Poor throughput w/strong signal 801.11b

I have a 3 year old Thinkpad w/ built in wireless that has good
sensitivity but probably runs 11.b. Works find at home where there are
no 2.4GHz phones. When I go to a vacation rental condo or coffee
shop, I quite often get very poor performance even when there is a
strong enough signal to get 11Mb data rate. Of course these are
environments where I have no control over the wireless router or the
2.4GHz phones, etc. The worst performance comes when I try to download
e-mail from yahoo into Modzilla Thunderbird. I think this may be due to
very high error rate caused by interference from other 2.4GHz equipment
but do not know how to find that out from XP Pro networking utilities.


Other users near me in the condo or coffee shop report no problem,
great performance. One of these users suggested I get an 11g card. On
the surface, the idea that 11Mb is the bottle neck for Internet data
seems doubtful. However, the notion that 11g may function in a way
making it less suceptable to interference is the question here. What
do you think?

If you think 11g would help my situation, do you think that there are
any advantages in the more expensive 11g products or is a base card as
good as any for my situation?


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[cross-posted to comp.sys.laptops.thinkpad]

On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:59:02 -0500, longtom
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
<(E-Mail Removed)>:

>I have a 3 year old Thinkpad w/ built in wireless that has good
>sensitivity but probably runs 11.b.

What ThinkPad? What is the name of the wireless adapter in Device
Manager? How do you know the sensitivity is good?

>Works find at home where there are
>no 2.4GHz phones.

What does fine mean? Over what distance? At what speed? To what
wireless access point or router?

>When I go to a vacation rental condo or coffee
>shop, I quite often get very poor performance even when there is a
>strong enough signal to get 11Mb data rate.

How do you know how strong the signal is? How do you know performance
is poor? Is the poor performance the wireless, or the Internet?

>Of course these are
>environments where I have no control over the wireless router or the
>2.4GHz phones, etc. The worst performance comes when I try to download
>e-mail from yahoo into Modzilla Thunderbird. I think this may be due to
>very high error rate caused by interference from other 2.4GHz equipment
>but do not know how to find that out from XP Pro networking utilities.

First check for packet loss to the email server with 'ping' or
'tracert'.

>Other users near me in the condo or coffee shop report no problem,
>great performance. One of these users suggested I get an 11g card. On
>the surface, the idea that 11Mb is the bottle neck for Internet data
>seems doubtful.

More than doubtful -- simply not true.

>However, the notion that 11g may function in a way
>making it less suceptable to interference is the question here. What
>do you think?

That is doubtful -- both use the same frequency.

>If you think 11g would help my situation, do you think that there are
>any advantages in the more expensive 11g products or is a base card as
>good as any for my situation?

I think it's possible your antenna might have become disconnected, which
would account for poor performance. You might want to try an
inexpensive returnable G PC Card to see if it works better.

--
Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_HowTo>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>

Thank you for responding to my questions.
Thinkpad is an R40 running XP Pro SP 2, 800Mb memory, Intel
PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini Driver dated 3/7/2003, version 1.1.5.
The wireless icon in the lower right system tray shows "Speed: 11Mb,
Signal Strength: Very Good" The network status popup shows 4 bars (out
of 5) of signal strength.

Works fine at home(definition): Works such that I don't notice any
difference between the laptop and my desktop machine (doing e-mail
downloads from Yahoo to Modzilla Thunderbird) that is ethernet connected
to the Netgear switching hub, wireless router. Have signal strength
"very good" (4-5 bars), reports the same speed (11Mb) that seems similar
to what I get in public places.
Distance in public places is unknown. At home it is <100'

Public places: Signal strength is based on the number of bars shown by
the software. Performance is worse than dial up. Quite often times
out before downloading e-mail messages. Think it to be the wireless
because other users of the condo report "very good" Internet access
speed - consider it to be a feature of this condo compared to other
condo experiances.

Have not tried PING. Will not be at the condo soon to try it. Suspect
it will not work since PING has long been considered an invasive TCP
tool that many servers firewall against. I could go to some coffee
shops near home and try to reproduce the problem I see in vacation
condos.

My antenna has not become disconnected. Return home and things are
fine. Infact, I often get higher signal strength than other laptop
users experiance.

