USB Wireless adapter problems

[Kezzer]

Hello all, it's not often I ask for technical help

Basically I have a Netgear WG111 wireless USB adapter and a Netgear DG834G wireless Router/4-port switch/firewall/modem combination

When i'm surfing the net and using IRC / MSN everything is absolutely fine, however, when I require a constant stream of low latency data, by this I mean playing games, then I get constant lag. When I say lag, more specifically I mean every 2 or 3 minutes everything will stop for 5 seconds. Now I know for definite it's not the servers, it is my wireless connection.

For reference i'm using WEP (128-bit) as well as MAC address filtering and there are typically three clients connected to the wireless network at one time, but it also occurs when only I am connected to the network.

The reason I have a wireless USB adapter is because I have a Shuttle SN25P which comprises of only a PCI-Express 16x port and a PCI-Express 1x port.

I'm also using the windows utility to connect to the network.

Any help would be much appreciated as this is annoying me

Cheers all

[KermitTheFrog]

Kezzer,

I've had problems when the Wireless USB device is plugged into an extension lead, rather than directly into the USB socket - don't have a powered hub, so not sure if that would clear it.

I've also found MAC address filtering can be a problem for some adapters - can your adapter cope with it? Any difference when you disable it, just for testing of course?

Matt

[Kezzer]

Well I would but the problem is that not all clients support WPA and WEP is easily hackable but spoofing a MAC address is a lot more difficult so the filtering has to be there in order for the network to be secure really, i'll try directly into the USB socket though

[Kezzer]

Nope, that didn't work at all

[KermitTheFrog]

Last hope (from me) would be to suggest checking the Netgear website for any firmware updates, and perhaps raising a query.

I don't suppose you can enable logging at all to see what is happening, such as getting a new IP?

Matt

[Kezzer]

Nah, it has the latest firmware. Yeh, I need to log what's going on and why packets are being dropped.

[eloquence]

Have you tried lowering the speed that it's trying to run at - one possibility that springs to mind is that if its on automatic speed then it'll try to use the fastest speed possible, and there may be a delay if it finds it needs to switch to a slower speed.

[StormPC]

If it has the problem when you are plugged into the network how could it be a USB wireless adapter problem? In my experience USB wireless adapters don't work very well but I don't think that's your problem.

You've probably got spyware, hardware or driver issues.

[Norky]

Welcome to Windows XP and Wifi hell

[Kezzer]

Found a later version of the drivers for the wireless adapter and it seems to have slightly improved, by that I mean the lag doesn't happen as often, but it still happens

[Atomic]

USB network adaptors are just rubbish.

We had hell with them at work and gave up after a while and went PCMCIA with all our laptops (non builtin wifi ones that is)

[StormPC]

Found a later version of the drivers for the wireless adapter and it seems to have slightly improved, by that I mean the lag doesn't happen as often, but it still happens

Is this during gaming? Did you check your temps?

What about internet radio? Does it lag/pause or whatever when NOT playing games?

[Kezzer]

Yes it is during games, no it's not due to my system and don't even go into that further

I'll try internet radio now actually.

It's 100% definitely and I mean DEFINITELY some form of lag.