Helpwith slow internet downoad speed

[Dave20046]

I can't remember if you hover over the wireless symbol on windows 7 (ascending bars) whether it tells you the connection speed or not, worth a try, if not google it or you could download a free tool. Infact you may just double click on it. anyway you're after where it tells you the speed of the link between you machine and the router. If it's a recentish laptop I'd image the wifi adaptor will be up to scratch but ye never know.

The router's not under a telly or anything is it? Is it a newish sky box?

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by Geodude

Dont know if this helps but i had slow down issues similar to yours and i changed the adsl filter and connection worked perfectly again.

Changing the ADSL filter would only help if the problem was with crosstalk between the data spectrum and voice spectrum of the frequencies sent over your phone line. This only affects synch speed, the raw speed the router links to the telephone speed at. We have established that synch speed is not the issue here. (See OP and my previous post)

The problem seems to be with the wireless.

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by Bluepete

Channel change seems to have helped, but during the test, the download shoots up to 5.0ish, then drops to 0.0 for a second, then back up, then down, almost as if the wireless is dropping out or turning off for a second. Normal?

Pete

Pete there could be a whole raft of other issues connected to that, not least of which could be the speed the download is being served at the test site.

For the moment I would advise you leave things as they are and use the connection normally. If you see that you get these drops in speed randomly while generally surfing, then there is a further problem with the internet connection. If this is the case, try changing the router wi-fi channel again to be further away from the original. There is significant overlap in channel frequencies so moving only one channel away may improve but not cure the problem. Common channels are 1,6 and 9 - many routers have these set as default. The worst channel to be on in a busy wi-fi area is 1, as this is the BT Home Hub default channel. If many neighbours have a BT Home Hub, try selecting a channel in the range 9-11 to avoid interference from other home wi-fi networks.

If you want to be more scientific about choosing your channel, get something like NetStumbler to find all the wi-fi in range and check the channels they are using, then choose one with the least networks on it.

[Bluepete]

Cheers all, now on channel 12, inSSIDer works Mike, but NetStumbler won't recognise my card. No other networks are anywhere near ours, so I'll wait and see how it goes!

Pete

sometimes changing the channel can fix things. The intermittent speed you get on the new channel could mean you need to try a different channel to sort it out 100%

Originally Posted by Bluepete

Cheers all, now on channel 12, inSSIDer works Mike, but NetStumbler won't recognise my card. No other networks are anywhere near ours, so I'll wait and see how it goes!

Pete

It's not just other WIFI networks that can interfere, anything in the 2.4ghz band (i.e. cordless phones, radio control toys, baby monitors, etc...) can also cause interference.

Dan

[Geodude]

Originally Posted by Luckypants

Changing the ADSL filter would only help if the problem was with crosstalk between the data spectrum and voice spectrum of the frequencies sent over your phone line. This only affects synch speed, the raw speed the router links to the telephone speed at. We have established that synch speed is not the issue here. (See OP and my previous post)

The problem seems to be with the wireless.

So whats this crosstalk thingy then? my connection is wired and can range from 0.04mb to 22mb in connection speed using speedtest.net at different times of the day and somtimes pages time out because its on off on off. Had lines checked and there fine. sorry for hijack BP

[Luckypants]

The frequency ranges that can be sent down a phone line are very wide, a lot of which are inaudible and so useless for carrying speech so the ADSL technology use these frequencies to carry data. Now the frequencies close to the point where speech and data meet can interfere with each other, so the ADSL filter you fit splits these up to prevent this interference / crosstalk. Only voice frequencies should go to a phone device and only data should go to your router.

If this was occurring you would have a permanently bad connection, not intermittent as your report. I would venture that a slow download speed at certain times of the day is caused by data congestion at your exchange, rather than filter failure (leading to crosstalk). The thing to check is what speed your router says it is synch'd at when you suffer the slowdown / timeouts. It will probably still be synch'd at 22Mbps, but you just cannot get that throughput.

[Geodude]

Cheers for the explaination mike, it makes a bit more sense now.

[Bluepete]

Fixed it!

Turns out, my netbook has a dual bluetooth/wifi card. The drivers for the bluetooth part were not installed or had failed and as I never use bluetooth, I didn't realise.

Took less than a minute to install and get up and running at good speeds!

Thanks for the suggestions though.

Pete