Hi, I have been using a Netgear WGR614 v6 router on my Virgin Media connection for over 2 years now and it has been great. Had a few problems with it when I built my computer (signal was dropping, connection would not work) but that turned out to be the Asus WiFi drivers (Which are now uninstalled ) I have tried streaming video from my computer through the PS3 (both wireless and in the same room) but it seems to be far too slow. Music can be streamed at an "ok" speed but faster would be better. Also, sometimes my download speeds can be pretty low. I am on a 10mb line and sometimes only get around 250-300KB? Usually a lot less than this. Would I benefit from upgrading to the 20mb package from Virgin Media? Can anyone shed some light on any possible router upgrades or any tips that they might have? Ask me if you need to know anything more about my setup! Cheers, -Lee
Have you updated the firmware to the latest version? Also, try using Vistumbler (Vista) or NetStumbler (XP) to scan your Wifi neighbours and see if your channel is clashing with another nearby strong signal (general rule of thumb if you've got two over around 40% signal strenth on the same channel, you're going to experience some degradation; there's more to it than that, but its the easiest way to look at it).
The Virgin Media is up to 10mb/20mb or whatever. Just because you upgrade the package to 20mb doesn't necessarily mean that you will get 20mb - especially if they can't even deliver up to 10mb...
do you get a consistent 250-300kb download ??? from any website some website limit your max download. try downloading something from nvidia or microsoft im on 10mb from virgin and always get 9+ mb at all times. also try www.speedtest.net - give you a general indicator of your speed acutal speed.
Are you getting those speeds via wifi or a cabled connection? Just downloaded some drivers from the ATI website for my card and I was acheiving average speeds of about 200kB/s and became slower as the download progressed. I haven't updated the routers firmware since I purchased it. It says to do so via a cable connection (ethernet) and advises not to perform an upgrade over wireless. I will upgrade it tonight via laptop if I can get it to work. Would changing the router to a 108MBps version make a difference between the computer and the router = better speeds? -Lee
bear in mind that this may not be a router problem, could be your internet is slow for some reason. id be checking this with the link i gave you. wireless is pants most of the time as it completely dependant on your environment including wall thickness, shape, what other wireless devices are broadcasting, conflict with other wireless G signals. Setting a higher speed e.g. from 54mbps to 108mbps wont increase the speed IF your signal is bad anyway. You need a better signal for higher Data rates anyway. but for interent @ 10mb or 1mb/s download speed it shouldnt be effected by that. ive got the same router and its been fine, wireless is 3/5 bars downstairs in the furthest room the the router upstairs. also what are you using to connect to wireless from your desktop ? USB dongles tend to be crap. The airbit Airpace PCI-e 54mbps wireless card is good and comes with a positional aerial not just attached to the back of the card.
Ok, just tested the internet speeds via the router and a direct connection through ethernet. The speeds are roughly the same. I was achieving speeds of around 1.86Mb/s on my 10Mb/s connection but this jumped up to around 4Mb/s (Speeds taken from speedtest.net, not data transfer rates). This speed goes up and down I also upgraded the WGR614v6 Firmware to the latest possible from the Netgear website. After this the speed was still roughly the same as before so I have ruled out the router to blame. Correct me if I am wrong but if I was to get a better and faster router (e.g. 802.11N), this would only increase my performance within my network such as streaming video from my computer to my PS3 through wireless? My desktop is connected to the router wirelessly via the Asus WiFi adapter that came with my motherboard. It's connected to motherboard and I can place it up to ~50cm away from the computer...not directly attached to the computer. Hope this gives you some more information! Cheers, -Lee
Have you tried directly connecting from your modem to your computer? it may just be your internet, not the router. If your router was bottlenecking the network, then upgrading it should increase internet speed as well as file transfer rate.
I haven't tried the computer but I tried it with the laptop. The speeds are the same so I ruled out the router as being the problem. Gona phone up Virgin Media tomorrow and ask a few questions about this problem. I am thinking of upgrading the router for a draft n for media streaming but will wait till the 802.11N standard has been properly implemented.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but you've been misinformed about your internet connection. When an ISP tells you that you get up to 10Mb/s, you need to realize what they are saying. 10Mb/s = 10 Megabits per second 10MB/s = 10 Megabytes per second 1 byte (B) = 8 bits (b) 1 kilobyte (kB) = 1024 bytes 1 megabyte (MB) = 1024 kB 10Mb/s = 1.25MB/s = 1280kB/s What ISPs don't tell you is that around 10% of the bandwidth they advertise is used by them for routing/encryption/tunneling for your connections. 1280 - 10% = 1163.64kB/s Now consider that 802.11 (WiFi) takes another 20-40% off of that due to convergence, attenuation, bandwidth overhead, keep alives, and interference. 1163.4kB/s - 30% (as an average) = 895.11kB/s This sounds all fine and dandy, but now we need to think about how much of a packet really is the information you send/receive. In windows, the default size of a packet is 1472 bytes. Of that, ~128 bytes is used to tell this packet where to go and where it came from. 128/1472 = ~8.7% So knock 8.7% off your maximum speed: 895.11 - 8.7% = 823.47kB/s Now if you figure in another 10-20% of that getting chopped off the top due to the inhierent nature of the Ethernet protocol having to constantly resend data or a packet getting lost in the internet you get: 823.47kB/s - 15% (as an average) = 716.06kB/s Then slash another 5%/PC on your home network due to collisions. So 2 PCs hard wired into your router = 10%: 716.06 - 10% = 650.96kB/s Then figure each PC gets exactly half of that bandwidth when both are using the internet. Or, if the other PC is only ON and still connected to the WiFi router, it still uses 20% while the router and PC constantly say "Hey, I'm still here!" Both PCs surfing: 650.96/2 = 325.48kB/s One PC surfing: 542.47kB/s for one and 108.49kB/s for the other. So, the absolute BEST speed you will get out of a 10Mb/s connection is around 650.96kB/s. If there are alot of people on in your neighborhood, the website/server you are on is crowded, your PC isn't optimized for your ISP, or all of the above, you will see significant drops in speeds. I love how ISPs like to boast that they provide x-Mb/s just because they don't have to tell you how the technologies involved use a good portion of that bandwidth anyways. To answer your direct question about upgrading your router from 54Mb/s -> 108Mb/s, you need to recalculate internal network problems as mentioned above with 802.11. 108Mb/s = 13.5MB/s - 30% for WiFi overhead = 10.39 MB/s. Then divide that up amongst how many PCs are streaming video/audio. So 1 server, 1 client = 5.19MB/s each. Fun stuff eh? I know that was alot of techno-babble, but I had to get it off my chest. -Rapture
Thank you for that reply Rapture2k4! Extreme details there! Will be sure to take it all into consideration! How do you know all that stuff btw? lol -Lee
I see makes sense. I have studied multimedia computing which involved some (minimal) networking elements...basics at a stretch. I would be interested to learn more about networking...maybe your the person to help me out? lol -Lee
Just connected the computer to the router via ethernet cable and im glad to say that its working far better! Downloaded drivers for my ATI card there from the ATI website and I was getting speeds of 1.1/1.2MB/s which is what I should be getting. It was just the wireless thats pants
