wireless card range

[vvvodka]

can anyone ehlp me out, point me tint he right direction please? My dad has a laptop, brand new from packard bell, we;ve just managed to get wireless set up in his house, but his laptop wont work wirelessly unless it is literally sitting on top of the router. go next door, and it stops working, whilst mine works away quite happily in the garden.

his is Atheros AR5B91 wireless network adapter whilst mine is AR928x i dont know anything about this stuff, yet, lol, have been asked by dad to sort it out. they need to be able to use skype in their bedroom, otherwise the wireless will be cancelled,

any advice appreciated.

Sorry, not familiar with that adapter - it would probably be useful to know what wireless router is being used, too.

I'm no expert - I prefer wires to be honest - but wi-fi comes in a number of versions / flavours (802.11a, 11b, and 11g for a start, with ranges of 50 to 150 feet) so it does sound a bit odd. Any chance of mentioning the router make and model, as there might be web site comments about problems with this combination.

For Skype (depending on what is needed - not video, perhaps), it may be worth considering a Three (mobile) PAYG phone as they offer free Three-to-Three and free Skype from most of their range, with just a 5 quid a quarter top-up (top-ups last 90 days, so the fiver could be used on normal voice calls to you, for example).

This is the sort of web page one might find, explaining problems someone has using that AR5B91 adaptor with a D-Link router.

May also be worth mentioning what version of Windows is running, too.