Wireless connects to access point rather than repeater.

Is that a wireless bridge, or is the repeater connected by ethernet cable to the router on the first floor?  If the repeater is connected by a network cable to the other router then my recommendation is to change the channel of one of the two from channel 11 to either channel 6 or 1 (the other two non-overlapping channels).

Non overlapping channels are nice, but not a requirement. The given channel is the core were most of the power and data go. I've often seen things like channel 3 be nice if there are many APs around but skewed towards the higher channels and with a few devices on 1.  The other thing to do would be to locate the repeater on the far side of the building from the AP on the upper level. this way you will be in a strong to null arrangement for the clients. If you will be installing lots of wireless, I suggest talking to amateur radio people about antenna nulls or getting licensed yourself. Understanding how the signal comes off the antenna and how AP selection is done will allow you to deploy much more robust systems.

There is much more to a good wireless system than just plunking boxes down. In fact I've seen several wireless systems crippled because the people who installed them didn't understand how wireless works. Of course I've made some good money resolving those problems too.

Generally I don't go with repeaters when extending wireless. The best is a second AP with the same SSID on a different channel Connected by a wire. Then you can configure roaming between them.  In this case it may be going with the AP because it is replying to the traffic before the repeater gets to, and would be the better connection before signal strength comes into play.

Think of it this way. There are 3 people in a room. The repeaters job is to yell at the further person anything the closer one says. In this case the further person can hear what you say and can talk to you. Your notebook is dealing with the one it hears first. Even if it hears better from the one closer.  Now if you move away from the AP to a place you can only hear the repeater, you will attach to the repeater.

Ideally the repeater should be farther away from the AP. It has a much better antenna than the notebook one, and should be placed so it can still hear the AP, but that the notebook cannot. Also since these devices are all on one channel, the repeater isn't going to help performance. On a radio network, only one device can be talking at a time, so the devices need to take turns. so now you need to wait for the repeater to take its turn.

In general there is no good reason to buy a repeater. A better way to do the function of what you want from a repeater is a bridge and an AP. The bridge links to the first AP and the Second AP talks on a differnt channel.  I also notice from oyour chart that everything is on 11. even that random other AP.  I suggest doing a site survey, even with something as simple/old as netstumber, look at the different amount of noise on different channels then pick the better of the channels that no one else is on. If you do that you may find you dont even need the repeater at all.

Hello all and thank you for your input.

The installation is residential. Reception (especially with the previous device) upstairs was too weak to be reliable. We have an ADSL router downstairs with an access point right next to it. In the top floor we put in a repeater to solve the weak signal problem. The repeater is not connected to the WAP/LAN by cable. It really is a minimalistic home configuration and there's not much of a plan to rewire anytime soon and there are just three systems affected. I don't plan/deploy wireless networks professionally, so I am one of the type who know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to make a living at it, I'm afraid. The house is far up the side of a Swiss alp, so I'm guessing that your travel expenses to fix it onsite might be just a little prohibitive.  :emotion-5:

That said, I'd still be interested to know if it's not possible to somehow force the system's wireless to communicate with a different access point (repeater) on the same WLAN.

Thanks.

D.