So, I've just got a new desktop pc and I've installed Slack 12.0 on it. I have a D-Link DWL-G510 wireless card. It uses the Madwifi chipset/drivers, which I downloaded and installed successfully. My wireless connection shows up as ath0.

Then since I'm using WPA, I put all my information in the wpa_supplicant.conf. After connecting, the iwconfig shows that I have a very weak signal. It's bad enough that I cannot even get online.

Is there a way to improve my connection? Like extra drivers, firmware, etc?

Also, what file do I have to edit to allow my wireless to connect on startup. I'm used to doing it in /etc/network/interfaces. But, Slackware doesn't seem to have that.

Did you read this wiki?

Have you tried adjusting the angle of the antenna?

Would the angle of the antenna really make that much of a difference? Is there some hardware available to help boost my signal or something? I use my laptop from the same connection and it performs wonderfully.

Also, when I do an iwconfig, there is a part about a security mode, which says I'm restricted. Could this be contributing to the problem?

It has been a few years since I have had a wireless connection, maybe things have changed. When I setup mine up however, I had very low signal (this was on slack10.2) and I was told to adjust the angle of the antenna's on my router and computer as the signal broadcasts out of the sides of the antenna. That worked wonderfully for me. It may not be the same problem but I thought I'd toss that out there.