slow wireless network speeds

Eye

just recently setup things here on wireless, got a Dlink dl-624 AirPlus extreme G router and 2x Dlink AirPlus dwl-G650 wireless cardbus's for 2 laptops.

my main pc is connected via ethernet cable to the router and the 2x wireless pcmcia cards in the laptops. Within the house here i'm getting very good signal strengh, usually 4-5 bars.

Although it's all setup for 108Mbps when copying files i noticed it's terribly slow, only ever getting 2 - 2.2Mbps at best and when i check windows it's saying network utilization is only around the 20% mark.

There must be something that i'm overlooking here, any suggestions on getting this network upto speed?

Forgot to add, main pc running XP Pro and both laptops are running XP Home. All machines running norton personal firewall 2004.

Eye

*bump* anyone???

I keep searching through all the router and network settings i can find but nothing seems to be set incorrectly or jump out at me as being setup wrong

never had this problem before i turned to wireless, was getting a solid 8-9Mbps on the lan back then.

happydude13

What happens if you sit the pc right beside the router ?

Can you detect any other networks ?

Do you use encryption ?

ballooba

I have same router but different PCMCIA card.

Same prob. Does encryption make it slower?

Eye

well i don't know what you mean by sitting the pc right by the router.

as i said in the main post, the pc is connected to the router via network cable and the laptops are wireless.

moving the laptops closer to the router makes no diffence to the speed as where it normally is in my bedroom it has a very good 4 out of 5 bars for signal strength.

And the laptops only pick up 1 network and that's the one i've setup, doubt very much there is anyone near me with a wireless network setup

I did however set it up to use 128bit encryption, to try and make it as secure as possible, i would'nt have thought that adding this would have slowed the network speeds down to about 20-25% of what they should be?

Dingatron

Download netstumbler and you'll be able to check the signal strength. Take encryption off and test again to rule that out.

Eye

thanks for the link, will give that a shot and see what happens in a bit

if it does turn out to be the encryption slowing it down, what else can be done to keep the network secure but fast?