Wireless Network Help Needed

[PaulBrum]

Hi there - I'm after some advice with regard to my wireless network set up.

I have a PC running windows 7 64 bit. I have a Dynamode 11n (300MBps) Wireless PCI Adapter http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Dynam...ss-PCI-Adapter and a Zyxel 802.11g (P-660W-T1) ADSL 2+ gateway router.

Driver for the wireless card is the microsoft generic driver vers 3.0.0.41 which automatically loaded when I installed Win 7. I'm using Windows to connect, not athird party software package.

I have the router positioned in the room next to computer, approx 10m away - walls are generally plasterboard stud (so no dense brickwork about)

My broadband package is Tiscali Max Unlimited up to 8mb.

I have always had really slow download speeds, regardless of OS (I've run XP, Vista 64 and now 7) - running a speedtest (at DSL reports) shows

Latency to server 63ms (ranges from this to 211)
Download 558 Kb/s (this has never been higher than 1200 Kb/s
Upload 200 Kb/s (quite often 100 ish)

Wireless signal never gets over 2 bars and the speed in wireless network connection status is usually only 24 - 36 Mbps it quite often drops connection. A quick check on BT shows I should be getting up to 6Mbps download speeds.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to why my connection is so bad - any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Paul

[deeloughran]

Could buy a signal booster to see if that makes a difference?

[deeloughran]

O and make sure there is nothing beside the router.
Mine is in my brothers room and when he had it beside his computer my signal was terrible and couldn't play x-box live (though i do have a brick wall inbetween) but when he moved it against the wall my signal is good. Maybe just move it about the room first?

[MaddAussie]

try inSIDDer great for working out the best place to site wireless AP's and seeing if your channel is congested.

[PaulBrum]

I've tried moving the router closer and it really doesnt make too much difference - which makes me think its a driver / hardware issue.

I've down loaded InSSIDer and it is identifying another network - with a stronger signal than mine it therefore must be a hardware issue if I'm picking up a stronger signal from a neigbours router (I live in a detached house!)

Any more thoughts?

Paul

[PaulBrum]

Thinking about this overnight - it looks like I should get a new router - if my wireless card is picking up a stronger signal from a neighbours router (at least 20% stronger signal) then surely the wireless card is OK and the Zyxel router (for whatever reason) is braodcasting a weak signal.

Somthing like this?

http://www.netgear.com/Products/Rout.../WNR3500L.aspx

or

http://www.netgear.com/Products/Rout.../DGND3300.aspx

I presume the slow connection between my wireless card and router is the reason for the slow internet connection?

Your views would be appreciated.

[GheeTsar]

Wait, wait, wait.

512 kilobytes per second = 4 megabits per second

1200 kilobytes per second = 9.6 megabits per second

So your download speeds are good as advertised (if not better).

Having a 24 megabits/second wireless connection exceeds your max transfer, so other than losing connnection, what's the problem?

[Funkstar]

Paul, are you in the UK?

If so I would suggest not using that speed test, use one that is actually in the UK

http://www.speedtest.net/ - this is global but will give you test locations in the UK.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest.html - Also UK based

Can you temporarily hard wire the PC to the router, or use another PC, and do a speed test from that. If you get better rates, then yes, there is a wireless issue.

As for the signal strength; does InSSIDer tell you what channel you and the other networks are on? If they are on the same channel, change yours. 1, 6 or 11 are the best ones to be on as they don't overlap with any of the others.

Also, it isn't a simple case of being close to the router to get a good signal. Friends of mine had a great router 'borrowed' from where they work. They could get a signal while sitting in the pub across the road, yet one of them couldn't get a signal in the room directly bellow the router. This is because the signal pattern is shaped a bit like a doughnut. You get a very weak signal right in the middle and directly below it. The higher power the signal, the flatter and more directional it becomes. The 'hole' in the middle also gets larger.

Wireless technologies and radio waves are a complicated business

[PaulBrum]

Both - thanks for the response:

I thought 558 Kb/s = 0.5 Mbps and 1200 = 1.2 Mbps - at least that's what my convertor software shows me - that's half a meg and 1.2 meg download speeds as opposed to the 8 meg I should be getting.

