WiFi Woes

[vienna123]

Hello,
Maybe someone out there can help me with a problem I've been having. I have DSL internet (128kbps, I think) with wifi. The only wireless devices that connect are a Nintendo Wii and two laptops (mine and my wife's). The Wii is almost never able to connect but some research has shown that the problem is often at the Nintendo end of the connection so it's no big deal. My laptop works fine and gets very good bandwidth. My wife's laptop, on the other hand, connects to the wireless router well but gets almost no bandwidth. It takes her ages to open any webpage. Often she will stop loading a page and then hit refresh which sometimes helps. The laptop is 3 years old so I am considering a new one (something like the Dell Studio 17). I would like to know 2 things: 1. Is there something I can check to ensure that my network is setup properly? 2. Is there any way I can be sure that if I buy a new laptop it will perform better? Also, for some reason, my ISP has locked down the wireless router so I cannot log on to it or view its settings. Any help would be really appreciated.

 

[mhku]

Does it make any difference if your laptop is on or not?

Does it browse any faster if connected directly to the router with a CAT5 cable?

Have you tried with any Firewalls and AV software disabled?

Are there any svhost.exe processes running with lots of Memory Usage?

Open Windows Task Manager and order by Mem Usage.

 

[compufunk]

Without reading your answers to mhku's questions, I would suspect a problem with your wifes laptop, rather than the wireless network.

2. Is there any way I can be sure that if I buy a new laptop it will perform better?.

Lots of people buy new computers when there is no need, I've seen people buy new machines when their old ones slowed down, when all that was wrong was that the old machine needed a good clean out.

What make and model is your wife's laptop? Most PC's in recent years come with a hidden recovery partition. This allows you to reset the machine to its original state. This would be a last resort, but if you are considering buying a new machine you have nothing to loose.

 

[pgh13]

Does it have built in WiFi or is it an add on? I had loads of trouble with one brand of USB dongle but none since switching to an XCONX PCMCIA one. We have also had machines on the office where the on board WiFi stops being reliable

 

[vienna123]

Does it make any difference if your laptop is on or not?

Does it browse any faster if connected directly to the router with a CAT5 cable?

Have you tried with any Firewalls and AV software disabled?

Are there any svhost.exe processes running with lots of Memory Usage?

Open Windows Task Manager and order by Mem Usage.

1. It seems to make no difference if my laptop is on.
2. I haven't tried browsing with the PC connected directly to the router but will give it a shot later.
3. I have not tried with firewall/AV disabled but if the problem comes up again I will try it.
4. Firefox is using 97,000K, svhost.exe 23,000K, and explorer.exe 25,000K.

The PC is a Compaq Presario 2200 with built-in 801.2 b/g wireless modem, 1.4 GHz, 512 Mb RAM.

The problem seems to come and go. Right now she is browsing Facebook and talking on Skype without any problems. I also think that the CPU fan is broken because it never turns on. Could that have a major impact? I have told her to turn the PC off whenever she is not using it so that gets a chance to cool off. This will also clear up all of the memory that Firefox doesn't release.

Many thanks for all your help.

 

[mhku]

If it overheats it will die...

Next time it goes slow check Task Manager; sometimes Windows Update leaves an orphaned svchost.exe that uses lots of memory and can hog bandwidth. If it is more than 20,000K kill it (end process). The worst that will happen is that it's another process and Windows will restart...

 

[Topper]

Well No1, your ISP has no right to stop you accessing the settings in your router, you should have total control over that, otherwise how can you ensure/check that there is no unauthorised access on your router??
You have to be able to configure it

When did you last do some housekeeping on the laptops? and what O/S are they using XP home , Pro?

I would watch out for skype hogging resources. I noticed my PC was slow a couple of days ago and skype, which had not been connected for three days was using 50% resources. I killed it and the PC was back to normal

 

[vienna123]

Well No1, your ISP has no right to stop you accessing the settings in your router, you should have total control over that, otherwise how can you ensure/check that there is no unauthorised access on your router??
You have to be able to configure it

When did you last do some housekeeping on the laptops? and what O/S are they using XP home , Pro?

I would watch out for skype hogging resources. I noticed my PC was slow a couple of days ago and skype, which had not been connected for three days was using 50% resources. I killed it and the PC was back to normal

I agree with the spirit that I should be able to access the router but I think that I would probably just wind up changing a setting and losing the internet for the entire house. The signal is WEP encoded so I'm pretty sure no one else can get on.

The last housekeeping on the laptop was about 3 weeks ago when I went through and removed all programs that had not been used for a while (through control panel). The startup folder is pretty empty. The hard drive is pretty full, though. 3 years ago 40Gb was pretty big but maybe it's time for a new one now. I keep a pretty close eye on the Task Manager so if anything takes a lot of memory I kill it. Usually Firefox, svchost.exe, Avast, and Skype are the biggest memory users. The OS is XP home SP2.

 

[Irishmale]

I would tend to access my router/moden & give it a new password. Then i would issue fixed IP addresses for each individual system you are running.
I found that my old router was having problems issuing ip addresses & as a result i was loosing bandwidth at certain times of day, especially if it was picking up other signals from neighbours.
Another problem maybe the coverage within your house, have you more than 2 floors??, floor heating??, thicker than normal walls????
Not sure if the fixed ip solution will solve your problem but it worked for me!!! If it does help i would recommend a new high end router!!!!!

 

[Topper]

Based upon your reply I now suspect your hard drive may be too full and there is insufficient room on the HD to run XP. Exactly how much space have you got available on the HD? If you are less that 10% on a 40Gb then this could very well be the cause of the slow web pages loading as there is nowhere for the swp file to run. Have a look at this article here

Oh and WEP encryption is about as safe as your money in an Iclandic bank, programs to discover the password and gain access are freely available on the web and most linux based PC's

 

[Channel Hopper]

Oh and WEP encryption is about as safe as your money in an Iclandic bank,

A bit safer now with the Russians stepping in. Humping

 

[vienna123]

Based upon your reply I now suspect your hard drive may be too full and there is insufficient room on the HD to run XP. Exactly how much space have you got available on the HD? If you are less that 10% on a 40Gb then this could very well be the cause of the slow web pages loading as there is nowhere for the swp file to run. Have a look at this article here

Oh and WEP encryption is about as safe as your money in an Iclandic bank, programs to discover the password and gain access are freely available on the web and most linux based PC's

Thanks for the reply. I think that my wife is down to about 3 Gb left on the 40Gb drive. I bought a 250 Gb USB drive to free up some space. The problem is that the laptop has every picture we've taken in the last 5 years on it. I need to find a proper backup/archive solution for them before I can really free some space. I will put all the music, etc on the USB drive, though.

As for the WEP encryption, I'm pretty sure my octagenarian neighbours are not trying to hack my signal. But it would be nice to leach some bandwidth off of them!

 

[Topper]

A bit safer now with the Russians stepping in. Humping

Safer in their pockets???????