Slow Wireless Connection

I just bought a Dell d620 with an Intel Wireless A/B/G internal wireless card and I have a Linksys 802.11b wireless router. On the router I have WEP encryption enabled. Even when I'm 5 ft away from the router and I have "excellent" signal strenght, my download speeds are only ~750 kilobits/second, while my wired desktop gets ~3.5 megabits/second. What would cause my laptop to have such slow download speeds?

 

It may be because your router is only a b so that means 11 mbps which is still faster than your wireless card. How far away from the router are you? It also could be the site that you are downloading from.

 

I'm only 5 ft or so from the router. 11 megabits/second is still faster than my cable connection, which is about 4 megabits/second, so theoretically I should be able to get at least close to that 4 megabits/second, which I do with my wired desktop.

It's a bandwidth speed test site that I tried with both my wired desktop and wireless notebook. 3.5 MB/s with the desktop, 750 KB/s with the notebook, so it's definitely not the site.

 

I just tried updating my Intel Wireless drivers, no luck.

 

I also have a Linksys 802.11b (can't remember de model, but is one of those blue 'fischer price' like routers with two antennas), and the connection to my 'g' notebook is also limited at about 700kb/s (transfering files between the Desktop PC and the Notebook). Trying to figure out and solve the problem..... Remember that the Wireless firmware is 1.4.something...

Tried to change some configurations (Setup -> Advanced -> Wireless). Changed TX speed from 1-2Mb to 1-2,5,11Mb. Resulted in a strange behavior. On the first 10 or 20 seconds of the connection I get about 5Mb/s, but after this initial time, the speed drops to 700kb/s agaim... :-(

 

Try running cablenut optimizer, get the aux pack too. It has more configurations.

Leave your connection speed on auto.

Also check you energy management to make sure it's not clamping it. These settings are also in the port advanced settings.

It's also posaible that your wireless hardware is failing. They do at times.

 

listen to blue68f100 he helped me with a similar problem

 

Most all 11b hardware could not handle security without killing the speed. So 3mbps is probably a good number. I would look at getting a new router. The 11a bandwidth (5ghz) normally has less interference vs 11bg 2.4 ghz. But your router only supports 11b. Most 11b routers only support WEP which is useless for security these day. Treat your self to a new router, your overdue.