Signal Strength

[digital gopher]

I recently put a wireless card in my PC. It works great, well not so great. The Signal strength says "Good" but the connection is sloooooow. Some sites load just as they did before, but some sites (like the forums here) take over two minutes to load. How can I make it go faster?

 

[Azurith]

It may be any number of things.

First of all, I must ask a few questions:

1. What kind of card is it?
Is it 802.11B or 802.11G (Or a hybrid 802.11B/G card?)
(The chances of it being 802.11A are very small, indeed. Because that's corporate stuff, and not something the normal user needs or uses. My guess is that it's probably B/G.)

2. How far is the access point from the antenna of your computer?
(If it's far away, consider moving to a better vantage point.)

3. How many obsticles (or whatever) are in the way?
Such as:
Walls
Doors
Floors
Furniture
Lastly: Metal.
(Metal Is the worst of all. Metal will cause more interference with the signal than anything else. If it's behind the computer, then the machine itself may be blocking the signal. In that case, I would suggest getting a 'movable' antenna for it. Which is about $30-50, and position it above, or to the side of the machine. Make sure it's as close to the access point as possible.)

Finally:
802.11B is max'd at 11MB/s.
802.11G is max'd at 108MB/s.
(Your only going to see a max of 54MB/s, because it's two-way.
So, 54MB/s * 2...= 108MB/s.)

Lastly:
Was you connection 'slow' before?
Because installing a wireless network will NOT speed up your network, itself.

If you have a 3MB/s connection, such as cable for a rough example.

Your router can ONLY connect to the internet at a maximum OF 3MB/s.
Your wireless machines can connect to the router at a maximum of 11MB/s or 54 MB/s.
Your wired machines can connect to the router at either 10MB/s or 100MB/s, depending on the type of network cards installed, and configurations.

That being said, just because you have 11MB/s wireless, doesn't mean your connecvtion is faster. It STILL has to connect through the same 3MB/s router/gateway. That limits your 'internet' speeds to 3MB/s and NOT 11MB/s.
And there isn't a way around this, period. Another factor is if you have multiple people on the same router at the same time, can cause problems. Rare, but it can happen. A good idea is to just log into the router every 2-3 (or 4) days, and reset the router. This will let it clear everything, and start fresh.

It just helps. You wouldn't believe some stuff doing that will fix.

~~Azurith

 

[digital gopher]

It's a D Link 802.11 B/G
Obstacles are, it's on the floor above me, about 20 feet away.
It's a 54MBs card, and the router is a DLink wireless router.
My connection is very fast, (http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/ProductsServices/Internet/HighSpeedNitro/default.htm)
Shaw Nitro, 25MB / second

 

[Azurith]

Hmm... shouldn't really have problems, in that case.

But I'm curious as to whether or not you have a cordless phone in your house.
The 'old' ones use the 800-900Mhz band.

Some newer ones use the 2.4-2.6Ghz band... which is the same band used for WiFi signals. Sometimes, signals *CAN* overlap. They aren't supposed to of course. That's why the FCC has strict regulations on equipment.
(Did you realize your computer itself gives off radio signals? ^.^)
There are options in your router's configurations to fix this.. well, *most* routers will support it. Just try to find something called 'signal interference'..

You've got a fast enough internet to fully utilize WiFi.

If you can, try connecting the desktop to the router via Cat5/e cable.
Run a few speed tests, and record the results.

Then disconnect the Cat5/e cable, and connect it over the WiFi network.
Run the same speed tests again.

You *should* get almost the same results, or rather pretty close.

The last thing:
Is your signal secured?

If not, you could have some damn leechers trying to connect to the internet from your access point. This wouldn't be a problem, unless there are lots and lots of people trying to steal your internet.
(Hey, I should know... I've done it... xD)


~~Azurith

 

[digital gopher]

I ditched the Wireless and decided to go with the Powerbridge solution instead. Thanks for the help though.