Wireless Connection speed variance

I was wondering why I get such a variance in the speed of my wireless connection. Sometimes it is at 54mbps and it often drops to 36 or 24. Right now it just was 5mbps and now it's down to 1mbps? The signal strength is always excellent. All these speeds ocur in the same room in the matter of minutes. There is nothing else running right now that I would think may be causing some type of interference. ???

 

I can garuntee you its your:

1) Firmware: Go to your routers site and look for downloads then update the firmware.
2) Update your wireless cards drivers by going to there website
3) Check for things interfering

 

Thanks for the advice Nickspohn but:

1) Firmware was updated last week for the router
2) Drivers in notebook are up to date
3) I do have a Panasonic 2.4ghz cordless phone and base station in the kitchen. I know that if I am sitting in the kitchen near the base station while the phone is in use my wireless doesnt even work. But if the phone is not in use and is charging in the base station cradle that shouldnt pose any interference, should it?

 

It is, thats what is causing your problems most likely. It can even interfere with TV's, Kitchen Appliances, etc. So try moving it to a different location or move your phone.

 

Have you tried a different channel on the router? Phones don't use router channel 11. And yes, the base probably still transmits even with the phone cradled.

 

Agreed - if you change the channel on the router, you should be alright. I had the same problem as you do. Solved by switching the channel.

 

I run on channel 11 and get speed drops from 54Mbps to 48/36/24Mbps. Only when I'm at some distance from the access point, though, and it only drops lower than that if I'm really far off.

 

Wes,

When you're looking at the speed, does it ever drop while you're actually transfering something or only when it's sitting idle? If it's just when it's idle, that's probably power management kicking in as it takes more power to run at 54Mbps than it does to run at 11Mpbs. What you probably have is an Intel wireless card. This had been reported a lot from people with a similar wireless card. New drivers seemed to have fixed the issue, but other still seem to have this problem, but I think it's with the router after that.

What you may want to do is look at the Wireless card properties and change the settings for power management and signal strength. This may help with the speed drops. I used to have the same issue, but after upgrading the drivers and changing the settings on the card, it hasn't dropped at all.

-Vb-