802.11g speeds vs Lan

I don't have the slightest idea what is causing the speed problem. However, I do have some additional tests which might help assign the blame. The basic idea is to identify the component of your wireless system by substitution. Some questions:

1. Can I assume that you're using the same laptop to test the speeds with both wired or wireless? If they are two different machines (one wired and one wireless), could you retest using just the wireless laptop?
2. What happens when you try this wireless laptop with a different wireless router? Can you drag it to friends or free wireless hotspot and see if you have the same speed issues? It might be best to do the speed testing using a local machine directly connected to the wireless router so that it will be very obvious where the bottleneck is happening. Test it both ways, wireless and wired. With 802.11g, you should get file transfer speeds of about half of the connect speed.

If the laptop does the same thing at a friends or at a hot spot, then I suspect there is something broken in the wireless card on the laptop. Could I trouble you to identify the laptop and it's wireless card?

1. Duz the wireless laptop have a manufacturer supplied utility or config page that shows connection speed, error rate, retrans, and statistics? If so, are you getting a good solid high speed connection or are you getting substantial errors? Never mind the "5 bars" indication. Check the errors.
2. Do you have a different wireless access point available? If so, try to substitute for your existing WRTGP2 and see if that's where the problem is hiding.
3. Again by substitution, can you borrow a known working laptop from someone and repeat the test? If this laptop does the same thing, it's either the wireless router or a serious interference problem. If not, the problem is on the laptop.

That is poor. I get pretty close to the same download speeds (~400KB/s) using either wired or wireless connections, and I'm only using 802.11b thru a Linksys WRT54G to my 4 Mb/s broadband connection.

I suggest checking your net params on the wireless PCs, using DrTCP (available from

You may have a RWIN that is too small (used to be a common problem), or a MTU mismatch; compare the values that DrTCP shows on your wireless connection with those it shows for your wired connection.

Thanks Jeff & Bob ~ Didn't think I'd get responses :o)

Laptop: Dell D610 Wireless Card: Built-in Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG Mini PCI Got a pretty vanilla D610

Thanks for asking .. I am testing this using wired & wireless off the same laptop ..

I've tried wireless devices .. Motorola pc cards, other dell built-in's & I've got the same (pathetic, it seems) 1.5mbs connection over the wireless.

I'll try the tests off the site Bob .. Happy to know my exper. is an anamoly, not a feature. thanks again ..

Intel has some updates to their Proset utilites and drivers. One of the old bugs with the 2200BG is that it will reduce speed from

54Mbits/sec down to 1Mbit/sec and stay there until rebooted. I don't know if this was ever really fixed as it only happens on some configurations and Intel claims it's not reproduceable. This might be what's happening. Check your connection speed. above thread is on Version 8 Proset and may not apply to your current driver which is probably Ver 9.

Ok, then it's not the laptop and probably something related to the wireless. I can't tell where in the wireless system except by substitution. It still might be buffer and RWIN settings. Using DrTCP is a good suggestion.

I'm trying to decode what you're saying here. Do you mean that you've tried other laptops with the WRT54GP2 and are having exactly the same problem? If so, then it's probably something broken in the WRT54GP2. If it means you've tried other wireless cards in the D610 laptop, then it still might be the Windoze buffer and RWIN configuration or driver issues.

Any chance you have the data rate in the router fixed to perhaps

5.5Mbits/sec or set to 802.11b only? That would certainly slow things down. (The access point controls the data rate). The usual default setting is "auto".