Network transfer issues

Hello, I'm very ignorant when it comes to routers but I know how to follow instructions. I'll take some time to read the "read before posting thread" but I have an issue.

My network transfers are really really slow. I tried transferring a 165mb file from my laptop to my dad's laptop wirelessly (wi-fi I guess and not blue tooth but will get if recommended) and it was only transferring at 500kb to 1.3mb/s.

This is the router I have.

I have comcast cable (I think up to 15mb/s and my dl speed is normally 2mb/s or more depending on the sites server I dl from ex microsoft).

Is that transfer speed normal? If it is, then I would like to ask of a better router where I can transfer between my network as fast as If I were transferring from my c drive to my d drive if that is possible.

edit - O, if this helps, I upgraded my card to Built-in Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6200 Wireless Card. my dads laptop is an acer with Acer® InviLink 802.11b/g/Draft-N or 802.11b/g wireless LAN, WI-FI CERTIFIED™

 

The router itself is fine- you may want to check if the firmware is up to date. If this problem turns out to be unsolvable by any other means you may want to test alternative firmwares like DD-WRT or Tomato.

Both LAN and WAN to LAN transfer speeds are too low.

Few things to check- connect a computer via an Ethernet cable and test download speeds (or simply run speedtest.net using both wireless and cable Ethernet- speeds should be identical or very close)

Check if your Wi-Fi is set to 802.11g not 802.11b (while you're at it make sure that security is set to WPA2 + AES)

Run inSSIDer to monitor signal strength and consistency for your network and check if there are any networks on the same or neighboring channels- if so change your channel accordingly.

Make sure that drivers for both Wi-Fi cards are up to date and that Win 7 power management for Wi-Fi card is disabled if you use Win 7.

BTW your update to Intel 6200 won't help you a bit in terms of transfers since you are still using 802.11g router. Max transfer of 802.11g is about 2.5MB/s and that's as fast as you can go in near-to-ideal conditions.- still it should take only a minute to transfer the 165MB file you've mentioned.

 

thanks a lot for your help. I will test it out soon but first..... Erm umm.. whats a firmware:confused2:

 

Firmware is the operating system for the router. Don't bother with dd-wrt--it is not going to make a significant difference with that router. Wireless G is wireless G and dd-wrt will not make any difference.

Your wireless cars support wireless N so a new router will improve your speed, but nothing is going to get you to moving files from one drive to another.

A wired connection between the two laptops witha gigabit router/switch would also make a difference over your current situation.

 

Router is just a small computer and it's run by specially designed operating system- in most cases including yours it's Linux- that's your firmware.
Firmware updates include updated drivers optimizations and remove bugs- that's why you should keep it up to date.
If nothing works you may wanna use DD-WRT or Tomato firmware- these are just more advanced versions of Linux firmware with more options/settings available. That said- it doesn't require any knowledge of Linux at all- all the settings are available via GUI meaning the configuration page that you see when you log in to your router at 192.168.1.1

 

ok, thank you. I'll get started on this soon. What kind of transfer speeds should I be getting?

 

Max speed of 802.11g is some 20mbps (2.5MB/s)

 

Ok, I've done everything you suggested and I am seeing a slight increase of transfer speed, or rather a more stable speed. I'm constantly getting between 1.10-1.30mb/s. Thats good enough to watch mkv files though the network at least.

As far as changing firmware, I'll probably pass on that one.

I'm satisfied with the speed for just transferring smaller files. Big video files (2-10gigs) is out of the question. I guess for that I would need like the best N router out there or something.

Could my pc be slowing me down? My modem and router is connected to my Pentium 3 desktop (less then 1ghz processor with 512mb ram). I do get speeds of up to 2.35mb/s when transferring from my laptop to my desktop. When transferring from laptop to laptop, its somewhere between 1.11 to 1.30mb/s.

Any other suggestions?