Airport Signal Fluctuating?

[Aargh-a-Knot]

I was having some problems with my mini, but somehow fixed them. I thought I would share my experiences in case anyone else was having the same issues.

The problem: I bought my mini on ebay, and everything seem ok. However, I noticed that the signal strength on my airport connection to my Linksys Router would fluctuate between full bars to no bars. I had had my iBook hooked up in the same spot for months with no problems. Then I upgraded my ram on my mini, and the airport reception seemed to get worse. It would be full connection for a couple minutes, then go down to nothing. I could hold my iBook right next to it, and it would have full bars, while the mini had none.
WTF?

The solution: I changed the name of my network from the default "linksys" to something else, and while I was at it, I changed which channel it was connecting at, from 6 to channel 2. For some reason, this completely fixed my problem. I have full connection all the time now. I don't understand WHY this worked, only that it did. So I f you are having problems, try these steps and see if it works. BTW, I made these changes in the Linksys Administrator page, or whatever that is called. Type in 192.168.1.1 to your browser and it'll pull it up. This is only true for Linksys, tho.

[Pleiades]

Are there other wireless networks in your area? If so, it is entirely possible many of them operate also on channel 6, causing the problems you saw. If not, it may be other electronic devices causing interference.

Good catch on that, I think far too many people blame the computer for signal quality issues, when wireless networking requires both pieces of equipment to be functioning normally.
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MacBook Pro 1.83GHz Core Duo, 2GB RAM, 250GB HD, Dell 802.11n card, 1.4TB external
MacBook 1.83GHz Core Duo, 2GB RAM, 60GB HD
iMac 1.83GHz Core Duo, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, 1TB external, EyeTV Hybrid

[Fox]

I just finished reading another wireless thread on the ehmac website where a person having trouble with their wireless connection following a 10.5.2 upgrade changed the SSID number with good success. This seems consistent with what opensky42 did.
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Mini 1: 2.3 ghz Core i5; 8 gb RAM, Corsair 240gb SSD, 500 gb Seagate XT
Mini 2: 2.26 ghz Core 2 duo, 8 gb RAM, 500 gb Seagate
Also a Cube, 13" MacBook Air, 20" 2.66 ghz iMac & 11.6" Acer 1810TZ running Ubuntu, Mint & openSuse