WiFi Signal Strength/Quality

[paul2]

Have just installed Speccy (v.128), thinking it may tell me little more than the many other utilities I have used over the years for monitoring pc's, but pleasantly surprised to find everything clearly laid out and quite comprehensive - except on first run, didnt see any listing of Ports, eg USB, or my faulty SDcard slot.    I was also surprised to find a listing of each WiFi signal detected, and a 'Signal Strength/Quality' field.

 

This is the first of this type of utility I have seen that supplies that !   - which brings me to my questions:   a)  to give an idea of what Strength one can expect to establish a connection, do you have a table, showing bands of Strength/Quality values,   do your values relate to some published units or standard ?   c) are your units a composite measure of Tx/Rx ?

 

Reason I ask, is I have 3 devices with WiFi, and I notice a) each differs in sensitivity for the other (My Nexus 5 is best, followed by this Toshiba laptop which is currently connected with Quality = 40, followed by my NUC D5420 that uses a Intel AC 7270 wifi minicard that connects to almost nothing unless in same room.   Many specs & reviews of Routers etc, give very little or ignore the important subject of Tx Power & Rx Sensitivity.   Can anyone point me to any articles or links with info on typical Rx Signal Level to achieve a connection, maybe a range from 'weak', 'good', 'solid' ?

 

The next nearest AP shows a Quality = 16.    The Toshiba (Atheros AR9485WB-EG WiFi-N) cannot make an permanent connection to that.   Is there an economic way (a booster with directional antenna, as not practical to move the laptop nearer) to bring a Quality = 16 up to '40' or more ?   (both the distant 16, and nearby 40 AP's are on Channel 11)

 

Have just done a 'Refresh' on Speccy, and both APs now state Quality = 30   - this seems to fit in with dedicated WiFi utility programs for Android and Windows.  Any ideas why such big variations when each station is in fixed location with no moving items in the path ?

 

Thanking you in advance

[Nergal]

As far as I can tell, this is because there are any number of things that change, by infinitesimal amounts, the frequency-modulated (FM) radio range, not limited to: one's own body magnetism and that of the individual device; position and shielding of the antenna in the reciever (nexus, computer etc); the ionization of the particulates in the air (dust); the make, design and manufacturer(s) of each individual component of the reciever(s) wifi components and body makeup; fans; lighting (florescent); hard drives (really anything magnetic).