Computer Help and Support

Assuming you're talking about WiFi signal strength ... it's complicated.

WiFi can pick to use several different radio frequencies (think AM or FM radio where
you're using/listening on one frequency in a range of available frequencies).

Your problem(s) *might* just be too many other devices sharing the same
frequency. Moving the WiFi traffic to a different frequency (channel) might
be all that is required.

Often (not always) power cycling the router (during the busiest of times) will
kick it enough to look around and automatically pick a better frequency.

If you're brave (or have a family "admin" that can help) you can connect to the
router and poke at it's channel settings and pick a radio frequency to use, and
then rerun your tests to see if it helps.

But -- back to basics -- why do you think the signal strength is lower? Are you
seeing a number in a status report or is it just that "my internet is slower" and
you're assuming it is the fault of your WiFi/router? Often slowness has nothing
to do with your WiFi and is a problem with your ISP or even the site you're
trying to use.

And to answer your question: if your router is really old, getting a new one
*might* help if your devices are also newish (the WiFi standards improve slowly
over time). And it's *possible* you have a broken antenna wire in your router
that a new device would fix.

But my guess is that you've got enough new devices (or neighbors) all on the
same WiFi frequency and the radio channel is just getting busy.

My favorite first step is to use Ethernet (wired) to the router and see if your
performance is dramatically better. With Ethernet you're bypassing WiFi
entirely so you can narrow down the source of a problem.