I will try to check for a driver update for my existing on board
wireless.

Would I be wasting money on an 11g?


------------------------------------------------------------------------
View this thread: http://www.wirelessforums.org/showthread.php?t=36909
http://www.wirelessforums.org

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:42:51 -0500, longtom
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
<(E-Mail Removed)>:

>Thank you for responding to my questions.
>Thinkpad is an R40 running XP Pro SP 2, 800Mb memory, Intel
>PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini Driver dated 3/7/2003, version 1.1.5.
>The wireless icon in the lower right system tray shows "Speed: 11Mb,
>Signal Strength: Very Good" The network status popup shows 4 bars (out
>of 5) of signal strength.

4 bars is good, but the 11 Mbps connect speed is pretty meaningless.

>Works fine at home(definition): Works such that I don't notice any
>difference between the laptop and my desktop machine (doing e-mail
>downloads from Yahoo to Modzilla Thunderbird) that is ethernet connected
>to the Netgear switching hub, wireless router. ...

Don't notice doesn't mean much -- iperf speed tests would be much
better.

>Public places: Signal strength is based on the number of bars shown by
>the software. Performance is worse than dial up. Quite often times
>out before downloading e-mail messages.

Sounds like possible packet loss.

>Think it to be the wireless
>because other users of the condo report "very good" Internet access
>speed - consider it to be a feature of this condo compared to other
>condo experiances.

Think is just speculation -- try "tracert" to your email server to see
if and where packet loss is occurring.

>Have not tried PING. Will not be at the condo soon to try it. Suspect
>it will not work since PING has long been considered an invasive TCP
>tool that many servers firewall against. I could go to some coffee
>shops near home and try to reproduce the problem I see in vacation
>condos.

Try "tracert" instead of "ping".

>I will try to check for a driver update for my existing on board
>wireless.

Do this first.

>Would I be wasting money on an 11g?

g versus b probably won't make a difference.

--
Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_HowTo>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>

[cross-posted to comp.sys.laptops.thinkpad]

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 15:53:17 GMT, John Navas
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
<(E-Mail Removed)>:

>On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 11:42:51 -0500, longtom
><(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
><(E-Mail Removed)>:
>
>>Thank you for responding to my questions.
>>Thinkpad is an R40 running XP Pro SP 2, 800Mb memory, Intel
>>PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini Driver dated 3/7/2003, version 1.1.5.
>>The wireless icon in the lower right system tray shows "Speed: 11Mb,
>>Signal Strength: Very Good" The network status popup shows 4 bars (out
>>of 5) of signal strength.
>
>4 bars is good, but the 11 Mbps connect speed is pretty meaningless.
>
>>Works fine at home(definition): Works such that I don't notice any
>>difference between the laptop and my desktop machine (doing e-mail
>>downloads from Yahoo to Modzilla Thunderbird) that is ethernet connected
>>to the Netgear switching hub, wireless router. ...
>
>Don't notice doesn't mean much -- iperf speed tests would be much
>better.
>
>>Public places: Signal strength is based on the number of bars shown by
>>the software. Performance is worse than dial up. Quite often times
>>out before downloading e-mail messages.
>
>Sounds like possible packet loss.
>
>>Think it to be the wireless
>>because other users of the condo report "very good" Internet access
>>speed - consider it to be a feature of this condo compared to other
>>condo experiances.
>
>Think is just speculation -- try "tracert" to your email server to see
>if and where packet loss is occurring.
>
>>Have not tried PING. Will not be at the condo soon to try it. Suspect
>>it will not work since PING has long been considered an invasive TCP
>>tool that many servers firewall against. I could go to some coffee
>>shops near home and try to reproduce the problem I see in vacation
>>condos.
>
>Try "tracert" instead of "ping".
>
>>I will try to check for a driver update for my existing on board
>>wireless.
>
>Do this first.
>
>>Would I be wasting money on an 11g?
>
>g versus b probably won't make a difference.

--
Best regards, FAQ for Wireless Internet: <http://Wireless.wikia.com>
John Navas FAQ for Wi-Fi: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi>
Wi-Fi How To: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_HowTo>
Fixes to Wi-Fi Problems: <http://wireless.wikia.com/wiki/Wi-Fi_Fixes>