Hi,

I have a wireless broadband connection that is being distributed around my house using a belkin adsl wireless router. I connect to the internet through 2 machines. One is a laptop with a wireless card running XP and the other is a PC running Vista and connecting with the Belkin Usb stick provided. I have no problems connecting but the internet is slow slow. I am on an up to 8mb package with virgin, but i have done several speed tests and im not even reaching a megabyte. Also on my laptop every so often the connection speed drops heavily, the internet hangs and then seems to pick up again and carry on. I have tried re-setting the router and speed still bad

Any suggestions ?

 

 

 

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I run a similar belkin and occasionally, the signal drops and needs a reset, too, but not a big deal. about once a week only.

Also, I notice when there are two of us on the system together, there is a drop in speed, or when the neighbourhood kids are not in school, the speed lags a little, so, check that you have 'secured' the router from intrusions and also keep in mind that there are other considerations for the available speed on your system. Even though they may not be on your Router, other connections at the nearest Server could be having an impact on your speeds.

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I'm running a very similar system to you and having a similar problem.

*watches thread*

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This is often due to ISPs using misleading marketing, advertising and sales. The key phrase here is up to. If you live right next to their Internet backbone and use the best hardware in the business, you'll get 8mbps. However, most people are not in that situation. For example, I live around 2.5 miles from the nearest telephone exchange, which physically limits my connection to 1.2mbps due to deterioration in the quality of the signal over the distance. Check how far away from the nearest exchange you are, and you should be able to roughly work out what speed you'll get.



Check for interference. Any wireless device (DECT phones, mobile phones, radios, anything) could theoretically have an effect on the signal. Mobile phones check for new messages etc. every few minutes (depending on model and network). If you've got a mobile, try turning it off and see if the wireless connection is more reliable. The same goes for other wireless devices. Eventually you should be able to isolate which one is giving you grief. Alternatively check each wireless device for the frequencies it uses and make sure you have nothing using the same frequency as the wireless router.

 

 

 

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Hummm, so it could be that Belkin networking system may be at fault?

To test out, in any case, is to have a control system. And compare the control system to the testing system.

Control system:
Connect a computer to ADSL modem, bypassing any router. This will determine if the control system is delivering the "promised" bandwidth speed. Go to any speed test or bandwidth test sites and measure your speed. If at this point the speed fails to provide the "promised" bandwidth from your ISP, i.e. Virgin, then the problem is with your ISP.

Testing system:
Once you confirm that connecting directly to ADSL does not affect your bandwidth speed, connect ADSL to your Belkin router. Connect only ONE computer to this router using the network cable (not wireless). Repeat the speed test from the same site you visited with the control system. Note the difference. If it's not by much, at least you know that the Router is not the issue.

And then test out the wireless connection by visiting the same speed test site. You can determine which is the single point of a failure, if not, multiple failures.

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the key words is "up to". buffalo help had the same idea i was going to recomend, but before you go to that trouble, i would call your provider and ask them. sometimes the slow connection is due to how far away you are from their base. the further your home is away, the slower the connection. so what it could possibly be is that they just didn't tell ya how fast exactly. i'm sure the homes closest to their base get that 8mb and hey may cover such a wide territory and you're just on the outskirts of it. check with them first. if you know any neighbors that have the same providors, ask them what their connection speed is too. but i would call them first before trying to diagnose the problem as suggested. could be a simple answer and you'd just be wasting your time. it will be a downer if you find out it's a distance thing and cannot be fixed so cross your fingers

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AHA.


The problem at stake is that your router is wireless. People living within a Wi-Fi range of your house may be connecting to your internet therefore slowing down the speeds. Why you ask? Well that's because the speed is now shared. For example:-

I am running a 1MB internet connection.
I have one of the best "Wireless" Routers.
My internet is working fine but suddenly my internet speeds drop.
I go to my neighbours house for dinner or something
I see that they have no router for their laptop and thereore must be using a dial-up connection
Their laptop has a Wireless Lan built-in
Their internet is quite fast for a dial-up Connection.
And what's this you find out? Their connecting to your internet.

So now the spped are shared 50/50 between the two of your'll. If another comes in haha say hello to dial-up. See even i have a wireless connection and my PSP was able to connect to my internet. I got a little scared so i went into my Routers specified Control panel and changed the security options to only allow certain MAC adresses that i input from the control Panel. SO now my PSP is the only Wi-Fi thing accesible to my internet

Hope i helped you

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ahah! good call! yea, i don't know too much about wirless connection, but i love my laptop for it when i'm traveling. tapping off someone elses connection is easy. but does that explain the 8mb to less than a mb connection speed? that seems pretty drastic even when you're sharing a connection. you're gonna have to have several people sharing that connection all at once especially knowing that 99% of the people online pay for a provider. how far does wirless extend? 1/2 mile for a clear connection? i hadn't thought about that though. that's a high possibility to his problem....or part of his problem! good call!

this is where buffalohelp's help will come in handy. test your connection without wireless and see what your speed is. will give you some idea of what your speed should be depending on the distance factor....then you can do what ridwan suggested. i wouldn't know how specifically to limit ip addresses to only your two computers though. your isp should be able to help ya or maybe ridwan or someone else can tell ya how.

let us know what the problem was and how you fixed it. i'm curious now. i'm thinking of going wirless broadband through a company called embarq soon so it's usefull to know any unforeseen problems before they happen. let us know, bud!

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hey all the above reasons are fine , but the thing is that ther are some other critical reasons that though you recieve sufficient bandwidth too some times the connection seems to be slow if your temprory files are over loaded. I have experienced this once, just follow this a and give a try , go to start ----->run--->in that type %temp% , now a window opens having all your temprory files related to the internet , just select all and give shift delete , now restart the computera nd try connecting to the internet , then you may feel a diffrence,,

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