You need to get a range extender, wired, from downstairs to upstairs, cheap ISP routers are basically worthless, you can get a fine used quality router with more RAM, more CPU for very little money. And if you get the right router, you can even install Open-WRT on it. You might be able to get away with a wifi based extender if you have a clear line of sight between the main router and the extender, but you can test that by placing the laptop where the extender might be placed to see what signal you pick up there.
I am not positive, but I do not believe wifi router antennae work the way you believe, that is, the radiation is I believe outwords from the axis of the antenna, not directional as in aiming it like a pointer. However, the better quality your walls and structure are, the less able to penetrate the walls your router signal will be.
If the house is older and has real quality walls, even real plaster, the signals barely can pass through them unless the router is very powerful.
Range extenders are sort of part of the main router, but are connected via wire ideally to where you want the signal improved.
The information about the house and router should have been in the first post since thatâs what actually matters, wifi isnât magic, itâs just a radio signal that has to deal with obstacles the same way any other signal does. For example, a room at the front of my building gets weak FM stations fine, but at the back, they barely come in because the building is in the way.
You shouldâve done this test first before posting here, would save us all some time.
Ok, so itâs not âpower savingâ -
donât blame it on the router, WiFi cards (the one you just bought) and laptop antennas are usually more problematic (I have Huawei and itâs very good).
(the fact that your mobile phone has good wifi speaks in favor of that)
I always keep one WiFi dongle to plug into USB, you know those small âticksâ that stick out just a liitle, or some other external wifi modem (thatâs clunky though).
In short, try different wifi dongle (adapter I think), that saved me with lot of laptops before.
Also, I see that you have surface-book (one thing Iâd never forgive myself but thatâs for another thread),
try changing the band, i.e. from 2.4 GHz to 5GHz (or the other way around, it depends) - that was the problem for me with SB, though that usually fails to connect right away but not necessarily. Your router probably emits both (recheck), you need to pick the right SID on the laptop side.
Didnât know about wavemon. Thanks for showing it Here something to compare:
Anyway, if you get a tx rate of 2 MBit then it runs on 802.11b or lower standard, while 150Mbit is 802.11n standard.
In your situation, I would check the router and play with the offered options. There must be something that makes it unable to negotiate the wifi standards. Since a similar problem was also with your old wifi card, I would assume that there is a problem with the router.
A little note: Why is no region enabled? I have reg: DE (Germany) enabled, as you see in the picture.
Here something to compare:
