Router, Antenna, and Packet Loss—Oh My!

Hardware:

Router: D-Link DGL-4500

Antenna: D-Link ANT24-0230

Notebook Wireless Card: Intel WiFi Link 5300 AGN

I have a 1200 sq. ft. home with the router positioned in a central location. I have the Antenna mounted high on an inside wall that provides line-of-sight to an XBOX 360 and my notebook is in another room—about 15-20 ft away from the antenna—and travels through 2-3 interior walls. I currently get between 50%-75% signal strength on the notebook and notice 25%-30% packet loss at various times. I plan to game on the notebook, but I believe the performance maybe impaired. The router's transmit power is currently set on high. Neither Tomato or DD-WRT are compatible with my router. Does anyone have suggestions on how to boost the internal network adapter on the notebook or boost the strength on the router?

System Specs:
Windows 7 64-bit
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU @ 2.53GHz
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670
8GB RAM
Cable Internet

 

Hello Digitalocksmith,

Thank you for the reply and welcome. After I noticed extreme dips in connectivity on my new notebook I decided to purchase longer networking cables to move the router to a more central and higher location. Though this did improve connectivity a bit, I was still having issues. The next step I took was to purchase the antenna—this slightly improved the performance, mainly on the Xbox 360. My connectivity on the notebook is weak, mainly hovering around the 50% signal strength and only allowing 78Mbps for transfer—the Xbox 360 connects around 75% signal strength with 216Mbps. I am running the router on 802.11n @ 2.4Ghz. I have tried using 5Ghz, but did not see significant improvement. I have also updated the firmware on the router and the driver of the internal adapter. Unfortunately, Tomato and DD-WRT are not compatible with my router. I have also manually tweaked the channels the router connects to using inSSIDer as a guide, but found that the automatic channel selector on the router provides constant updated performance.

I am not sure on what to do. I have been looking at these products:

Alfa Wireless N 500mW USB Adapter

Hawking HWDN1 Hi-Gain USB Adapter

Do you believe these would boost performance on the notebook? Have you ever used either of these products? I am trying to gear up for the release of Star Trek Online and want to make sure connectivity is not an issue.