@ArcherC8 Thanks very much. As it turned out, I since my 6 year old computer wasn't equipted for the 5g band, I bought a USB TP wifi extender adapter which updated the wifi ... it works fine now.

@IrvSp It seems that the router is doing it's job, but i just discovered that the wifi card in my dell is not a dual band card, so hopefully using a dual band apapter will do the trick. Thanks for...

@ArcherC8 Thanks for trying...I've since discovered that the card in my desktop (Dell 1705) is not a dual band card. i guess I just need a dual band wifi plug in adapter (Ihope).

I had my router set on 'smart enable' and the signal kept dropping..so, I clicked off 'smart enable' and wish to use both the 2.4 and the 5 as separate bands. The problem is no device I have can find...