Summary
Overview of determining the strength of your wifi signal.
Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) is an estimated measurement of how well a device can hear, detect and receive signals from any wireless access point or Wi-Fi router.
An RSSI closer to 0 is stronger, and closer to –100 is weaker.
For best performance, you want your RSSI to be as high as possible. A useful rule of thumb is that if the RSSI is less than –70 dBm, you are unlikely to have good performance over Wi-Fi for bandwidth intensive tasks.
Environment
Directions
Windows
WifiInfoView is a free application for Windows which can, among other measurements, display the RSSI of all networks detected by your computer.
Installation and Use of WifiInfoView:
- Navigate to http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wifi_information_view.html.
- Click "Download WifiInfoView" Under "Feedback" near the bottom of the page.
- Extract the files from the downloaded zip file.
- To find your RSSI, open the WifiInfoView application.
- The green-highlighted row is your current connection, but all networks in range of your device are displayed.
Mac
- Option-click the Wi-Fi menu.
- The RSSI for your current connection will be shown.
Optional: Compare the RSSIs for all networks in range of your device
- Select "Open Wireless Diagnostics...."
- In the menu bar at the top left corner of the screen, select "Window" and then select "Scan" from the dropdown.
- It should run a scan immediately, but you can click on "Scan Now Button" to re-scan.
Linux
- At the command line, enter the command
iwconfig.
- In the section for your wireless adapter, find the value for "Signal level."
Remedies for a weak signal
External Resources