wirless adapter help.

[andydrew39219]

Ok, I got my pc running yesterday on the internet for the first time in 8 months (due to me moving to ME) and every things working almost seamlessly.

I am having trouble with gaming. Ok, im trying to play Half life 2: Deathmatch (one of my favorite games for pc) and my ping sucks. my connection is fairly well, averaging 12/18 mb/s (dont know if thats good or not) but it loads web pages fast and downloads things at around 50-100 kb/s (my macbook did it at around 5-20 kb/s). i was wondering if anyone had anything to help me, like configuring my card for gaming or configuring my router for gaming (already forwarded the ports that steam reccomended and killed the xp firewall, just until i can diagnose whats wrong with my connection) or i thought that there could maybe be some kind of program that would benefit to me.
my router is a Linksys WRT54GS
my wireless adapter is a Gigabyte GN-WP01GS
the drivers i am using are from RaLink RT256x/RT266x drivers. (two people said to use those drivers instead of gigabytes drivers, and i did see a performance boost once i started using them) any help? i dont want to buy anything else right now but i will if i have to.

[PP Mguire]

Well just to let you know wifi is horrible for gaming period becasue of packet loss and high pings. Even just web browsing i can tell the difference between 10/100 and wifi. And if your not connecting at 54mb then you will deff have lag no matter what.

The only thing i can really recommend is getting a better antenna and switching your router to the DD-WRT firmware as well as try to make the connection pretty even. Like, try to have your wifi antenna as level with the router antennas as possible* and try not to have your signal go through so many walls.

*By that i mean altitude. If your router is on a desk thats 4 feet high try to have your antenna for your PC/laptop 4 feet high as well. Most standard antennas are omnidirectional but ive noticed it helps a great deal with signal noise and quality.

[andydrew39219]

yeah ive tried to get them level and they are as level as possible, yesterday i went and moved my router thats located in my neighbors house to his second story and my room is on the second story of my house too (thats where my computer is). It turns out its only Half life 2. I downloaded counter strike 1.6 and it works fine, it jumps sometimes but is still very playable. all last night and this morning ive been reading reports about how hl2 just doesnt work for some people and other people its perfectly fine, which makes me mad because hl2 dm is one of my most favorite games for pc. I also moved the router in front of a window and my pc is mostly infront of a window, and there isnt any walls except for 2 (which have the windows on them). i will look into the dd wrt firmware.

[PP Mguire]

DD-WRT will allow you to boost transmit power from your buddies router to allow you to have a better signal. That should help a bit.

[andydrew39219]

DD-WRT will allow you to boost transmit power from your buddies router to allow you to have a better signal. That should help a bit.

yeah, i cannot find which version is the one my router can use, my wrt54gs is version 1. i tried V24 for wrt54gs's and it didnt work, should i use the earliest version or what?

[PP Mguire]

You need to flash with the mini first.

Flash with 1, then flash with 2.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v701/pp_mguire/Cars%20and%20PCs/dd-wrthelp.jpg

[andydrew39219]

You need to flash with the mini first.

Flash with 1, then flash with 2.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v701/pp_mguire/Cars%20and%20PCs/dd-wrthelp.jpg

oh, i tried flashing it with the mini version of some older version of dd-wrt and it corrupted my firmware so i cant use my router until i fix it later on in the week.

[PP Mguire]

Some older version? What exactly did you do? If it isnt going to work it would just say the update failed and you cant use the new firmware and everything is fine......

[andydrew39219]

Some older version? What exactly did you do? If it isnt going to work it would just say the update failed and you cant use the new firmware and everything is fine......

i guess i updated a wrong version and it screwed up my router, so im going to try to convince my computer teacher to let me fix it today in class

[tyle6]

Whats your DL like when you bypass the router? is this problem maybe stemming from your internet connection itself?

[andydrew39219]

the download rate is the same, surprisingly (to me, ive had slower high speed my whole life) its 70-120 kb/s sometimes it will drop down to 0-20 kb/s but it doesnt bother me im used to it. i think its just because my router is old, the distance is far away from the router to the computer, and i dont know alot of about tweaking things for gaming (especially networking)

[PP Mguire]

Well oddly you can game on even a 256mb DSL connection as long as your ping is really low so your download speed dosent matter to an extent. I game on a "768k" connection which is more like a 405-520k connection and i get a download speed of 80k. Only exception is my ping is really low being a point to point wireless system.

As for your router im almost certain you must be doing something wrong. Are you trying to do it over wifi? Becasue you need to be hooked up to a cable and nobody else should be using the router at the same time. I think i forgot to mention that.

[andydrew39219]

yeah, thats the only problem. It is wireless internet and I cannot tell people to get off the router because i have no authority. basically if its past 11pm I will be the only person on the router but the owner of the internet leaves his computer on all night which should not make a difference cause it goes to sleep. I might be getting my own internet in the summer, im not to sure. If i get a job or my mom feels like paying for it.

[PP Mguire]

Well didnt you say you could fix the router in class? If you have it to yourself for like 5-10 minutes that should be enough time.

[andydrew39219]

yeah, i was working on it yesterday but the computer i was working on is very old (my school is 99.99% macs and we have three P3 Pc's running windows 2000) so i followed the instructions on the website and every time i would type in 192.168.1.1 IE would attempt to search for it on windows search. im going to work on it later this week because i have no time today.

[PP Mguire]

Well it really dosent matter what OS your using just as long as you can get into the web browser portion of the router.

[andydrew39219]

Well it really dosent matter what OS your using just as long as you can get into the web browser portion of the router.

Yeah, I know I'm just more accustomed to PC's. I will be getting it fixed tomorrow in school because I hate not having internet and I'm starting a class on learning C sharp so I need my computer so I can access the server at my school and get files if I have to.

The thing that is making this whole deal hard is i have to configure a static IP on the computer i want to access the router and i have no clue on how to do that. the link below is what im using to try and fix it, my only problem is assigning static IP's :help:

http://linksys.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/linksys.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=3703&lid=4013637401B10

[PP Mguire]

Usualy thats done by going into the connections manager/ right clicking on your adapter/ hit propertis/ click on TCP/IP/ click properties/ and you can assign from there. Dont worry about DNS server on the bottom.

[andydrew39219]

Yeah, I set it up and i could not get it to ping at all. I tried many different things, as in reinstalling the ethernet and drivers, trying different ports on the router and trying it on my mac. Then I tried a technique I read about where you short a couple of pins on the flash chip and it did not work. so I guess I have to go buy a new one. :(

[PP Mguire]

Maybe maybe not. If you think its dead you can send it to me and ill see if i can fix it. My friends house got struck by lightning and "took out his router" before and i fixed that too. Ill see what i can do if you want.

[andydrew39219]

Maybe maybe not. If you think its dead you can send it to me and ill see if i can fix it. My friends house got struck by lightning and "took out his router" before and i fixed that too. Ill see what i can do if you want.

Yeah i would not mind to mail it. I just need money to send it, and it would take a while to get to your place cause I live on a small island and shipping packages (not letters) is difficult.

[PP Mguire]

Yea just let me know and when i recieve it ill see what i can do about fixin it up and makin sure that firmware is good to go and setup.