Alfa AWUS036EW antenna headache

Hi. I recently moved to an apartment complex that supplies free wifi to its tenants. The wifi is passworld protected, but the manager sets up our devices in the office and the password is viewable to us via the "status" of the connection. At any rate, I fear that my connection is hampered a great deal by traffic. I can connect but often get bumped off of the internet. So I got this Alfa antenna, hoping that a stronger signal (I'm quite far from the router, which is is in the manager's office) would improve my connection. Well, I installed the antenna and it seemed to be functioning the way it's supposed to, except that I cannot connect to the internet at all via the new connection. It says I have an excellent signal, and it says that I'm connected to the internet, but I can't browse via any browsers. The browser gives me the "no internet access" message of doom. I know I'm capable of connecting to the wifi here because that's what I'm using right now. It's just very unreliable. So what am I doing wrong with the antenna? I've checked to be sure the IP address and other info matches the working connection I have. I have everything set according to what little advice I've been able to find in a Google search... no proxy server, automatic detection for all settings in ipv4, etc. I've installed the current drivers for the device directly from the web site. I'm desperate. Please let me know if you need further information. Thank you!

Windows 7 Home Premium (x64) Service Pack 1 (build 7601)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)
Installed: 4/16/2014 12:41:06 PM
Boot Mode: UEFI with Secure Boot disabled

 

For some reason there's no "edit" option displayed for my post. The model of my adapter is actually AWUS036H.