Speed problems with Linksys WAP

Hello all,

I have a Linksys WAP54G and a couple Acer notebooks. My connection speed
varies wildly for no reason I can discern.

When I first turn on my notebooks (or "Repair" the wireless connection), I
get:

Speed: 54.0 Mbps
Signal strength: Excellent

This will last for a few minutes and then it switches to:

Speed: 24.0 Mbps
Signal strength: Excellent

But when it does switch to 24.0 Mbps, it is not just under half as fast as
when it was at 54.0 Mbps. It's closer to 1/10 the speed.

The signal strength never changes from excellent. And the WAP is no more
than 20 feet away from the notebooks (although it is on the other side of a
normal house interior wall). I used to have an Acer notebook (made 3 years
ago) that always maintained a solid 54.0 Mbps connection. But for some
reason these two new notebooks spend most of their time at 24.0 Mbps.
They'll sit there for a few minutes, go back to 54.0 for a minute, and then
back to 24.0 for a few minutes.

This happens on both laptops, and it isn't affected by whether or not the
other notebook is on.

Anyway, I was just wondering if there are some kind of wireless settings I
should be examining. And why is 24.0 Mbps a tenth the speed of 54.0 Mbps?
And why, if the problem is simply reception, is it that my signal strength
always reads as Excellent?

Thanks in advance.

James

James Martin wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I have a Linksys WAP54G and a couple Acer notebooks. My connection
> speed varies wildly for no reason I can discern.
>
> When I first turn on my notebooks (or "Repair" the wireless
> connection), I get:
>
> Speed: 54.0 Mbps
> Signal strength: Excellent
>
> This will last for a few minutes and then it switches to:
>
> Speed: 24.0 Mbps
> Signal strength: Excellent
>
> But when it does switch to 24.0 Mbps, it is not just under half as
> fast as when it was at 54.0 Mbps. It's closer to 1/10 the speed.
>
> The signal strength never changes from excellent. And the WAP is no
> more than 20 feet away from the notebooks (although it is on the
> other side of a normal house interior wall). I used to have an Acer
> notebook (made 3 years ago) that always maintained a solid 54.0 Mbps
> connection. But for some reason these two new notebooks spend most of
> their time at 24.0 Mbps. They'll sit there for a few minutes, go back
> to 54.0 for a minute, and then back to 24.0 for a few minutes.
>
> This happens on both laptops, and it isn't affected by whether or not
> the other notebook is on.
>
> Anyway, I was just wondering if there are some kind of wireless
> settings I should be examining. And why is 24.0 Mbps a tenth the
> speed of 54.0 Mbps? And why, if the problem is simply reception, is
> it that my signal strength always reads as Excellent?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> James

Sounds like interference... Mine started doing that (slowing down) and after
a few months, I finally narrowed it down to a hi intensity lights
transformer. If you want a quick test, I just turned off all the breakers
for the whole house ( cept one, I plugged the wap into that, ran the laptops
on batteries) just to see if that changed/narrowed it down, when it did, I
just started turning on one breaker at a time until it started screwing up
again.