Networking advice

Depends on what you mean by expensive. Depending on how big your house is, I don't think running a few CAT5 cables up one floor would cost more than $100 plus an hour or two of your time, depending on how nice you want it to look.

 

Buy a better quality wireless router....A gigabit model preferably capable of operating on both GHZ bands.

I use a Draytek personally, and a TC for the 5GHZ IOS devices. The bottom line is that not all routers are created equal.

The cable fix is ugly, but a tad cheaper.....I'd change my router.

 

Been here, done that......

Had the same problem in my multi-level home. My 54G Router & desktop are downstairs on the ground level, I could get a signal in the 2nd level living room most of the time, but not in the bedrooms or anywhere else, even with the router mounted up in the floor joists above the office.

So I got a N300extreme capable router & the problem is GONE...... I now get 5 bars out on the 3rd floor deck @the complete opposite end of the house. And this is in the center of a college town, with tons of students, dorms & businesses surrounding me..............

 

Linksys are horrible for random cutouts in my experience and have rather sub-par antennae. Cisco products themselves are fine though.

I use TP-Link equipment, gets nice range on their newer products.