Is there a way to favor one Wi-Fi connection over another when there are two Wi-Fi access points with the same SSID?

Question

There are two Wi-Fi access points with the same SSID. One of them is stronger signal but not connecting to the Internet. The other works fine but my Windows XP machine won’t connect to it unless I am out of my room.

Is there anyway that I can get Windows XP to ignore the one that does not work even though it puts out a stronger signal?

Answer 1

The proper fix for the scenario you describe might not be within your power to fix, but it bears repeating.

By design in 802.11, two Access Points with the same Service Set IDentifier are two interchangeable points of access to the same set of services; that is, same SSID = same network. If one of your APs isn't really connected to the same network as the other, the network admin should fix that infrastructure failure or should change the SSID of one of them.

I consider it a blunder of the 802.11 industry that so many AP vendors ignored this for so long and shipped APs that came up with a vendor-default non-unique SSID.

Answer 2

Unfortunately I am not aware of a way of doing this.

Windows (and other OS's I have worked with) will remember the access points by name/security settings alone and will always attempt to connect to the one with the highest signal upon reconnection (first use/connection drop).

Answer 3

You can try to make the AP ignore the client.

If Your AP supports Mac filtering (it should) than what You need to do is:

1. Open CMD on the client PC and type ipconfig /all

2. Look for physical address and write it down on a paper or copy it.

3. Enter the GUI of the AP that You wish not to connect to.

4. Look for something like 'MAC Filtering' or 'Wireless MAC Filter'

5. Enter the physical address that You copied earlier (usually separated by :)

6. Set the filter to Reject the connection.

7. Enjoy

8. Optional: Read more about MAC Filtering here