Q My house has thick walls that my wireless router struggles to penetrate. Should I buy a more powerful router?

AS, Oxford

A Perhaps. The makers of wi-fi routers tend to make grandiose claims about range. However, barriers such as thick brick walls can severely restrict their efficacy. New models have better range but require an appropriate receiver in each computer to deliver the full benefits. Another option is to use a wi-fi booster gadget, known as a bridge, to fill in patchy reception areas.

A clever alternative is to buy a kit that uses your home’s mains wiring to create a network connection. The technology, known as Powerline, was developed by a firm called HomePlug but it is now licensed to most decent router firms (see www.homeplug.org/products). You can buy a basic kit for £123 from tinyurl.com/nyv4e9 .

Connect one of the supplied adaptors to a power socket near your router with a standard ethernet cable, then insert the other Powerline adapter into any three-pin mains socket in your house — and you’ll have extra wi-fi reception in that area. You can move it around your home by plugging the adaptor into different sockets. It’s easy to use and works well.

Q My eight-year-old laptop refuses to play CDs or DVDs. The computer does not, apparently, deliver sufficient power through its two USB ports to run an external disc drive. Can you help?

CB, London

A Running external devices on a laptop, powered through its USB sockets, can be tricky, especially on an older machine. If your external optical drive will accept a mains power source, try buying an A/C adaptor for it, even a universal one from Maplin (www.maplin.co.uk ). Otherwise, you will probably have to bite the bullet and buy a more up to date computer.

Q What would be the consequences of deleting all the cookies that have accumulated on my PC since I bought it in December 2006?

GD, via e-mail

A Cookies are small files containing information about you that are deposited on your computer’s hard drive when you browse a website or log in to one. They are an unavoidable part of internet-enabled life and perform a number of useful functions. For instance, they are the mechanism by which shopping sites uncannily know who you are when you next visit them.

Most cookies are benign and helpful. Some have more malevolent purposes, such as tracking your buying habits or checking to see which sites you have visited in order to send you more “relevant” advertising. Deleting them is, on the whole, a harmless process, although if you remove the wrong ones, you may encounter problems when you next try to visit certain websites. Cookie Monster (free at www.ampsoft.net ) is a useful piece of software to help automate and manage this task.

E-mail your technical queries to dontpanic@sunday-times.co.uk

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