slow wireless...is everyone's this shit?

**whatnow** · 7th February 2006

just got loads of 802.11g wireless stuff, router and cards but I must've done something wrong as it isn't great.

Most connections are 'good' at best. General speeds are 24mbps or 18mbps. Occasionally we'll see 11mbps on one and 48kbps on another.

WE use our network to stream a lot of media...would a router be capable of handling this data? At most we'll have three people streaming media off one server, however at the moment to start a film or tv series mpg will take from 6-30 seconds to start in WMP. Music takens a few seconds to start.

Clearly our signal is weak, however I would've assumed (stupid me) that even a fully operational 11mbps network would be more than capable of sending enough data for at least two machines to be steaming just regular mpgs!?!!?

Are asumptions the mother of all fuck-ups!?!

**chris71** · 7th February 2006

24mbps or 18mbps is that the connection speed or the data throuput u'r getting. Is wep etc enabled?

24mbps seems about right for a 54Mbps connect. Its very hard to get over half the bandwidth due to error checking/correction and security overheads.

**whatnow** · 7th February 2006

no security is on at the moment (hi!) at I wanted to get it working first, however I think i'll put it on now anyway and hope it makes no difference.

I'm still surprised it's so slow, I just thought it was faster...like I Said, maybe that was a bad move on my part!

my client's list is clean, so no worries, I live near farmers!!!

Code:

Pinging www.yahoo.akadns.net [68.142.226.44] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Reply from 68.142.226.44: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=51
Request timed out.
Reply from 68.142.226.44: bytes=32 time=140ms TTL=51

Ping statistics for 68.142.226.44:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 2, Lost = 2 (50% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 92ms, Maximum = 140ms, Average = 116ms

humm

**RogerMcLitty** · 7th February 2006

yes I also get these speeds with my 3COM wireless router, especially using a Centrino laptop. If I put a 3COM PCMCIA card in the same laptop I get better, more consistent speeds. I've had the connection down as low as 8 Mbps at some points, and I was getting bucketloads of lag on my internet connection (was playing Pro Evo Soccer) through this, even though 8Mbps should still be more than enough to handle my 1 meg ADSL connection. Signal strength was reported as excellent at all times. I plugged in a network cable, et voila, lag disappears.

**CBo** · 8th February 2006

I improved things by getting stronger external antennas. I don't think you can get perfect reception and it does seem vary the speed conditions with my Linksys PCI card and Linksys WRT54g.

**Little John** · 8th February 2006

I have noticed that there seems to be a slight bit of lag with some routers/ap's and not with others. is everything line of sight or are there walls in the way? you dont have the wireless router in cabinet or anything? under a desk?

if all else fails go wired, wireless is great for 2 mayme 3 PC's using small files over the network but large files even connected at 54mbps your talking 25 minutes for 4GB with 2 p's using the wireless side of things.

I installed a 3 pc network 1 wired 1 ocasional laptop and another pc in a travel agency they used terminal services and the wireless PC was so solw at anything over the network even typing in web pages and on the TS window I ended up installing an extranetwork point.

**whatnow** · 8th February 2006

how annoying

I got the web working much better by turning off the firewall's on the individual PC's (oops, i'm sure double firewall isn't essential). So at least we can all browse the web at the right speeds now.

I'm just really dissapointed that the media wont stream. The only thing I Can suggest we do now is to run off a PC box we dont use and have it setup as a hard wired server by the router...this should hoppefully means at least we can tranfer files at a decent speed and not be set back by two wireless connectors, just one.

I still 'thought' wireless would've been fast enough. Plus my cheap cards don't work on mac's....

heinsight is such a beautiful thing :grr:

**marcode** · 9th February 2006

thats what i do shang... main pc wired, lappy wireless, and streaming is fine..

having the file server on a wireless connection prolly isnt the best idea if ur having speed issues lol

**whatnow** · 9th February 2006

Ok so i've made up a XP Server (yeah yeah bravo, it took all over 30mins) with a vnc connection and now my hall hums like every other room.

Problem is now even watching video streaming off it (own a wire) and over a WIFI connection it's still jumpy in places. I can get a connection in WMP in about 4 seconds with a 24mbps signal strength, which is bareable but when it goes into 20+ seconds it starts to suck!

This is my ping info for each comp. on the network, 192.168.1.6 is my wired server.

Code:

C:\>ping 192.168.1.1

Pinging 192.168.1.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=255
Reply from 192.168.1.1: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=255

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 2ms, Maximum = 2ms, Average = 2ms

C:\>ping 192.168.1.2

Pinging 192.168.1.2 with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Reply from 192.168.1.2: bytes=32 time=72ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.2: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.2: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.2:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss)
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 2ms, Maximum = 72ms, Average = 25ms

C:\>ping 192.168.1.3

Pinging 192.168.1.3 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.3: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.3: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.3: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64
Reply from 192.168.1.3: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=64

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.3:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

C:\>ping 192.168.1.4

Pinging 192.168.1.4 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.4: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.4: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.4: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.4: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.4:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 2ms, Maximum = 4ms, Average = 3ms

C:\>ping 192.168.1.5

Pinging 192.168.1.5 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=2ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=3ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.5: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.5:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 1ms, Maximum = 3ms, Average = 2ms

C:\>ping 192.168.1.6

Pinging 192.168.1.6 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 192.168.1.6: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.6: bytes=32 time=4ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.6: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=128
Reply from 192.168.1.6: bytes=32 time=5ms TTL=128

Ping statistics for 192.168.1.6:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 4ms, Maximum = 5ms, Average = 4ms

Are there any other tools I can use to monitor network problems and speed issues? I am sure ping is good but I wanted to try and push the boundries and see how much I use. I'm guessing there's overheads but from the chart Tast Manager gives me below it looks like i'm using hardly any network at all, so why the slow-down!?