I have an old XP machine with a USB dongle and the speed does seem to be consistantly faster (although still never gets above 1200 Kb/s)

I am in the UK - I'll try the speedtest when I get in and post the results. I noticed both me and the other wireless network are both on channel 6 - how do I change this?

Thanks for the help

Paul

[Funkstar]

I am in the UK - I'll try the speedtest when I get in and post the results. I noticed both me and the other wireless network are both on channel 6 - how do I change this?

This will have a serious impact on your wireless performance then. This is changed in the router, never used a Zyxel, but it should be easy to find and change. As I said, try Channel 1 or 11.

[PaulBrum]

OK, sounds good - I've been into the router set up before, so shouldnt be too much of an issue - I'll have a look tonight.

Do I need to change anything in windows (wireless connection settings, or will this still find the router automatically?)

Sounds like this could be one of the issues then - Hopefully changing the channel will give me a stronger connection (as I said before only 2 out of 5 bars), a more stable connection and a better speed !!!

Here's hoping, I'll post my results later.

Again - many thanks for the continuing help.

Paul

[Funkstar]

The channel is all handled by the router, the wireless card and Windows will just change. You even get routers that will sniff out other networks and dynamically change the Channel to avoid what is around it. So at different times of the day it could be on different channels, avoiding other networks that aren't on all the time.

some hardware does get confused by this constant changing, but your PC shouldn't have a problem with a single manual change.

[PaulBrum]

ok, I've done the following:

Changed channel to 1 - doesnt seem to have made much difference in connection speed / wireless connection

I've moved the router about to get a better connection - now at 4 out of 5 bars at a connection speed of 48 - 52 Mbps in the woireless netwrok connection tab.

Speed generally seems a bit better, but only getting the following speed:



I thought I'd try the ping test to see what that came up with -



a second test:



Interesting to see the Jitter level in the first test - a number of subsequent tests have all shown a low jitter value.

I think from the results I can rest easy that my wireless network os performing as it should. It would seem that my phoneline is incapable of producing speeds above 2 mb/s - despite the fact that BT tell me I sould be able to get up to 6

Anyone know of any other tests I can run ?

Paul

[Funkstar]

Have a look in the routers status page, what do you actually sync at on the ADSL line?

You might connect at ~6mb (BT estimated 6mb for me, I sync at 8mb) but tiscali could be incapable of feeding you enough data even though the bandwidth is there.

And in case you are wondering, with broadband you generally get what you pay for, and tiscali are cheap

[peterb]

Wait, wait, wait.

512 kilobytes per second = 4 megabits per second

1200 kilobytes per second = 9.6 megabits per second

So your download speeds are good as advertised (if not better).

Having a 24 megabits/second wireless connection exceeds your max transfer, so other than losing connnection, what's the problem?

Er..... no. 512Kb/sec is .5 Mb/s, and 1200Kb/s is 1.2 Mb/s - (1000 kibibbytes in a Mibibbyte, or 1,024 Kiilobytes in a Megabyte!)

However - back to the topic - what speeds do you get if you connect the PC directly to the router? You need to know what the line performance is like before you start diagnosing problems with the router.

[PaulBrum]

what speeds do you get if you connect the PC directly to the router? You need to know what the line performance is like before you start diagnosing problems with the router.

I connected the router directly to the PC last night and the speed was no better than the 2mb/s that i get with the strong wireless connection.

Another interesting thing I noticed - as suggested, I changed my channel from 6 to 1 to separate from the other router than my wireless card was picking up. Ran inSSIDer and it showed the 2 signals on separate channels - after about an hour, I ran it again and the other signal (its labelled PS3-4539876, or something like that) had moved to channel 1, the same as mine, and was about the same strength -

Have a look in the routers status page, what do you actually sync at on the ADSL line?

You might connect at ~6mb (BT estimated 6mb for me, I sync at 8mb) but tiscali could be incapable of feeding you enough data even though the bandwidth is there.

I'll have a look at this tonight and let you know.

Looks like the broadband line is weak as suggested - not sure why the other router keeps tracking mine??

Help really appreciated as this is beginning to bug me

Paul