Troubleshooting home network speed

Delzhand

I'm at a loss trying to nail down the issue here. My personal machine, a laptop that's usually stationary, started getting under 1Mbps today. I've got a few machines available here, so I ruled out some things.

I connected my work laptop to the modem by cable to rule out the connection, and pulled down 15ish Mbps, which is what Time Warner advertises, so good.
I connected my work laptop to the router by cable and got similar results (though I had to restart everything for it to even connect).
I connected my work laptop by wireless, and still pulled down good speed. Even on the opposite side of the apartment.
Thinking the issue was my computer, I took it to the office, connected by wireless, and pulled down 20Mbps.

So when I got back home, I moved the router into the living room, which is adjacent to where my laptop sits. That didn't seem to improve things much, so I moved the laptop to a spot less than 3 feet from the router. Here it seemed to pull down 4Mbps. But at that range I might as well as connect by wire, by which I'm pulling down 17Mbps.

So the only thing I can think of is that my laptop's wireless is the culprit, and my work speeds are just due to an amazing setup. Unless there's anything I might be missing.

I'm thinking the cheapest fix is just buy 20' of cat6 and connect my machine to the router.

Rderdall

Sounds like you've done all of the necessary troubleshooting steps, and I don't think you've missed anything. If a cable running across your floor isn't desireable, you can always buy a USB WiFi stick for your Laptop to use instead of its internal card. I've used these at home to take advantage of a Wireless N signal, even though my laptop only supports b/g.

Hope that helps,

Quantux

Sort of the same happened to me, though different devices. My TV has built in wifi which worked fine, pulled the same speeds as everything else. Then I got a new dual-band router. With both 2.4 and 5Ghz bands going, the TV took a nose dive to <1Mbps. Everything else worked great. If I turned off the 5Ghz band or switched to a 2.4 only router, suddenly it's fine. I'm thinking it's just a cheap wifi card in the TV that can't handle the mere presence of a 5Ghz signal (even though it's connecting to 2.4). It's possible that a wifi card going out may do the same thing. If you haven't got a 5Ghz router, perhaps one of your neighbors does.

Unknown

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