**whatnow** · 26th February 2006

copy over 1.6GB of music test:

WIFI - 1 hour 30 seconds, plus additional time for random drop outs.
Cat5 - roughly 5 minutes

It's just way too slow, I can't belive people bothered to get on the 'b' network. G is pretty bad but b would've annoyed me so much.

Now that my wire is firmly 'back in' I will not change it untill wifi's at least four times better so that including it being wank can at least do the same as my current cat5 setup.

seems wifi is suitable for people who use hotmail on a laptop in their garden and that's about it

**marcode** · 26th February 2006

are your walls made of fucking steel or something?

**whatnow** · 26th February 2006

thick stone. I know this is going to have an effect on it so it does make my comments look uneducated and mildly stupid...

I spose one option is to have 10 meter extended antenna's off the cards, then these wires could be positioned on a little base in front of the router with it's bendy ariels pointing towards them

**gmc007** · 26th February 2006

i think my wireless is rather good i get the 54mbps with a drop to 48mbps some times but the drop is only for a few seconds my pc is only 20feet from the router but there is 3 walls in the way my signal is very good and some times exelent i dont play any online games though except for poker

**reverend** · 1st March 2006

Have you tried running something like Network Stumbler to see what other networks are in your area?

Wireless networks can be shit if there are loads of overlapping networks near you, I can see 7 from my house, it's dogwank as in ideal conditions you could have three networks, on say channels 1, 6 & 11 without many interference problems, but if there are more you're a bit knackered.

Plus if one of the neighbours has one of those MIMO devices that are coming out now they will pretty much kill any wireless network within range on any channel, it's crap.

Might be worth trying something like Network Stumbler to see if it can see any other networks...

A more extgreme option is to ditch the wireless kit and replace with 802.11a as that uses a different frequency so doesn't tend to get problems with TV senders, phones and microwaves...

Also bear in mind as the lads have said above that any wireless network only really gives you 40% real world thruput of the quoted figures, ie 54Mbps equals say approx 6.5MB/sec thruput so you'd see say 3MB/sec best case scenario, then that will usually drop a bit as soon as you enable WEP or WPA depending on the hardware... Also don't forget that the 3MB/sec max is shared between every device so copying between two devices will max out at 1.5MB/sec!

I was having trouble streaming over my wireless network to XBMC so just setup another dedicated WLAN using just Mac filtering and SSID, no encryption, and that handled it much better than it could before, and I wasn't really bothered about SMB traffic floating around unencrypted to be honest...

**neo2810** · 1st March 2006

The absolute maximum theoretical data throughput for 54mbps 802.11g is something like 24.7Mbps. You won't see higher than 2.75-3MB/sec.
Advice above has been good, but if you're seeing 24Mb or so, you're not going to improve much on that.
As suggested above, use Network Stumbler and check for other WLAN's around you. Check what Channel they are running on, and position yours as far from them as poss. Generally you'll experience overlapping within 5 channels of each WLAN.

**Dopey Dan** · 7th March 2006

I have just bought a fantastic wireless router which Im sure would sort you out.

Its the Belkin PreN. Info can be found here

http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProdu...%2Etworking%2F

Advantages :
• 8x greater coverage than standard 802.11g - Belkin Pre-N provides the industry's best wireless coverage, extending your range with improved reliability and fewer drops.
• 6x greater speeds than standard 802.11g - Belkin Pre-N provides the industry's fastest wireless connection for gaming, streaming video, Voice over IP, and moving large files efficiently and quickly between all the devices in your networked home.
• Improved performance of standard 802.11g and 802.11b networking devices - Using a Belkin Pre-N Router or Card with an older 802.11g or 802.11b networking product increases wireless coverage up to 20%.

Setup was a piece of cake and Im getting 97% signal strength in any part of my house.

Best price I had seen for the router was �80 at amazon, but Comet have router and Laptop card for �100 in store or online.

http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/784_264954.html

Heres a quote from Toms Hardware Guide

"In the meantime, if you're looking for the fastest, longest range 2.4GHz consumer wireless stuff currently on the planet, then Belkin's Pre-N based on Airgo Networks' True MIMO is it. It's real. It works. And it will simply amaze you."

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2004/1...ded/page9.html

Have fun

Dan

**whatnow** · 7th March 2006

thanks for the tip dopey dan

reverand and neo, I see what you're saying and it makes sense. I think I just assumed it wouldn't be how it is. I dont know why, ignorance I guess but I didn't play into the equation that all intenral walls in my house are thick stone walls,,,On reflection i'm surprised I get any signal.

Whats odd is that my PSP get's around 96% signal in the same position as my PC which get's on average 40% signal. However the PSP's signal seems constant (but perhaps it's reading it in a funny way) but the PC's signal jumps up and down very fast, all pc's in the house seem to flick constantly between 4/5 bars down to 2. It'll do this once or twice a second. I checked the my router stats and pack loss isn't as high as i'd have thought, which was odd.