Files transfers too slow - why?

I had to free up some space on my media server a week ago and transferred
7*700MB files to my laptop. The media server is hard wired to my Netgear
DG834G router and the laptop has a Netgear WG511 wireless card running at
54Mbps. The transfer to the laptop took about 12 minutes per file or about
1MB per second.

I am now transferring the files back again and it is taking about an hour
for each
file. Task Manager (XP Pro SP2) shows the wireless link to be running at
just 2.5% of its theoretical 54 Mbps capacity. CPU% is under 10% for both
machines. Internet surfing at 512Kbps is fine on both machines.

I'm aware of tools like Dr.TCP for sorting out internet connections but I
don't know how I should be investigating painfully slow (W)LAN transfers.
What might be wrong with file transfers going back?

Thanks,
Tim.

Tiny Tim wrote:
> I had to free up some space on my media server a week ago and transferred
> 7*700MB files to my laptop. The media server is hard wired to my Netgear
> DG834G router and the laptop has a Netgear WG511 wireless card running at
> 54Mbps. The transfer to the laptop took about 12 minutes per file or about
> 1MB per second.
>
> I am now transferring the files back again and it is taking about an hour
> for each
> file. Task Manager (XP Pro SP2) shows the wireless link to be running at
> just 2.5% of its theoretical 54 Mbps capacity. CPU% is under 10% for both
> machines. Internet surfing at 512Kbps is fine on both machines.
>
> I'm aware of tools like Dr.TCP for sorting out internet connections but I
> don't know how I should be investigating painfully slow (W)LAN transfers.
> What might be wrong with file transfers going back?

Have you tried repositioning your router and / or laptop to see if this
improves things? Shifting my DG834G aerial (or my WG511 aerial) by an
inch can seriously affect the connection.

--
[ste]

[ste parker] wrote:
> Tiny Tim wrote:
>> I had to free up some space on my media server a week ago and
>> transferred 7*700MB files to my laptop. The media server is hard
>> wired to my Netgear DG834G router and the laptop has a Netgear WG511
>> wireless card running at 54Mbps. The transfer to the laptop took
>> about 12 minutes per file or about 1MB per second.
>>
>> I am now transferring the files back again and it is taking about an
>> hour for each
>> file. Task Manager (XP Pro SP2) shows the wireless link to be
>> running at just 2.5% of its theoretical 54 Mbps capacity. CPU% is
>> under 10% for both machines. Internet surfing at 512Kbps is fine on
>> both machines. I'm aware of tools like Dr.TCP for sorting out internet
>> connections
>> but I don't know how I should be investigating painfully slow (W)LAN
>> transfers. What might be wrong with file transfers going back?
>
> Have you tried repositioning your router and / or laptop to see if
> this improves things? Shifting my DG834G aerial (or my WG511 aerial)
> by an inch can seriously affect the connection.

Right now the laptop is only about 5' from the router with a direct line of
sight between them. Signal strength is "Excellent" and shows as being
54Mbps. The laptop is routinely moved within an area of about 2' * 2' as it
sits on a coffee table in the living room. Moving it within this area seems
to have no impact to throughput. There is another wireless laptop in the
room showing "Excellent" and 36Mbps but this has no network activity other
than polling for email avery 5 minutes or so. I've just rebooted the router
but that has not altered transfer speeds.

Tiny Tim wrote:
> [ste parker] wrote:
>> Tiny Tim wrote:
>>> I had to free up some space on my media server a week ago and
>>> transferred 7*700MB files to my laptop. The media server is hard
>>> wired to my Netgear DG834G router and the laptop has a Netgear WG511
>>> wireless card running at 54Mbps. The transfer to the laptop took
>>> about 12 minutes per file or about 1MB per second.
>>>
>>> I am now transferring the files back again and it is taking about an
>>> hour for each
>>> file. Task Manager (XP Pro SP2) shows the wireless link to be
>>> running at just 2.5% of its theoretical 54 Mbps capacity. CPU% is
>>> under 10% for both machines. Internet surfing at 512Kbps is fine on
>>> both machines. I'm aware of tools like Dr.TCP for sorting out
>>> internet connections
>>> but I don't know how I should be investigating painfully slow (W)LAN
>>> transfers. What might be wrong with file transfers going back?
>>
>> Have you tried repositioning your router and / or laptop to see if
>> this improves things? Shifting my DG834G aerial (or my WG511 aerial)
>> by an inch can seriously affect the connection.
>
> Right now the laptop is only about 5' from the router with a direct
> line of sight between them. Signal strength is "Excellent" and shows
> as being 54Mbps. The laptop is routinely moved within an area of
> about 2' * 2' as it sits on a coffee table in the living room. Moving
> it within this area seems to have no impact to throughput. There is
> another wireless laptop in the room showing "Excellent" and 36Mbps
> but this has no network activity other than polling for email avery 5
> minutes or so. I've just rebooted the router but that has not altered
> transfer speeds.

I've given up with the wireless link for the file transfers and temporarily
connected the laptop to the router via CAT5. I've now got sustained transfer
speeds of over 8MB per second and a forecast of ~30 minutes to transfer 13.6
GB. So it seems the general network and firewall config is sound at both
ends, as is the router. I still don't understand why the wireless connection
is crawling though. Any more ideas?