Does anyone connect to their home network without using built-in wi-fi or a cable connected directly to their router?

The wi-fi on my iMac is woeful, regularly dropping and exhibiting a number of varied abnormalities (saying I've got no connection when I do, saying I do when I don't etc.). It's gotten to the point that I can no longer stand it. It's a commonly reported problem yet no one has found a solution, nor has Apple ever commented.

I'm out of warranty so I don't really fancy taking it into in Apple store, so what I need is an alternative to the built-in Airport card. It seems there a few options open to me but I was wondering if anyone had any experiences or suggestions.

Thanks all.

(Wi-fi actually dropped several times whilst writing this post. I can't help but feel a little shortchanged considering how much this computer cost.)

Belkin Wireless Extender setup in bridge mode. Once its setup, it acts like a regular old switch to my devices, but allows there to be no cable through my living room. Pretty decent reception as well, Belkin to Belkin, I'm getting actual throughput of 120 megs or so. More than enough to run PS3 Media server running hi def to my ps3 AND my WDTV at the same time (both on 54 meg 5ghz wireless)

Thanks for sharing, I wish I'd gotten here sooner. I've actually opted to use a HomePlug solution, after getting some good recommendations. I'll post back if anyone's interested in hearing how well I get on.

Depending on the wiring in your home, this may not be good enough. I know in my house I averaged about 10 megs a second with powerline adapters. I had attempted that first when the wife bitched about all my ethernet wires everywhere.

I honestly think that my actually throughput exceeds the even theoretical max of the powerline adapters also.

I'm interested to hear your results though, as technology should have changed in the last 5 years.

On iMac, I'm not sure. I do have an old PowerBook which I rigged with a Belkin CardBus wifi card at one point. There were a small handful of 3rd-party drivers and I found one which mostly supported it. Only issue was when ~that~ dropped out, I had to reinsert the card, and CardBus on a PBG3, let alone hacked up with XPostFacto OSX, is plug-and-play hot-swappable perhaps 5% of the time...

So my HomePlugs arrived today and they're doing a tremendous job thus far. I've yet to do any comprehensive testing but they're certainly outperforming my wireless connection.

I'm finally making the most of my fibre now, just downloading Psychonauts on Steam at a rate of 8.6MB/s (yikes).

We've got a hyper-anal friend staying on Wednesday night who's likely to want to perform some tests but, until then, what would be the best way of working out the maximum throughput speed?

Thanks for sharing all of your experiences too, it's sort of highlighting the difficulty involved with modifying any non-tower Mac (something which seems to have peaked with the latest MBP).

EDIT: US and Asian users might not think much to my Internet speed, although I can assure that that's pretty good for the UK!