[mfaerber]

Short Story:

Signal speed goes up and down, up and down... Thus, I have to click links a couple times for them to work, usually (the page loading times out). Tried downloading a big file and watched the speed on a graph way up and way down at a seemingly regular frequency. Doesn't matter where my USB wifi adapter is in the room.


Long Story:

Mother nature recently decided that I needed a brand new sky light, so she put a tree through my roof. Thus, I will be living in a hotel for a while...

Said hotel is a Best Western with Wifi. I have desktop computer and I just bought a Linksys "Compact Wireless-G USB Adapter". As long as my firewall is off (and I usually turn of my antivirus program, AVAST!, just in case too) I connect and stay connected with an "Excellent" signal strength. But, the speed goes way up and way down all the time. To the point that I usually have to refresh a page in order for it to load the first time. Also, if I try to play an online game, I get disconnected within minutes.

I assume this has to do with other people using the same wifi channel... Is there ANYTHING I can do to keep the speed from dropping so much and stay steady?

Thank you in advance!

[Ethereal_Dragon]

Your assumption would be mine also, with the problem being that there are other people using the bandwidth also. There are many devices that operate at 2.4Ghz, such as baby monitors, microwave ovens, 802.11b&g, etc. etc.... another likely issue is that the pipe to the ISP is saturated, which would cause you to see an excellent signal, but slow speeds.

Try this.... open 2 command windows... START > RUN > type "CMD". Once you have those open, do an "IPCONFIG" in one, and note down the DEFAULT GATEWAY. In one window, type "PING 192.168.1.1 -t" (sub the number you wrote down in there, if it isn't 192.168.1.1). In the other window, type "PING google.com -t". This will run a CONTINUOUS ping to both the gateway router at the hotel, and the google.com server. You will want to keep an eye on the response times to see if they change over a short period of time like your speed changes....

U:\>ping google.com -t

Pinging google.com [64.233.187.99] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=52ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=42ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=46ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=36ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=39ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=38ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=38ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=238
Reply from 64.233.187.99: bytes=32 time=41ms TTL=238

As you can see here in this ping to google, the time is listed in Mili-seconds. You should see times of 1-3ms to the gateway, and times will vary to Google.

To stop the ping, click on one of the windows, and hit CTRL+C. Then click on the other window and do the same.

[mfaerber]

Thank you very much Ethereal_Dragon

For my default gateway ping, the time is always about 50ms, but after a couple dozen pings it displays a "request timed out" for about 5 lines. This occurs in a stable pattern and is not random. Same deal for google, except the time is always about 2ms.

Soooo, this basically shows exactly what I experience trying to surf the web. Sucks, but I will be out of here soon.

thank you again!

[Ethereal_Dragon]

no problem....

BTW, are you sure those numbers are right?? Should be about 2ms to the gateway, and 50ms to google....

[mfaerber]

they are... *shrug*