Wireless speeds painfully slow

[LucasJackson]

Hi,

Had a good dig around the site, and didn't see anybody with this issue, so wonder if perhaps anybody might be able to shed some light...

Am with NTL Telewest, on a business connection (so effectively, am a Virgin Customer I assume)

Have a 4meg line, which works perfectly from the modem, however, the wireless speed has slowly deteriorated over the last few months, to the point where I needed to reset the modem and router every day.

Eventually I changed the router (a netgear cable n-range max) because the tech support said they were rubbish (even though they recommended it on their site). Switched to an apple airport express (i'm running a mac), and that worked perfectly for about 2 months, and then the exact same issues started happening. Speed effectly came to a halt. Again, connecting direct to modem gives perfect speed.

Am back to the flakey netgear now, while I await the delivery of my Linksys WRT54G, which i'm praying will solve the problem.

Was running spotify (which i recently found out works like a bit-torrent client, sharing cached tracks with other users to save server bandwidth), which i thought might be slowing speeds by eating into free ports, and upload bandwidth, but stopped using it, and saw no improvement.

Have tried tweaking the settings on both routers; frequencies, security on/off, to no avail.

I'm worried that the Linksys WRT54G will arrive, function perfectly for a while, and the same issues will arise.

Has anybody seen similar slow degradation of wireless before? Would be quite grateful for any insight.

NTL are no help, because the modem is working perfectly when connected directly to my laptop, so I can't really blame them, but I've never had such consistent problems from a BB connection in my life, and it's driving me nuts.

Many thanks,
-LJ

[Paul K]

Have you tried looking to see what networks are nearby? You should be able to have a sniff around and see what routers are in use and what channels.
Also is anything near the router??

[Hom3r]

I posted this in another thread that my help you.

Reasons for Wi-fi drop are cordless phone / microwave interference, but it could be a neighbour is using the same channel as you.

I use some software on my laptops called WirelessNetView from http://www.nirsoft.net

[CHiLL]

I use the Linksys WRT54G, coupled with the DD-WRT firmware, and it works flawlessly.

Change your wireless channel to 1,6 or 11...they're the best channels with the least interference from other wireless technologies. Try and place the router in the most central place in the household you can. Also, try not to have it near any metallic objects, as they can disrupt signals.

[LucasJackson]

Thanks for the advice. Changing the the wireless channel and moving the box off the large metallic object it was sitting on, both seem to have improved the speed quite a bit.

Last time I switched channels the speed boost was only temporary, but there are probably 20 reasonably strong wifi signals available to my laptop, so it's quite possible that there are a few of us trying to find free channels, and my neighbours are switching theirs over time...

Hopefully channel swapping will keep the speed up until my Linksys arrives, but I'll certainly be a little more careful of router placement, as well as keeping my wireless phone away.

Thanks again,
LJ

[Paul K]

Why waste time changing channels constantly when homeplugs would resolve the issue permanently?