Just returning from a trip to San Antonio where I noticed that staying at my neighbor's house about six feet from his router, the signal in my rv was the best ever. However, in the house with my laptop the signal made it very difficult to watch YouTube, Yahoo News video, etc.
I have the same problem at home and am wondering is it my router, or is it the signal I am receiving from my provider?
As you know from past questions, I am not tech savvy so please understand. My signal, as it is showing at the bottom of my laptop right now says, "excellent" at 54,0 mpbs. Yet watching a YouTube video I need to keep bumping it to move and eventually it just stops.
So is it my laptop, signal or my router? The router is less than 18 ft from where I am right now.
qtla9111 wrote: My signal, as it is showing at the bottom of my laptop right now says, "excellent" at 54,0 mpbs.
That number means nothing.. but it's not your signal strength anyway. It's simply the maximum best connection speed you could ever achieve to your router. 54M would put to shame ANY internet connection if you could actually achieve that on the internet as measured by any number of online sites.
For your connection strength, look at the number of little green bars either in the tray icon or connection properties. Wifi is pretty directional.. you may need an external antenna or move around a bit. And by external antenna I mean a little dongle on a USB cord, made by Linksys.
If you conclude your actual wifi signal to the router is ok, then it may be your ISP that's slowing you down. Take the wifi out of the problem and plug directly to the router.
2oldman wrote: If you conclude your actual wifi signal to the router is ok, then it may be your ISP that's slowing you down. Take the wifi out of the problem and plug directly to the router.
You're good! I connected directly to the router and the videos download super fast.
So not to sound tonto, but does that mean my wifi, brand Belkin, is not very good and I should change it out?
Here is another possibility - Is your laptop relatively new? If so, it may have a newer wifi card, like 802.11n. A little older laptop/router is probably 802.11g (which has a max throughput speed of 54 mbit.) The 802.11n is a newer wireless standard and have a speed of 150 mbit. Much-much faster. I just swapped out my older 802.11g router and replaced it with a 802.11n router and WOW. I can watch streaming video like I was connected directly. If your laptop is 802.11n ready, it can detect either the 802.11n or g signal and configure automatically.
Make sure that the wifi channel that you are using is not also being used by another router within range. e.g. Where I am currently sitting I can see 4 wifi broadcasts all using channel 6! Thus if I were smart I'd pick some other channel to avoid having my signal stepped on.
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