Slow Internet Speed - Help!

sassybird

Hi Guys (and Gals!)

I have a linksys wireless network with a base station, laptop and couple of x-boxes running through it. I have run this for at least a couple of years with no problems.

For the past 5 days my two teenagers have been complaining that the x-box on-line games are 'lagging out' all the time. The base station pc shows the linksys connection as:

Wireless Network Connection (linksys)
Speed: 1.0 Mbps (this varies between 54.0 Mbps and 1.0 Mbps and
keeps dropping up and down constantly).
Signal Strength: Excellent (this can vary too from Excellent to Very Low)
Status: Connected

I cannot see a connection between the signal strength and the Mbps rate. Sometimes when it says the signal strength is excellent, it is still showing 1.0 Mbps.

I am using a broadband connection through NTL and have never had these problems before.

Should I ring NTL - is it something they should deal with?

Or is there something I should be doing at my end?

Many thanks for advice - this pc malarky is way beyond me!!

BillScarab

If there are speed problems between the xbox and the wireless router it has noting to do with Virgin (NTL). You need to test the actual broadband connection and see if there are issues with that. Do a search for Dan Elwell Speedtest, that's the one that always used to be recommended for Blueyonder so I presume it will be OK for a former NTL customer.

The other thing is to try and determine why your wireless speed keeps dropping to 1 mbps. I know things like cordless phones can affect wifi although I don't know if that is the symptom you would see. So it may be worth lookign at what other devices might be interfering with it.

frivolous_fay

I started digging around yesterday when I noticed that our work email and net was crawling.

I did the same speed test I ran at the end of September. In September, we'd just been upgraded and I was up to 3,000kbps. Yesterday and today I've been getting 200-300. When I download a file, Windows tells me I'm getting roughly 20-30kbps.

Reset the router before I found this...

http://gps.virgin.net/service-announcements/status?category=portal&app=status

it suggests there's been a problem with the broadband for a week now.
I tried ringing their crazy-pence-per-minute tech support number - it rang and rang and no-one answered.

BillScarab

Funnily enough I'm with Virgin (formerly Telewest though) and the Internet has been slow in the evenings. Although it has been fine during the day. I though it was over enthusiastic bandwidth throttling but it does look like they have issues.

It still doesn't explain why your wireless network is dropping to 1 mbps though.