Upgrading wireless protocol

Yes. You can run two wireless cards in your unspecified model laptop without difficulty. Just disable the existing 802.11b internal card in your unspecified operating system. It doesn't "override" or automatically disable the 802.11b card. You can actually run them both simultaneously, but on different channels.

If your unspecified HP laptop is fairly recent, it probably uses a mini-PCI card as the existing internal 802.11b device. It may be possible to find a replacement mini-PCI card with an Atheros chipset that supports Super-G, instead of adding a 2nd card. Size and driver issues will need to be checked, but I think it's possible.

are probably others).

However, permit me to offer an alternative. You'll see a rather large increase in thruput going from 802.11b to 802.11g. However, you will not see anything as spectacular going from 802.11g to Super-G. The

108mbit speeds are effective only at fairly close range (less than 6ft) and only under ideal circumstances (no 802.11b radios in sight, no interference, minimum reflections, etc). Therefore, methinks that simply replacing the (assumed) mini-PCI 802.11b card with an "ordinary" 802.11g mini-PCI card, would be adequate for whatever you have planned.

HP probably has a recommended 802.11g card as an upgrade. Without a model number, I can't offer a recommendation. Selecting a random card might be a problem as detailed on this page for wireless mini-PCI card compatibility for IBM Thinkpads:

Absolutely yes you can, at least with the USB stuff. I have a fuji laptop with built in wireless, and sometimes use the external USB WiFi device (Linksys WUSB54GP). By doing the USB I have Regular Ethernet, built in wifi, and the External USB all installed/active/bridged. With some manufacturers models, if you install a cardbus card, it may/may not superscede the built in stuff, so rather than say maybe, though I'd give you an alternative that I can say yes to, and tell you how.

Notebook wireless cards are implemented as MiniPCI cards. MiniPCI cards have the same or similar electrical specifications as PCI cards, but the formfactor, power requirements, and connectors differ. They have contacts along one edge and snap into a connector similar to a laptop DIMM connector. In most cases, these cards are fairly upgradeable. Since your laptop already has "b", it must have the built-in antenna for 2.4Ghz operation. So there's a good chance that a "b/g" MiniPCI card would pop right in, replacing your "b" card, and all you'd have to do is VERY VERY CAREFULLY disconnect the delicate antenna connector from the old card and connect it to the new one.

Note that this will most likely violate your notebook's warranty, so it's not recommended until the warranty expires. Or, have it professionally done.

Look around eBay for MiniPCI wireless cards, they're usually not too hard to find. If your warranty has expired, you can probably find the card for < US$50 and would only take 15min to install.

good luck, Jonathan

"Jeff & Kate Wooddell" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

I don't see why you couldn't go to the Device Manager on the O/S and disable the wireless B device and go from there.

Duane :)

Using your own averages from another thread, standard 802.11g runs 20 Mbps. But Super-G runs easily 45 and in good conditions will top 60 Mbps. And by good conditions, I mean no other wireless nets nearby and no channel interference. I'm not sure where the under six feet comes from. It's the exact *opposite with the D-Link 624, which actually starts losing throughput too close to the router and runs nicely (maybe 30 Mbps) from 100 feet with no interference on the same floor of my house.

So, if you get 5 Mbps on an older 802.11b routers, 5 to 60 is much more impressive than 5 to 20.

Assorted benchmarking software:

IPerf

Chariot

Netstat Live NetBench Unix time (cat big_file | rcmd remote_machine "dd of=/dev/null")

List of various benchmarking software from PC Magazine

Or, you can just copy a known large file and time how long it takes to copy.

Thats what I would expect, since most transmitters have a dead spot about 2 to 3 feet around it.

Robert...

interference. I'm not sure where the under six feet comes from. It's the

Interesting. How did you measure your 30 Mbps?

Brian

Thanks, but I was interested to know how JB did it. My transfer rate timing large file copying, using FTP, DU meter etc is only 15 Mbps with Wireless G Speedbooster. This is with two computers in the same room, a few metres from the router. I can't get it any higher.

Brian

Some hints:

- How many meters? Speeds change drastically below about 1 meter and after about 3 meters.

- What kind of hardware are you using?

- Are both computers wireless or just one? 15Mbit/sec is about what you'll get if you go from wireless to wireless computah through an access point. You should only be testing one wireless link at a time.

- What make and muddle of computah(s)?

- Which OS? Which OS mutation?

- Do you have another wireless computers available to act as a tie breaker?

