Bullets 'n' Babes

Hey guys,

Wanna tap the minds of those people that may have a clue about wireless.

Got the Orange broadband now and I set it up with my desktop PC with the PC in the room and the case about 1.5m away from the wireless box. Im using a Safecom SWLPT-54125 wireless PCI card in my PC.

When it was at that distance I used the following speedtest (http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp) to test the bandwidth speed and it got 2.5Mbps, which was the same speed as my laptop that was connected to the wireless box via ethernet cable. So I was a pretty happy guy. On the windows wireless connection thing it had 5/5 bars signal strength.

So I took my PC back to the room it is based in and it is now about 6m away from the wireless box, with 2 or 3 internal thin walls between them. Now the signal strength flickers between 2 and 3 bars, the connection rate between the 2 devices is stated at at least 24Mbps usually, but using the same speed test I get results varying between 0.3Mbps and 1Mbps, although it is most often in the 0.3 Mbps region. The card also sometimes drops the connection.

Why is this?!??! Surely if it is connected at 24Mbps that is more than enough to allow better than 0.3Mbps in downloading online?!?!

Is it likely to be the card's fault? Should I invest in a wireless USB receiver thing instead? I can't move the wireless box any closer than it currently is either, or move the computer.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Cheers!

Firstly, do NOT get a USB adapter. They suck balls in general, but especially when compared with PCI cards

What kind of router do you have?

It is the Orange Livebox router...

strange thing is, it seems to have got better by itself... All details are still the same as above, except I'm getting download rates of about 200kB - 250kB pre second.

Don't understand why it got better, as I was seriously only getting 70kB per sec on the same site before.

The speed test thing is now giving me consistent ~1Mbps readings, so don't know whether there is still room for improvement or not.

But I'm a bit happier now that I know I am getting the approx equiv of 1.6-2 Mbps download speeds.

Still, if it can be improved more, then I won't complain!!

Think I'm gonna connect up with ethernet cables for a bit and see what the download speeds are on the sites I use with that to get a better comparison of how well/bad the wireless thing is doing.