New Wireless Adapter but Very Slow WiFi

[SpotCheckBilly]

Hey all,

I recently had to switch from a hardwired Internet connection to wireless and ever since I've had a problem with connection speeds. The building that I live in provides WiFi and the IT guy that installed my wireless card and set me up with the network was getting a consistent 10 to 12 Mb/sec connection speed. I am unable to get even a consistent 4 Mb/sec. This is the wireless adapter that I have:  Rosewill RNX-N250PCe, which can be viewed Here. My computer is a Dell XPS studio 435 desktop with an Intel (R) 82567LF-2 Gigabit Network Connection onboard NIC. I have 4 GB of RAM (yeah, I know. I could use more LOL).

My connection speeds which start out at around 3.75 MB/sec, gradually, over time to less than 1 MB/sec. Then I have to go through my connection manager, run the Windows diagnostic, then end up resetting the wireless adapter, at which point the whole thing starts all over again.   

I have tried shutting off Windows firewall and disabling my AV/AAS software (NOD32) both singly and together and it makes no difference. Incidentally, my computer is approximately 25 feet from the nearest repeater, through only one wall.

I'm basically a complete rookie at wireless networking and would truly appreciate any help I can get in resolving this problem. Thanks very much in advance. -- SCB   

[Hoov]

I would say the first thing to do is to check your signal strength. Download inSSIDer and run it. When you run it, click on the time graph tab on the bottom half. Let me know what number you get under the RSSI tag on the top half, and how flat the line in the time graph is. The closer to dead flat the better as well as a lower RSSI number.

[SpotCheckBilly]

Hey Hoov,

Thanks for the quick response. I downloaded and installed inSSIDer but when I ran it, something unexpected came up. The network where I live consists of five separate SSID's. The one to which I can connect shows up as five different instances on the upper pane. One of them is in bold and they all are listed as either channel 1, 6 or 11. Which one would you like the number four? Then I can unselect all the rest to better isolate the time graph.

Thanks again for all your help. -- SCB   

[Hoov]

Just do a screenshot of the entire page.

[SpotCheckBilly]

Hey Hoov,

OK, here's the screenshot. According to Windows, the infrastructure connection speed when this was taken was 58.0 Mb/sec. When my machine first boots up, this number is 144.5 Mb/sec.
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Hope you're having a great weekend. -- SCB

[Hoov]

Well it looks as if you should have a stable connection. If your connection starts out good and slowly goes bad sounds to me like someone that is connecting to the same access point is hogging the connection. Does it get better at night when most everyone has gone to bed? I suspect that there are to many systems trying to go thru one access point. Do you have a wireless phone or other wireless device that works on the 2.4 or 5 GHZ channels? If you click the tabs on the bottom, you might be able to see if there is an unidentified device.

If you have an entire building with similar issues, and you have a laptop to troubleshoot with, I would recommend getting Wi-Spy and splitting the cost among the others.  But other than that, you will either have to get lucky in finding the offending device, or if you can pin it down to a neighbor hogging bandwidth in getting whoever is running the access points in throttling that persons pipe.

[SpotCheckBilly]

Hey Hoov,

... Does it get better at night when most everyone has gone to bed?...

Nope, that's the thing. There are probably only five people in the building (residents) that even have a computer, much less connected to the Internet. It doesn't matter what time of day it is. It acts more like what you experience with a memory leak. Or as if, for some reason, Windows itself is choking it down. When I reset the wireless adapter the connection speed goes back to 144.5 Mb/sec.

The other thing is that even when the Intranet connection speed is at its fastest, the Internet connection is slow. Less than 4 Mb/second. The IT guy that installed my wireless adapter was getting between 10 and 12 Mb/second on his laptop which was right next to my desktop tower.

. ... Do you have a wireless phone or other wireless device that works on the 2.4 or 5 GHZ channels?...

My cordless phone works on 5.8 GHz, but it's not connected at the moment. Otherwise I have no other wireless devices.

This WiFi network is brand-new and I expected that there would be a few bugs that needed to be worked out with it, but I have the same problem with the old network. That's what leads me to believe that the problem is either a hardware or a Wendy's issue. That, and the fact that nobody else that I know in the building has the same drop-off problem with their Intranet connection.

The others may be experiencing the same slow Internet connection, but since none of them use their connection for streaming video (Netflix), they may not know it.

No matter how I look at it, I should be able to get the same Internet connection speed out of my desktop at the IT guy got on his laptop sitting right next to my tower. Wouldn't you agree?

Thanks again for all of your help. -- SCB

[Hoov]

The only other thing I can think of is the wireless adapter that you have installed. I have never encountered one before. I have used these in the networks I have setup locally. If you have $10 bucks to spend, it might be worth it. So far I have setup a dozen or so networks locally, and that gizmo has given me zero trouble. I can't think of anything in your desktop that would cause a problem. If it were a power option, it would kill the connection all at once. The run with inSSIDer shows the signal strength is steady, so that is not the problem.

There is one more thing. In trying to find out if there was a problem with your device, I did find out that Rosewill seems to be on top of trying to resolve problems. I found a phone number and e-mail address for their tech support. I am sticking them in a PM to you.