Wireless Vs Wired

I'm having a little issue with my broadband speeds (or possibly not) when dowloading through my wireless network at home.

I'm getting between 5-8 meg when connected via the wireless network, but if I connect the PC to the LAN on the back of the router I get upto 20meg.

This is the same with three different PC's I have inlucding two wireless N laptops. My router is WNR834B Netgear N so shouldn't have an issue.

Im not an expert on wireless networking so please be nice!

Thanks

Ju

Are you sure you actually connecting your laptop at "N" speeds?

IIRC there are only certain channels that "N" will work on, is this correct, I am sure someone more knowledgable about "N" will be along in a minute

Try another laptop.

My old laptop suddenly dived from 11Mb/s (full speed for my 13Mb/s sync) to 8Mb/s in October. When I replaced it in December the new laptop got 11Mb/s as had a friend's when he came round earlier. That old laptop had a few other odd issues. It would sometimes just refuse to connect and required a power cycle (mostly I just hybernated it for weeks on end). Oddest of all it claimed to be able to detect a signal from UCLAWLAN which no other laptop ever could. It was a weak signal of course

Bottom line:Wifi is a black art. Stuff happens. Check what channel your router is using - selecting 12 or higher should move you away from anyone else since they are EU only and most routers don't seem to pick them by default.

If all your kit is 11N then you can try setting all your kit to 11N. For the PCs and laptop. Go to 'Device Manager', Click the [+] sign to the left of the 'Network' adapters entry. Double click on your Wireless Network card and Click the 'Advanced Tab'. Scroll through the 'Property' window looking for something like 'Band Preference' or 'Wireless Mode' and Click on it. Then Click the 'Value' box and depending on your card the drop down menu that appears might be either worded 'disable 11x' or 'enable 11x'. Click the one you want. Do the same in the router's wireless section.

Also worth checking with to see if there are other WiFi networks in the area using the same channel as you, which can impact on your wireless's performance. You can use something like Netstumbler or WirelessNetView from NIrsoft (both freeware) to check for other nearby WiFi networks and what channels they are on. Where possible choose a channel as far away as possible from other channel numbers you see but least two channels away, if possible.

It is also worth checking different locations for your wireless router as sometimes, even inches can make a difference, because the wavelength is so short.

If the laptop is running XP, try running TCP Optimiser or similar as MTU etc values will probably need to be changed if higher speed internet access is used.

This happens to me - I can get up to 19.5 Mbps via Ethernet (VM cable broadband) sitting next to the router but if I move over to the couch in the same room and connect by wireless I'm lucky to get 8-10Mbps. Depends very much on the time of day though - I find this the biggest factor affecting speeds. The channel suggestion is a good one as I've done that and it did make a difference. My computer picks up about 12 networks in the evenings, so there are bound to be conflicts.

Me too!

VM 20Mb/s
18.7 direct from the cable modem
16.5 from the router ethernet
14.1 from via router wireless

Very clean radio environment. Might just be a rubbish router - WGR614v7

Suggestions as to how I can locate a w/router with proved radio performance?
Is there any benefit to have an 'all-in-one' cable modem-w/router, will VM allow it?

>Is there any benefit to have an 'all-in-one' cable modem-w/router, will VM allow it?

No, and no, and not sure even they are even sold in the UK.