[oldjiver]

My Siemens Gigaset router (Tiscali) has been moved from the same room as the computer to a room about 12 yards away as the crow flys . I tested the broadband speed and its good, same as before, but the signal strength picked up by the laptop is down to 3 bars out of 5. (says good, used to be excellent).
Question.. does the signal strength affect download performance? And can I do anything to improve it?

[Giga]

put it higher or lower (closer to room of laptop), turn aerial to laptop, turn laptop to see on what side you get strongest signal. Has laptop internal aerial or are you using a dongle? If using a dongle, see if you have an UBS 2.0 extention lead (1 - 1.5 meter max) and put dongle up/down closer to where router is.

[TheBadger]

I wouldn't have thought signal strength is a factor in download speed. However it might affect the stability of your connection. Anything "Good" or better should be stable enough for all transfers.

[Dimwit]

I live in a Bungalow, and my BT Hub struggled to get through the brick walls to each room. So I put it in the Roofspace and now I get a full signal in every room, plus, I can sit on my decking at the bottom of the garden and still get a signal.
Simples.

[TheBadger]

My Wii struggles to remain connected to my BTHub II from a couple of rooms away but my lappy has no problem, even in the garden.