Bandwidth drops severely at random intervals.

[VDarthusV]

My gaming rig is working beautifully, all thanks to the suggestions that I've gotten from this great forum. Words cannot express how nicely It works, and on a budget too.

Recently however the KB/s has been dropping severely. Sometimes on Steam or on downloads I can get up to 1 MB/s, which is fast for wireless, considering the comcast package we have.

However, sometimes this drops down to 20-100 KB/s, or stops altogether, which kicks me off the game I'm playing over the Internet. I have to wait 5 or 10 minutes and start all over again. It's random.

Here are things I've tried:

-Updating the wireless drivers
-Reseating the wireless card
-Putting the wireless card in another slot
-triple checking to make sure I have the right drivers
-Doing speed tests when the internet is working and when it is not
-Comparing speed tests with a laptop that is right next to the gaming rig

The results of speed testing the laptop and the gaming rig at the same time:

When the gaming rig slowed to 20KB/s, the laptop still had 200KB/s
When the gaming rig has 100 KB/s, the laptop goes about 450KB/s

The wired computer upstairs is directly attached to the router, and goes to speeds up to 1 MB/s and higher.

These tests were done when their was no other traffic done in our house.

I'm thinking it's the gaming rig's card. Your thoughts? Should I get an Ethernet wire instead and ditch wireless? If so, which brand works the best because I don't want to mess around with crappy cables and wireless anymore.

What do you think of this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812270075

Thanks,
Darthus

[johnwill]

Well, wired connections are always preferred for stability and reliability. If that's a possible option, that's the way I'd go.


Some things you can try here, listed in the order you should try them.

1. For wireless connections, remove all the stored wireless profiles and search for networks. You'll have to enter the encryption key again, which is sometimes the issue for connection problems.
2. For wireless connections, change the channel on the router, I like channels 1, 6, and 11 in the US.
3. For wireless connections, try moving either the wireless router/AP or the wireless computer. Even a couple of feet will sometimes make a big difference.
4. Update the network drivers (wired and wireless) on your computer to the latest available.
5. Update the firmware to the latest version available on the manufacturer's site.
6. Reset the router to factory defaults and reconfigure.

Many times these measures will resolve a lot of intermittent issues.