Wifi Signal dropped by 60% - 70%

Have you recently changed your power settings by any chance.
I seem to remember that using the high performance option "stops the Wifi operation" going into a "sleep type mode",
but obviously uses more battery power.

Roy

OK Sorry for the delay in replying but I've been busy and also had a couple of goes but failed to press send!!
High Power setting makes no difference.
Cant find any wireless adapter settings that do anything useful. The advanced settings (Intel(R) Centrino Wireless N2230 say
802.11n channel width Auto (was 20MHz but the change made no difference)
802.11n mode enabled (If I disable this, the signal strength - no bars - improves a bit but this may be coincidence.
Transmit Power - highest


So indesperation, I swapped the wireless card for a new one. It did seem that the two aerial wires were connected teh wrong way round (label 1 on the cable was attached to label 2 on the card and vice versa) so I matched the numbers up when reconnecting.

but I still have 4 or 5 SSIDs with this PC and 10 with the other PC (including a 3 bar signal SSID that doesn't even show on the problem PC)!

Does suggest something is still not quite right.

Any suggestions

How did the new card do that you swapped in? No info on that.
Also the location of the PCs may make a difference by the way.

New card made no noticeable difference.

PCs are 2 feet apart pointing in the same direction

Now I agree that, in theory, there just may be something in the way of one Pc and not the other but this is 1980s wood frame and plasterboard house with all the stopping power of a piece of wet tissue
Current SSIDs are 6 and 13 but 6 of the 13 are one bar so they do not show up on the problem card which seems to run one bar lower.

Also the problem started in a different location where this PC failed to connect as well as it used to even with a USB aerial.

I am beginning to this this is in the too hard bucket. When I have a 'day at the desk' I might well back up, reload windows and wee what happens.

I liked the Idea of using Linux to see if the fault persisted but could not find a way to activate the wifi. Any suggestions on that front?

Linux should have configured wireless automatically. I will try it on my laptop later.

Plaster walls are among the worst for wireless transmission due to potential wires within.
Wi-Fi won't travel through your house? It might be the wire in the walls | Technology | The Guardian
Just search google for many similar topics.

Interesting thought (about the walls) but sadly not the problem. the visible SSIDs do not change when I move it 3 feet the other side of the other PC where it faces an open window. The 'other' PC is in the junction of two walls and currently shows 15SIDs (8 of which are 1 bar) v 5SSIDs on the main PC.

By the way reading your post again I see you called it plasterboard so maybe not your case!

Plasterboard (which Americans call "drywall"), which doesn't have wire components, doesn't block it to anything like the same extent.

Still have to try Linux on laptop for the wireless.

Ok, sorry for the wait. Here how wireless goes with Linux:
- When you boot into the desktop there is no wireless connection made due to lack of a pass-phrase
- Next to date and time in the lower right corner, there is the "Connection" icon, right click and make sure "Wi-Fi" has a check next to it
- Then left click the same icon and select the your wireless connection and simply enter the pass-phrase.