got a linksys wrt54gl setup upstairs, hooked up to a cable modem. there's a linksys WIRELESS-G network card on a pc and ps3 that i setup the wireless internet connection for, which are 2 floors downstairs, in the basement. according to the SIGNAL on the linksys wireless-G pci card, it has 3 out of 5 bars, and the connection is not always consistent, and it's slowww. like 56k slow at times, almost. and to make matters worse, on the PC that's wirelessly connected(which is running vista home), the connection sometimes goes away. meanwhile, on a laptop with windows xp home in the same room, this xp laptop has a good connection.

what can i do to improve the speed? i'll have to run more tests to see if it works better when closer to the router, but i've heard about DD-WRT. how much will the range increase on the router if i install the DD-WRT firmware? are there any other things i can do to make the pc and ps3 wireless connection faster? security wise, i'm only running a 64-bit WEP encryption and not showing the SSID.

i've LOOKED on this site for info on dd-wrt;

http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Installation#Downloading_DD-WRT

thanks in advance.Where have you heard DD-WRT will improve the range of your router? I've got a fair amount of experience with DD-WRT and I sincerely doubt it will improve the range at all.
As I see it, your problem is that there are two floors between the router and the PS3 and the computer. Depending on what your house is made of, how thick the walls are, etc this may be a bit much for most cheap WiFi routers.
But there are things you can do that might improve the signal.
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/moredone/wirelesstips.mspx
I'll have to second Deerpark on this one. I'm running two wireless networks in my home, one wireless g connected through my Actiontec DSL modem and one wireless n through linksys wireless n router. I'm only one floor up and my wireless g connection drops out from time to time, but my wireless n never does. That's just something you get to deal with when DEALING with wireless g. My advice if you care to spend a little money is upgrade to wireless n. It makes a world of difference.Wireless n is not a standard yet. And usually the n and g wireless networks interfere, with the possibility of great effects on communication for g equipment. So, all your wireless equipment is 802.11 n compliant or forget about the 802.11n. Stick with 802.11g.
cobra, you may buy a second wireless router or an access point and use it as an access point (place it close to your 2 COMPUTERS in the basement). Use mac filtering for deciding which equipment connects to which router/access point.