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Problem - Erratic Pings on wireless connection.

  • 27-08-2005 12:14pm
    #1
    9lives
    Closed Accounts Posts: 68 ✭✭


    Hi
    I'm on netsource broadband. I have a PC hooked up through a network card and a laptop with a wireless card - my wireless router is a Linksys WAG54G.

    The desktop PC performs very well but the laptop is erratic. I have included a record of pings to www.boards.ie and as you will see it jumps from being a good performance to hideously slow to timing out altogether.

    Is there any software tool I can use to try and discover where the problem lies? I don't know whether it's the wireless or the laptop config or something else that's the problem. I'm on Win XP SP2.

    I know the attached is long and tiresome looking but I just wanted to give a valid picture of the performance

    Thanks in advance,
    Graham
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Comments

  • #2
    9lives
    Closed Accounts Posts: 68 ✭✭9lives


    No biters yet?
    An update to this - it's definitely the wireless. I put a DSL cable in to the laptop and the pings are perfect. Is it perhaps the location of my wireless router? It's in the attic, and I'm in the living room. I thought wireless had a decent range so I'd be surprised if that's the problems but I suppose it could be.

    Thanks
    Graham


  • #3
    TimTim
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 804 ✭✭✭TimTim


    wireless isn't designed to be a low latency method of connecting to networks, its designed to be wire free and since anything can interfere with your signal you'll never get a perfect ping time. And it also has overheads for crypto (if its on etc)

    tracert to boards.ie and paste the results here so we can see if the problem is inside your network or an external problem.


  • #4
    Moriarty
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,007 ✭✭✭Moriarty


    Moved to nets/comms.


  • #5
    9lives
    Closed Accounts Posts: 68 ✭✭9lives


    Hi
    Thanks for the replies

    Tracing route to www.boards.ie [82.195.136.36]
    over a maximum of 30 hops:

    1 * 197 ms 1202 ms rt004dub.netsource.ie [213.79.63.254]
    2 870 ms 482 ms 267 ms rt001kil.netsource.ie [212.17.32.101]
    3 1002 ms 113 ms 202 ms panama.hosting365.ie [82.195.128.2]
    4 1016 ms 310 ms 134 ms corerouter1.hosting365.ie [82.195.128.7]
    5 81 ms 1246 ms 404 ms boards.ie [82.195.136.36]

    Trace complete.

    What does that mean exactly?

    Thanks
    Graham


  • #6
    Cake Fiend
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,335 ✭✭✭Cake Fiend


    It could be a million things, including radio interference from mobile phone masts, electric power lines, solar flares, alien mind probes...

    Try switching WiFi standard (.11a, .11b, .11g etc) and see if it makes a difference - changing the radio frequency and security, compression, etc can change how easily the signal can be affected.

    To be sure the problem is on the wireless end, run a ping from both machines to the same address (preferably something you know is a short routing distance away, like your DNS server). If the laptop pings jump but the desktop pings don't, then the problem is definitely at the wireless end of things. If they both spike at the same time, the problem is likely between the router and the internet.


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  • #7
    Snaga
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,562 ✭✭✭Snaga


    Also remember that with a standard omni antenna the radio signal is kind of like this...

    ((((((((I)))))))

    In that very little signal goes straight down (or straight up). I mention this as you say yours is mounted in the attic.

    Think about angling the antenna in a more suitable way - pointed 90 degrees away from where you think needs it most.
    Begin: Ascii art bonanza

Attic           :        []/      <-- antenna angled 90 degrees away from laptop


Sitting room :                        []     <- laptop

    Try and make sure there are no microwaves close to the laptop - these can really screw up your day.

    Digisenders can cause serious problems too if you have one of them around the place.


  • #8
    MadKevo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 191 ✭✭MadKevo


    Another thing to consider is that a neighbour's wi-fi network may be overlapping with yours and causing the problems you're seeing. A way to check is to use a tool like www.NetStumbler.com (if it's compatible with your wireless card) to do a site survey in your house. In simple terms there are only 3 good non-overlapping channels with wi-fi: 1,6 and 11. If you see networks on any of thse try to use the one furthest away from the ones you see (or when this isn't an option chose the same or adjacent channel as the weakest signal you see).
    Set the channel to be used on the wireless access point. Apparently turning on WEP or WPA also helps reduce co-channel interference, again in simple terms (i.e. I may well be wrong!).
    Hope this helps!
    /MK


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