Six Things That Block Your Wi-Fi, and How to Fix Them

[Blacksmith1]

study by Epitiro, a UK-based broadband-analysis firm, shows that consumers lose an average of 30 percent of the data speed their broadband connection supplies when they use Wi-Fi connections in the home.
Why the slowdown?
More...

[James86]

number seven should be your neighbors stealing your WiFi for torrents

[peti1212]

hahaha... so true James... But I doubt my neighbor can find out my password. We have WPA2 security, or whatever it is called. It's possible but I doubt they will be that smart if they have WEP. :P

We recently had some problems where the connection would drop. Turns it it was just too many wireless networks in the surrounding. Ended up setting up two wireless networks both ends of the house connected with a LAN cable, providing high signal for both sides of the house. We just happened to have two wireless routers around. Plus the 2nd router was so close, I didn't bother with wireless, just hid a LAN cable under my carpet and around the corners of my room and now I'm connected with LAN. So much nicer. Laptop is still on Wi-Fi though.

[PP Mguire]

Even if people are running speeds of around 24Mb their net speed shouldn't be hampered unless they have a beefy pipe. If they do, they will probably have an N dual band router anyways.

[Blacksmith1]

yeah my roomate is always complaining about his conection on his laptop. I dont have that problem since the modem, and router are sitting here on my desk. I have noticed tho that if he's online doing something, and any of the kids are gaming(wireless card), it does take a second or so longer to open pages here.

[PP Mguire]

That is just because they are hogging the internet. The article was basically saying that your home wifi cuts the speed down on your internet which is 90% of the time entirely untrue. If you have a 5Mb connection and a 54Mb G wireless there is no way it will slow your internet down. The only time it will slow your internet down is if you have an internet connection faster than what your wireless is which generally wont ever be the case.

[Blacksmith1]

true but the router does hesitate when the other systems are using the wireless. it seems to give them priority.

[PP Mguire]

QoS them and it will fix the problem. Also, make sure your router isn't getting hot.

[Blacksmith1]

probably is with the cats laying on it all the time

[peti1212]

Actually, there is a difference between wireless internet connection speed and LAN connection. I have a Wireless N connection router the N600 from netgear which is suppose to give me 300Mbps as long as I combine it with their wireless adapter. There are either 2.4GHz or 5GHz connections that I can do so it is dual-band. Either way, when I'm on wifi, I'm not reaching the maximum speed of my internet which is around 24Mbps. It is always a tad bit slower. There are of course multiple PCs using the wifi network at the same time though, though not for copying or sending files but just for the Internet.

As soon as I plug in the LAN connection, the speeds are up again to what it should be. Another thing to note is that if you have the router about 50-100 feet away, you will start losing signal, especially if you have neighbors that use Wi-Fi as well. Sometimes even with what I have right now I'm getting the 300Mbps that I am suppose to get according to the Windows Wi-Fi thing in the corner by the time, but sometimes the signal just drops and it lowers the throughput speed as well. So it really depends on how far you have your wi-fi router and the amount of interference that will determine your speed.

A router rated at 300Mbps along with a 300Mbps adapter will never give you 300Mbps throughput, even when they are right next to each other. Most Routers will get you about 50-200Mbps on a 300Mbps router and adapter.

PP, you might be correct about the temps though, since most routers do get quite hot during operation. It's difficult to cool them though unless you have something blowing at it. A while back I saw something by a company that allows you to mount a fan on your router. I forget who made it though, but it was quite interesting.

[Blacksmith1]

this thing is long out of warrenty, maybe I'll just dremel the box, and add a fan. gotta see what I have that would work.
[edit] nevermind, I just pulled it apart and dusted it. there was no real heat to speak of and really it would be a waste to put a fan on this. it's a linksys WRT54GS. After looking inside it, I know why it's so light and wonder how much it really cost to build...[/edit]

[PP Mguire]

Actually, there is a difference between wireless internet connection speed and LAN connection. I have a Wireless N connection router the N600 from netgear which is suppose to give me 300Mbps as long as I combine it with their wireless adapter. There are either 2.4GHz or 5GHz connections that I can do so it is dual-band. Either way, when I'm on wifi, I'm not reaching the maximum speed of my internet which is around 24Mbps. It is always a tad bit slower. There are of course multiple PCs using the wifi network at the same time though, though not for copying or sending files but just for the Internet.

As soon as I plug in the LAN connection, the speeds are up again to what it should be. Another thing to note is that if you have the router about 50-100 feet away, you will start losing signal, especially if you have neighbors that use Wi-Fi as well. Sometimes even with what I have right now I'm getting the 300Mbps that I am suppose to get according to the Windows Wi-Fi thing in the corner by the time, but sometimes the signal just drops and it lowers the throughput speed as well. So it really depends on how far you have your wi-fi router and the amount of interference that will determine your speed.

A router rated at 300Mbps along with a 300Mbps adapter will never give you 300Mbps throughput, even when they are right next to each other. Most Routers will get you about 50-200Mbps on a 300Mbps router and adapter.

PP, you might be correct about the temps though, since most routers do get quite hot during operation. It's difficult to cool them though unless you have something blowing at it. A while back I saw something by a company that allows you to mount a fan on your router. I forget who made it though, but it was quite interesting.

Basically what I was saying. You have a faster connection so naturally it will be harder for a slower router to keep up. When we lived in Irving, Texas we had 35Mb FIOS both ways and the 54G router would never keep up because we never actually got 54Mb connection speed. On a slower internet connection 54g should always give you the correct internet bandwidth even with multiple people on the same router.

this thing is long out of warrenty, maybe I'll just dremel the box, and add a fan. gotta see what I have that would work.
[edit] nevermind, I just pulled it apart and dusted it. there was no real heat to speak of and really it would be a waste to put a fan on this. it's a linksys WRT54GS. After looking inside it, I know why it's so light and wonder how much it really cost to build...[/edit]

I have a WRT54G and it severely needed a heatsink. Once I overclocked it and really started using that heatsink my internal lag would go away.

[Blacksmith1]

mine doesn't seem to get hot.
how did you O/C it?

[PP Mguire]

DDWRT firmware.

[MtDew]

hahaha... so true James... But I doubt my neighbor can find out my password. We have WPA2 security, or whatever it is called. It's possible but I doubt they will be that smart if they have WEP. :P

We recently had some problems where the connection would drop. Turns it it was just too many wireless networks in the surrounding. Ended up setting up two wireless networks both ends of the house connected with a LAN cable, providing high signal for both sides of the house. We just happened to have two wireless routers around. Plus the 2nd router was so close, I didn't bother with wireless, just hid a LAN cable under my carpet and around the corners of my room and now I'm connected with LAN. So much nicer. Laptop is still on Wi-Fi though.

I am running 3 B/G wireless routers and 1 DSL Modem with B/G wireless capability. With 5 laptops and 2 iphones, I felt we need that, though there is never more than 3 laptops on at one time. I have 1 dedicated to just the iphones (MAC Filtering and DHCP will only give 2 IP addresses). The other 3 are spread through my basement. I have the broadcast turned off, MAC Filtering and limit the number of IPs DHCP will give out.

I had to go this route because I can sit in my kitchen and pickup 12 broadcasting wireless networks other than my own. Most of them are locked down, as I have shown quite a few neighbors how to lock their wireless down. I did this because I have a neighbor who is a wanabe hacker. I've caught him trying to steal bandwith a couple of times from me. The bad thing is the guy works in IT as a security analysist, and bost about his skills.