedroom.

Any thoughts or advice?

Love my SB's. Have three so the Duet will wait.

[SuperQ]

The signal strength meter tells you how much signal you're getting, but it won't tell you if you're "dropping packets". You should run the network test plugin from the SB3 and it will tell you how many packets are getting through. I don't remember if this is the case with the signal strength on the box, but it may not take noise level into account.

Things to try:
Changing wifi channels (1,6,11), changing the orientation of the AP's antennas, or adding a WAP like you were thinking.

[utowana]

Thanks SuperQ. Will try and get back with results.

[morris_minor]

I believe some people use homeplug products for getting wired connections around the house.

http://www.homeplug.org/products/

I don't know what the performance is like - perhaps someone would like to comment?

[nacmacfeegle]

I use a couple of Devolo Homeplugs to connect an SB3 to my router, it works fine even though the two ends of the 'wired' network are on separate circuits in the house. This may a solution for the original poster.

[utowana]

SuperQ: I decided to teach my daughter about the scientific method and I went and changed two things at once: I shifted the router about 10 degrees (moved the antenna) and changed to channel 2 on the router.

So far, 2 flawless evenings of connectivity.

My daughter asked which change made the difference...so I told her to do as the book says and only make one change at a time.

Thanks for the simple advice. I'll continue to monitor, but I think this fix is a good one.