Help for a complete novice- broadband

[punio75]

Hope someone can help guys. I am a complete novice so bear with me.

I have recently purcased Virgin cable (20mb package) . The netgear wireless router that came free with it I set up and got this working. However the installer said for my package this router would not give me the speeds I was paying for? Firstly is this correct?

I took some advice from a friend who suggested the belkin N1, have tried this but the connection does drop out and the laptop prefers to find some neighbours router!!! Really messed things up! :rolleyes:
It needs to be connected to a laptop, Wii and PS3.

Do I even need a new router?

[chickendippers]

The Wireless g standard should be enough to provide you with 20Mbit - however this will depend on interference from other devices (microwave, bluetooth, other wireless networks etc) and signal strength.

[punio75]

Thanks - so I should/could stick with the router Virgin provided?

[Chris]

A wireless router can only work at the speed of the slowest device connected to it. How old is your laptop? Does it have a 'g' standard wireless card? If all three of your devices are at least 'g' standard (dunno about your consoles, but they're modern so I assume they're up to standard) then you should have no problem with the Virgin router.

I wouldn't be so quick to blame your Belkin when your laptop tries to connect to a neighbour's router though, you can tell your laptop which network to prefer easily enough.

[punio75]

Laptop's couple of years old - so should be good (can't check now due to being at work)
I suppose I will stick with the one Virgin provided and sell the belkin (more profit that way I guess).

How can I check what speeds I'm getting?

[Pog66]

there is a speedtest link at the top of this page - make sure you run it when nowt else is connecting to the Internet

always worth checking with more than one:

www.broadband-expert.co.uk/broadband/speedtest/
www.speedtest.net/
www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html/

[punio75]

Don't you think it was strange that the installer said I needed something better to get the best speed? You would think they would be praising their own routers!!!

[Boabyboy]

I would do the follow setup:

Wired Connection Setup:

1. Power off all PC's, Cable Modem and Consoles.
2. Look for a small reset button on the back of the VM Netgear router and wait til the green tick goes orange.
3. After 3 mins. Power off the VM Netgear router.
4. If you have the Virgin Media Wireless Manager installed on any of your computers, please uninstall the program.
5. Make sure that the yellow ethernet cable is into the Cable Modem ethernet port and straight into the WAN yellow port at the back of the VM Netgear router.
6. I would use another ethernet cable into port 1 at the back of the VM Netgear router and connect it directly to the PC or Laptop's ethernet port.
7. Power up the Cable Modem (Probably it is a Ambit SACM) Wait for the Sync and Ready light to appear solid.
8. Power up the VM Netgear router.
9. After a few secs, power up a PC or Laptop.
10. Double click on Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox.
11. The VM Netgear Wireless setup page should appear.
12. Please put in your SSID - Usually you surname to identify wireless network. No spaces or capitals.
13. Then enter network passphrase (least 8 characters long) No spaces, capitals and special characters.
14. Change to Channel ID to 11.
15. Click on Apply.
16. Popup windows appears with a msg: This window is trying to close. Do you want to continue? Select yes.
17. Internet Explorer 7 disappears from the screen.
18. Double click on Internet Explorer 7 and Internet should be working.

Wireless Connection Setup.

1. Now that you know your SSID and Passphrase.
2. If you use a third party wireless adapter such as Belkin, etc. Then please use the software supplied with the wireless adapter.
3. If you use a VM Netgear wireless adapter then follow the steps below:
3.1 Make sure that all traces of the VM wireless netgear driver are uninstalled and the same as VM wireless manager.
3.2 Reinsert VM Netgear wireless adapter into USB slot on Laptop or PC.
3.3 Hopefully a usb sound indicating Windows detected new hardware.
3.4 If the Windows found new hardware window popup's, then press next.
3.5 If Windows ask to connect to the Internet to find drivers, then select, Not at this time.
3.6 Make sure that Windows is set to find the driver CD to automatic rather than manual. At this point you want to insert the VM wireless setup CD supplied with the VM Netgear router.
3.7 Hopefully Windows should detect the CD and start to install the drivers for the VM Wireless Netgear Adapter. If not then make a manual select to the D:\ drive of your CD/DVD player.
3.8. If successful then the drivers for the wireless adapter should automatically install on to your system.
3.9 An icon representing a computer with a red cross should appear. Ignore Local Area Connection but look for one with a single computer with a red cross and a popup should appear with "Wireless Networks Dectected"
3.10 Right click on icon and select left click on 'View available wireless networks' or 'Connect to a network'
3.11 Hopefully at this point you should see your wireless network. Select the network and enter passphrase (The one with more than 8 letters long) and bingo, hopefully your on the Internet with a wireless connection.

Hope this helps.;)

Boabyboy.

[Noggo]

The first thing I would do is to test the connection with direct PC to cable modem. Then you're got a bench mark to then evaluate both routers. You might want to read and do the following first: http://www.virginmedia.com/help/20mb-broadband-optimisation.php

Plus, unfortunately :( there are some areas of the Virgin Media network that suffer from over-subscription and it would be worth testing without the router in place anyway to see if this is the case. Test over a few days to find out the difference between off-peak and peak time. Obviously if you do find out there's a problem get in touch with Virgin tech support and get them to test your connection / UBR for any problems.


Re: Download speed testing
You could try the speedtest sites, the one I've found to be the nearest to Virgin Media's preferred method of testing is www.speedtest.net

Preferred method:
Downloading two simultaneous large files from http://gamefiles.virginmedia.com/blueyondergames/demos/. Just add up the transfer rates together and this will be your download speed.

The top two files shown in the picture below add up to 2.3 M Bytes/s (which is around 18.4 M bits/s). Depending on how fast the files are downloading this could also be displayed in KB/s as well, if it's displayed is B/s (and believe me, I and others who post here have been down that low) ring up and cancel before 28 days is up :)). http://allyours.virginmedia.com/money_back_guarantee.html

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/attachments/12/attachment-17539d1232382326-23-14-19th-november-2008-speedtest.jpg

Speedtest.net result, which is approx. 2 MB/s
https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2009/01/1.png

[Matth]

A wireless router can only work at the speed of the slowest device connected to it. How old is your laptop? Does it have a 'g' standard wireless card? If all three of your devices are at least 'g' standard (dunno about your consoles, but they're modern so I assume they're up to standard) then you should have no problem with the Virgin router.

Not quite... B/G modes can be mixed, and although a considerable performance hit is taken by the need for G stations to negotiate channel access in a B compatible manner, it does not drop all the way to B level except for traffic for a B device.

[punio75]

Thanks guys for all your help.

Is the common consensus the 'Linkys WRT54 GL' is the 'best' router For Virgin then?

[Noggo]

Yes I've heard good things about the WRT54GL, especially with third party firmware installed. You might want to post and read a few threads in this part of the forum: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/87/