Painfully slow connection - total novice needs help

[Helen_kimber]

Ok, here's the problem; i'm using wireless with my laptop, initially I get 54 mb/s (by hovering over the wireless icon) this slowly drops to 24 mb/s then eventually 1 mb/s. The whole thing is slow, I can't load websites very well and I really need this to be fixed (starting a new job working from home soon)

I can right click on the wireless icon, click repair, it's clears cache's resets my address and it works again for a minute or two.

I've phoned sky's technical help, and it's very frustrating, i've changed over micro filters, unplugged things, and they just don't seem to know that the problem is, or be able to explain to me what exactly they want to do.

I've done and online broadband test, and it come back as 200 bits/second which is rubbish as I've purchased 16 mb/s from Sky (appologies if the units are incorrect)

So from this forum I can see people checking router stats, or changing channels (no idea what to do there) or using TCP optimiser.

Where should I start? any suggestions?

Many thanks

Helen

[Saturday]

You appear to have a wireless connection problem. This is only indirectly something to do with Sky in that they supply a router which doesn't have a terribly good wireless performance. But it's not terribly bad either - the router is in use all round the world and is generally considered a pretty reasonable piece of equipment.

As you've found, Sky support can be frustratingly inept at helping customers with anything other than simple connection problems. To be fair though, they can't do much about your home environment and this is what is influencing your poor connection.

Wireless technology for all the hype is not very satisfactory in the home environment. A good connection depends on two things: wireless signal strength and wireless signal quality. It sounds like you have a problem with both.

First thing you need to do is run a test by connecting your laptop to the router with the supplied ethernet cable. Do a speed test and check the results. Almost certainly you'll find that things are much better and if so this confirms that the problem is with the wireless.

Once you've established the baseline (wired) for what your connection can deliver, you need to start trying to improve the wireless strength and quality to see if you can get it near to the wired performance.

The two main things to try are trying alternative wireless channels and trying different positions for the router and or the aerial orientation. Small changes can make big differences especially things like moving the router off the floor and away from large metal or electric devices. Wireless channel changes are done within the router admin pages - how to access these is covered in the first part of the first sticky in my signature at the bottom of this post.

Once you have improved your wireless signal to the best you can, only you can decide whether that's good enough or whether you need to run a wired connection. Sometimes wireless just can't offer a good enough connection whatever you do. BTW the wireless connection won't be improved by TCPOptimizer (that affects the overall connection between the laptop/PC and the router) and your stats also won't tell you anything about your wireless connection (though will about the overall connection - see later).

You may find the rest of the sticky useful too to check whether your connection is healthy other than its wireless performance.

Lastly, your profile says you're on Mid but you refer to having "purchased 16 mb/s from Sky" (which is Max). It doesn't make any difference to your query or its resolution but which are you? Please update your profile if you are actually on Max.

HTH

[Helen_kimber]

Hello,

Many thanks for your message, last night I tried connecting the lap top via the ethernet cable and the result was that the connection speed shown by hovering over the small icon in the bottom tray was 100 mb/s, but when I did the speed test on the internet of the broadband it still says only 200bit/s. Is this right? or should I keep trying to fix it? it's still really really slow at loading pages... but doesn't seem to cut out completly now which is a great help - many thanks for that, guess i'll just have to stay wired

Helen

[fihart]

If you still have terrible speeds when wired it sounds like a phone problem -- read the tutorials on how to get your router stats and post them here. One of the bright sparks will tell you what's wrong.

Meanwhile download TCPOptimizer (free from shareware sites).

[Saturday]

guess i'll just have to stay wired

What the icon you refer to is reporting is the speed of your LAN not the internet speed.

If you are getting 200kbps both wired and wireless then it could just be that you have a low connection speed because of either your line length (distance from exchange), a poor quality line, or, as mentioned, you need to change some settings on your laptop.

To get the ball rolling please post your stats.

[Helen_kimber]

Hello,

Right, so here is the update - many thanks for all your help BTW. Got home today to a phone message from Sky - saying they had done something to the line and it should be much better now. I've tested the router stats and the connection speed downstream has gone from 200 Kb/s to 7612 kb/s!
I've tested my stats whilst connected via the ethernet cable and these are shown attached.

The wireless still drops when connected remotely which isn't great but at least I can get some decent connection for the new job via a long long cable! - assuming you smart guys say that the stats are normal.

Thanks for you help again - really appreciate it

Helen

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

looking at those stats (to get the full ones see link in my sig) you should be getting more than 7MB....nearer 12 at least i'd say. Are you in your master socket, and have all other sockets filtered properly (as in filter in socket before anything else)?

[Helen_kimber]

Hello, yes i'm in the master socket and the only thing connected in there is the microfilter, one end into the socket, the other end has my phone line and the grey connection cable to the router.

Here are the rest of the details on my stats:
1) Im on the maximum package with Sky, 16 meg
2) i'm experiencing a drop in connection when connecting with wireless, and when connected via the ether net cable it reports 100 mbps but i'd say every 5 minutes is unable to show websites.
3) this problem has always been there since joining sky. I have used this same laptop on wireless previously at a different house without any problems
4)Wiring - straight into the master socket, no other PC's connected
5)Distance from Exchange is exactly 1.03 Kilometers.
is this the info you need? give me a shout if you need any more

Many Thanks

Helen