One step to make your router work better - Computers

Is your home wireless router not working properly or seems to be working on it's own? Then listen up, especially if you live in a condensed area like an apartment building.

Many people bring home wireless routers, plug in their Internet and away they go! Great, it works without doing anything! Well, here's what's going on and what you should do about it.

Out of the box all routers are set to what's called as default configuration, NO security enabled and broadcast frequency on channel 6 (2.437), so what does all this mean? Well, with no security anyone within proximity can log on, surf your Internet and possibly peruse your files. Most people are aware of this now and take action, all you have to do is run the disk that came with the router and apply the settings via the software wizard, it's easy so I won't get into that.

What I want to really discuss is the channel frequency, probably one of the most overlooked issues on home and office routers today. If you have two or more routers within logon proximity (next door) and they are on the same frequency then they will fight for the air waves causing the loser to disconnect. Like I said, most routers out of the box (all that I've seen) are set to channel 6 out of 12 channels, so my advice is change the channel! Another indication of an air wave fight is the router gets hot by working too hard.

So to fix this, all you need to do is log on to the router and make the change, all routers are accessed by what's called IP addresses, you can find the address easily by Googling the make and asking for the IP. For example "Linksys IP address", here are the ones that I know: Linksys 192.168.1.1, Dlink 192.168.0.1, Netgear 192.168.0.1, SMC 192.168.2.1 it's almost always one of these three.

Now take the IP address and type it into the address bar in your web browser, this will access the router's interface, it looks like a web page, all router interfaces are different so you will have to find the channel setting, it will be in the wireless options menu and will be drop down list of channels, I suggest selecting channel 1 or 11, and don't forget to "apply changes" or "save changes" afterwards.

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