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08 Aug 06 - 02:13 AM (#1804146) Subject: Tech: Wireless From: Dave the Gnome While I have been ill for a couple of days I decided to tidy up our wireless netwrok. The WAN connection is 3Mb to a cable provider. The router is a Belkin 54g. The cards are a mixture of Belkin 54 for the 'workhorse', a couple of old USR 11Mb ones for an old machine that is not used much and an old laptop and an Intel 54g in a new laptop. The machine nearest the router is hard wired at either 100 mb or a gigabit can't remember but it doesn't realy matter:-) I tried WEP security once but it seemed to slow everything down - Mind you that was on an old 22Mb router I had. Not tried it yet on this one but I have enabled MAC address filtering so no-one can 'piggy back' our network. OK - First things first. I found that I was getting a poor connection around 1/2 the time. Found out that was because I was connecting to someone elses router! Fixed that. Changed the SSID and IP address range. I have also had a play with the channel ID until I have now got a reasonable connection most of the time. Signal strength seems to be good but the speed goes up and down like a fiddlers elbow from the 2 54g cards - Most of the time it is 36 - 54 but occasionaly drops to 1! The 11Mb ones seems to be consistent. Any advice or comments would be much appreciated. Cheers Dave |
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08 Aug 06 - 02:21 AM (#1804151) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: Dave the Gnome Oh - one thing I nearly forgot. I have been trasfering aroung 30GB of data from the 11mb desktop to the 54Mb one prior to upgrading to XP. It has taken an AGE. When I tried to transfer the whole of 'My Documents', some 25GB, it said it was going to take something like a day. It didn't - It kept crashing out when the network share dissappeared. I have managed it by transfering a bit at a time but If I try to do more than 1GB I do get problems. When I transfer lGB or less it not only speeds up throughput but the network share stays put! Cheers DtG |
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08 Aug 06 - 10:14 AM (#1804368) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: Clinton Hammond "I have been trasfering aroung 30GB of data" Firewire.... |
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08 Aug 06 - 10:37 AM (#1804382) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: jeffp Clinton, please elaborate. |
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08 Aug 06 - 10:52 AM (#1804389) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: Clinton Hammond Get a Firewire connection... it's the best, fastest way I know to transfer that much data...... |
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08 Aug 06 - 11:00 AM (#1804395) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: 8_Pints Dave, For what its worth I found wireless so frustrating with the link going up and down like the proverbial "bride's nightie" that I eventually bought some ethernet cable and plugged it between the router and the desktops. This alleviated the connectivity problems immediately. I still use the wireless connection with my laptop occasionally, but it it is still temperamental! Good luck Bob vG |
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08 Aug 06 - 11:18 AM (#1804421) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: Dave the Gnome Yea - I thought at first a firewire backup device could well be the answer - Trouble is not all my PCs have firewire:-( So I would have to buy at least 1 firewire PCI card. I have just seen a 250Gb external USB2 HDD for £60. Could be worth a visit... My other alternative is just shunt the devices around and use my X-over ethernet cable. But it seems so low tech;-) Any suggestions on making the wireless run better would still be greatly appreciated. Cheers DtG |
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08 Aug 06 - 11:22 AM (#1804423) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: Clinton Hammond Maxtor... External Hard Drive.... 300 gigs.... Costco.ca has them for 250 bucks.... After using the Firewire connection on mine, I'll NEVER go back to usb file transfers... nor will I ever own a PC that doesn't have a firewire connection |
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08 Aug 06 - 11:34 AM (#1804432) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: Amos They make those? Sigh. When you're used to Macs, the stages of obsolescence available out there boggle the mind. A |
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08 Aug 06 - 11:46 AM (#1804441) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: Clinton Hammond Who make what? |
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08 Aug 06 - 11:54 AM (#1804453) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: GUEST,Jon I can have the wireless connection ranging from good to dropping here too. Ny guess is some other device is interfering but I don't know what it is. As the PCs are wired and it's only my laptop and only then if I use it in the living room (the only other rooms I use it are Pip's study - no problem a couple of feet from the access point - and my room where I go wired anyway) that is affected, I haven't spent much time trying to work it out. |
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08 Aug 06 - 05:48 PM (#1804728) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: The Fooles Troupe As a practical suggestion, hard wired connections, once sorted out, are reliable - wireless MAY be flaky (for an enormous number of reasons). If it is flaky, logic suggests using a reliable alternative. |
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08 Aug 06 - 05:59 PM (#1804735) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: Dave the Gnome Funny thing is for all general purposes it is now fine - The flakyness only manifests itself in transfering lots of data. Makes perfect sense when I think of it. I think the only way round is to use either an induction loop - Which I don't think I will install at home! Or almost line of sight remote access stations dotted around the place. Useful excercise for me - I was recently asked by a job agancy if I would recommend a wireless network. I put them onto someone else. Glad i dropped it now:-) Thanks anyway one and all. Cheers DtG |
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08 Aug 06 - 06:32 PM (#1804760) Subject: RE: Tech: Wireless From: The Fooles Troupe A remote (from the main) wireless access point hard wired to the LAN would be the recommendation - but only you can do the cost/benefit analyses. |