Help with router/modem problem

[Zarathustra19]

Hey all, first post, so forgive a noob for any obvious idiocy.

I recently installed a Netgear PCI adapter in my mother's computer to be used with the Netgear router we have in place. The connection quality is "Excellent" and we seem to be connected at the full 54 Mb/s between computers. The problem I'm having with both her computer and my own (which is connected via a Linksys usb wireless adapter) is that we seem to be experiencing extremely slow download speeds (approximate average of between 30 and 50 kb/s) from a 10 Mb/s DSL connection. I don't know if this is normal or not, but any way to increase speed would help (my mother is a medical transcriptionist who needs to download a bunch of audio files each day to do her work). Thanks in advance for any help.

[red-daemon]

there are many many things to cause this. fixing problems like wriless is not too easy unless u r an expert sitting there! =P but u can try basic things to get started.

first thing i would do is to reboot modem and router and all computers. u should shut off computers while u do this and un plug modem and router (from power). then plug back in the modem power and wait for full boot. then router. then turn on both computers. then try downloading some thing again, like your moms work stuff.

second thing to try is check router firmware, which can be very improtant for wireless connections!! router manual will have info on ths but u can check yourself by logging into router. netgear often has pc-based firmware updaters so no macs!

third thing is simple cross-check of speeds. is it slow all the time or only for ur moms work stuff? can u download faster at other places, like download dot com or youtube dot com? youtube is not always best place to be ;) but its a good test for bandwith i think!

[Variable]

Look at the status of the wireless connection on your desktop. Look for errors. Open the router configuration page and search for other wireless networks on the same channel that you are using. If you have strong signal from another wireless network close by, this can cause overhead. Try changing the channel, you should be using either channel 1, 6 or 11.

Connection speed does not equal throughput. I have never heard of a 10Mb DSL connection. Go to DSl reports.com and do a speed test. File transfers send data up and down the pipe. So a low upload speed will choke the download.

[red-daemon]

yeh thats good point, listen to variable! =P speed tests r really good for checking speed cuz sometimes your moms work stuff meybe SLOW on that day or like that. or could b her work is SLOW all the time! ;) and yes 10mb isnt that fast all the time either! can be slower if the website is slower or server is slower or u r on other side of world! =P not always godo enuf to check spedd on one place.

[Orion]

Another thing I always check is whether you actually mean download speeds of 50 kb/s or kB/s....there's a difference. In fact, there's a eightfold difference. 50 kB/s (kilobytes per second) is 400 kb/s (kilobits per second)-there are 8 bits in a byte. this often confuses people, because your internet connection is sold to you measured in bits, but Windows measures in Bytes.

Now, 400 kb/s is still far from your 10 mb/s theoretical maximum, but there are still a few possibilities here. One of the largest unknown variables is the upload speed (and workload) of the site you are downloading the files from. you may be able to download at 10mb/s, but if they can only upload at 400kb/s, you will only get 400kb/s rates of data. If I am downloading from a major conglomerate like Intel's site, or Sun's site, I can download at my full 6 mb/s speed, but if I'm downloading a file from Joe's personal File Server, it will take forever, because he can only send it to me at 256kb/s...so I only receive it at 256kb/s...

The best way to see where the limitation is, is to:
1: go to a speedtester, as mentioned above, several times-average out your score.
2: deactivate the wireless and plug the computer directly into your dsl modem
3: repeat step 1.

If the two averages are about the same, then there is no slowdown happening in your equipment or wireless connection. if they are different, then the slowdown is affected by your equipment. To find out whether it's your wireless connection or your router, repeat he speedtest after plugging your computer directly into the router, with the wireless disabled.

I am going to guess that the limitation will be in the upload speed of the site you're downloading from. Medical transcription sites often have to cut costs, so they will go with the minimum necessary internet connection-often only a pair of T1s! This is a problem when they have a couple hundred or more employees downloading large amounts of data from them every day-you may wnat to try moving the time you download to a later time of day, for example, you could set up your computer to download the next day's work after you to bed. that way you will be competing with fewer people for the same bandwidth.

Give it a try and let us know what you find...