- Are you getting a connection speed of at least 54Mbit/sec?

- Have you tried "optimizing" or "tweaking" the TCP/IP stack? Check your work at:

and follow their recommendations.

- Any sources of interference in the area running 802.11b?

- What speed do you get if you disable the Speedbeast feature?

- Have you tried the same benchmarks with a wired connection?

- Any MAC address filters or ACL (access control list) type of filters in the wireless router or access point? If so, they can slow things down a bit.

- If WRT54GS, are you using the stock firmware or an alternative?

- WEP64, WEP128, WPA-PSK, or no encrytion?

I forgot about DuMeter. Add to list:

Benchmarks for WRT54GS from Tom's Hardware: speed at close range was 33Mbits/sec. Top speed (for one minute file transfers) was 38Mbits/sec. (first graph)

For comparison, the non-SpeedBoost WRT54G yielded 21Mbit/sec average and 25Mbits/sec peak in the same test. (2nd graph)

The 3rd graph shows the effects of encryption type: "If you open up the full-sized view and eyeball the steady portions of each plot, I think you'll see that WPA-PSK with AES encryption imposes virtually no throughput penalty. Using WEP will cost you about 10% (33 vs 36 Mbps) and enabling WPA-PSK with TKIP extracts the worst penalty at about 17% (30 vs. 36 Mbps)."

Try:

I assume you mean Super-G. There's Super-G and there's Afterburner, but not Speedbooster. What model of router? What PC Card?

As for what I use, it's QCheck most of the time. See:

But the quick answer is - you have to enable Super-G mode in the router and the compatible Super-G card, and if you don't, you will get 15.

- JB

>

.

The computers were in the same room when I first set up the system. One computer was 2 metres from the router, the other 3 metres. I can carry my laptop about 35 metres from the router before losing the connection and there are several plaster walls in between.

Linksys WRT54GS router, WMP54GS cards. Three computers have these wireless cards, now each is in a different room. There are two brick walls between the router and two of these computers and the transfer rate for large files is around 8 Mbps. .

You are correct, I have been testing wireless to wireless through a router. So 15 Mbps is all I can expect? There is no facility to turn off Speedbooster, it's always on. After the first month my router was replaced (by Linksys) but there was no speed change

Dell 8400, Dell 450, Gateway 1300(?)

WinXP SP2

Three desktops. Also have a Dell laptop with wireless G. When it is turned on, the transfer rate between the other computers actually increases by 5 to

10% and the DU Meter graph looks more stable. The link speed naturally drops from 125 to 54 Mbps.

Link speed 125 Mbps.

No.

Server busy.

No

Can't be disabled except perhaps by turning on laptop.

Wired gives 65 Mbps.

No

Stock. Latest firmware.

WPA-PSK. Doesn't slow it down.

Thanks for your interest Jeff. So you feel 15 Mbps, the way I have been measuring it, is OK? For example if a 1000 MB file takes 500 seconds to be copied to another computer, this is 2 MB/sec (16 Mbps).

Brian

I think so but I'm not 100.0% sure. Easy way to be sure is to connect

*ONE* of the test computahs into the wired ethernet LAN port on the WRT54GS and repeat the test with only one wireless link. I can easily try it in my office, but not now. Gotta run... more later.

I disabled the wireless card on one of the downstairs computers and ran a cable from that computer to the router. My current wireless computer is 7 metres from the router with a clear line of sight.

I copied a single file, 1042 MB. Took 407 seconds which works out to be 2.56 MB/sec or 20.5 Mbps. The DU Meter showed an average rate of 22.1 Mbps. I repeated the file copy with the laptop turned on in the background and the figures were 430 seconds, 2.42 MB/sec, 19.4 Mbps and 21.0 Mbps on the DU Meter. Link speed was 125 Mbps before the laptop was turned on and 54 Mbps with it on.

What do you think about this? Still seems slow to me but maybe I have high expectations.

Brian

After looking at Tom's graphs again I see I need to repeat my test with the wireless computer 2 metres from the router.

Brian

Done at 2 metres. Same file, 323 seconds, calculates to 3.22 MB/sec, 25.8 Mbps. DU Meter average 27.9, peak 33.8 Mbps. (The DU Meter sat on 30-31 Mbps most of the time but occasional gaps dropped the average) The transfer rate on eyeballing DU Meter was the same whether the router was 1 up to 4 metres from the card antenna.

I'ts looking better.

Brian