Help Me Optimize My Router Config?

I'm kid of new to the router thing. I can set one up to run securely and config a port forward for my security cams but the rest is french to me.

Its up and running fine but is probably in a generic one size fits all configuration.

I have provided screen shots of the setup pages for my Trendnet TEW-633GR.
The only thing different now is I have it in N only instead of B/G/N mixed mode.

Can you look it over and tell me if there are tweaks I can do to enhance? If you have a tip for something not shown please toss it out.

I have a Comcast Cable Aris modem into the Router, 2 PC's wired with CAT5E cable from the trendnets hub and a Laptop with an adapter.

Thanks For Looking....

 

Looking at your configuration it doesn't strike me as odd, however I feel your question is a little vague. What is it you are trying to accomplish? The best way to do things is to have a goal instead of wondering around.

The only thing I can think of on the setup to ‘Improve’ it would be to turn on trusted MAC filtering for your laptops wireless card. Also if you are going to be doing port forwarding setting up MAC based IP allocation would also make this process much easier.

EDIT

You should also switch your channel useage to the 20/40 band in the options as well if your laptops NIC (Network Interface Controller) support the use of the large channels just make sure the space around you is clear on two channels as you effectly hog two of them when doing this however it will allow you higher throughput.

 

Thanks, I guess I am just asking you guys to look and see if anything in my setup sticks out at you I should address or experiment with.
While waiting for a reply I went to 40MHz and she (laptop wireless) doubled to 150.0 Mbps. I am using a Trendnet expresscard adapter. funny thing is a Belkin expresscard adapter I use hit 130.0 Mbps in the 20MHz mode.

 

I just slapped in the Belkin and its running at 270.0 Mbps!

 

Some N 2.0 devices support 300 and 270. It is better to have a 300mpbs router with 270 clients as the other about tends to make them crash speaking from personal experience.

If you want the full 300 not that i will make a huge difference at 270 then you might need ot get a new NIC. However you should now get more speed on the network. As always once you have a router working make sure you backup the settings.

 

Thanks. I see it spike to 300 once and a while. I am comparing the expresscards settings now to see why one is slower than the other.

 

It would be a good idea to to disable SSID broadcasting. You then need to enter the SSID name and the WPA key into each computer to connect to the network, Windows stores this network config and that's it. Just one more security feature you could use.

You should have no problems in n only as long as your clients (computers, iphones, xboxes, etc.) all support the same protocol. If not, that one device just won't connect and you would need to revert to mixed broadcast.

Are you at channel 3 by default? Maybe download the insSSIDer program and look to see what other channels are being used by other wireless networks in your vicinity. Just because you set to 3 (or 4 or 5 or.....) doesn't mean someone else's router in Auto mode (does your Trendnet have an auto setting?) will park itself temporarily on that same channel, but to know what else is around you is always a good idea. 1, 6 and 11 are the most commonly used. I'm not positive as to why though so maybe someone else can explain further.

 

The program inSSIDer is a good one and i have used it before. It always pays to know what networks are around yours and what channel they are on. If you wish to avoid noise on your network then best practice is to have you network broadcast on a channel one removed from other networks.

For example if your neighbour has channel one taken then skip channel two and use channel three. This avoids and bleeding into the adjacent channel from either network.

 

I did some Googling to answer my own question and found an Anandtech forum thread.

The last post says, "Channels that are 4 channels off (1 (2 3 4 5) 6 (7 8 9 10) 11) do not over lap. In general, you want to get as far away from other APs as possible, shooting to be 4 channels from everything."

How close are the frequency channels?

Still, if the OP has an Auto feature on his router, which he should if it's a fairly new model, he should use it rather than only Channel 3. Then again, we don't know how many (if any) other networks are in his area. If there's only one or 2, then he should be ok but with a handful of APs, he'd benefit most from testing or just not caring about geek tweaking.

 

You have exposed your security key for the wireless so you should change it. I usee GRC.com key generator, all printable chr. Just grap 20 chr or so and it will be secure.

 

Thanks, I will but that is only half of it. It's 63 long.

 

OK, I am lookingt pretty good with my Laptop Belkin card to the Router doing a solid 270.00 Mbps by enabling 40 MHz.

Now I have one other problem.

I have an XP machine with the latest SP and updates in the basement connected to the router via CAT5e and status is 1.0Gbit.
It has another icon in the tray called "Internet Connection" that the status is 512Kbps. I think I have seen it running at 10 or 100Mbps before and cannot figure out why it's at 512Kbps now.

I also notice in the networking properties the Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) is no longer there. 6 is and I know 4 was at one time but do not know how it went away or if it is a factor in the slower internet connection. I have tried to add it back but cannot locate it.

all I want to do not is bring that speed back up.

Thanks