why doesn't my homehub work on more than 1 PC??!!!can anybody help

[overthemill]

i have 2 laptops and a desktop. laptops are in house. desktop is in, basically, the garden shed. shed has phone point (same number as in house). Homehub is in sitting room near to TV (have BT vision so it needs to be there). i laptop generally works ok (DH's a Dell, old one bought off ebay cheap). my 'posh' laptop with a ralink and a wireless card internally thing hardly ever works. always have to use zero configuration to get it to go. rarely works first time. really p**d off with it. Desktop outside works about once evry 3 months - using the wireless adapter thing from belkin (so 'talking' to homehub). today i had a brainwave and connected desktop using old alcatel modem but of course that didn't work either and it stopped the homehub working inside the house.

i have had all pcs checked out at pc world (cost afortune) had a 'BT' engineer come who charged £60 got laptop and desktop working for that day only (and never again) and paid someone else £120 to sort it out but after afew days it kind of dropped off again. ios it my homehub do you think? what can i do? i have phoned bt millions of times and am sooo fed up.
the outside one is important as it is in my official 'office' as i work from home. the dell laptop means my dh can use it without messing up my files etc and the posh laptop is for the kids to use basically so tehy can be near us and not mess up our files.

[Greyriverside]

The one outside might be a bit far away to connect via wireless. Not just distance, but thickness of walls etc. Is there any way you can ran a cable inside?

What happens if you carry the Dell to the 'shed'. Does it still connect ok from there? If not then the signal from the hub is just not strong enough. If it connects fine then maybe you can get a better wireless adaptor for the Desktop PC in the shed.

Interference plays a part too. Every electrical item in your house (and next door) will have some effect on the signal.

The 'posh' laptop sounds like it just needs to be set up right, but strange that none of the experts managed to do so. It's not running Windows Vista is it? There are some issues with that I gather.

[overthemill]

we have a tel point outside which cost a fortune and i thought that would be enough., could i connect it up just on an ethernet cable from that tel point or does it need to be from the homehub (not a chance in hell of redigging cable trench. we did all this 7 months ago when we moved in and are still paying for it!)i understand your point able distance/thickness of walls but bt said it would be ok . grrr
apart from using dial up - what else could i do? i fear this is going to be expensive (and btw, it all worked kind of ok in our old house with similar set up though not quite so far away, almost tho). is there some kind of booster you can get for the signal?

[overthemill]

oh the laptop is windows xp

[Greyriverside]

Well it had to connect to the hub, but there are possibilites.

I just realised that you must have a plug socket out there for power. There is a way to send the broadband signal over that. Basically you buy some little boxes and one plugs into the electrical socket nearest the hub with a short cable connecting to the hub itself.

Now you then plug in another of the boxes into a power socket near the PC and have a short cable to it

These little boxes come in two types. The kind you plug a computer into or the wireless kind. So you could also get another of these boxes (the wireless kind) for any room you wanted to use the laptops in to ensure a strong signal

here is one place that does them

[Greyriverside]

They are not very cheap, but ought to solve your problem completely. I have never used them myself so shop around and read reviews before buying.

The other alternatives would be to get a better wireless adaptor for the PC outside (doubtful it would help because of the reception. Spending more would probably only improve it a few percent)

Or to have another router out there connected to the PC and connected wirelessly to the BT hub, but I have doubts that would be good enough (and complicated)

[overthemill]

this is great thanks! i will look into it - it must be better than all the dosh i keep spending out on getting fairly useless pc checks done. we have oodles of sockets out there - 8 per room! (we have a 3 room outdoor cabin type building which is fab - office, playroom/music room)