cable modem / router problems

[cablequery]

I have a cable modem / lynksys router hooked up to 2 pcs running xp. My download speeds are great after resetting my modem and router ( unplugging them, waiting 5 minutes, plugging them back in in sequence), but after a short time, my download speed drops to a measly 8k/s(approx.) , instead of my normal 200k/s(approx.)

The time after reset where my download speeds are still good seems to vary between 5 minutes and 2 hours.

What am I doing wrong, or is there some glaring administrative task I have forgotten or perhaps never known I should be doing?

I'm new to speedguide.net so if I'm in the wrong forum for this type of problem, please accept my apologies and point me to the proper forum, Thanks.

[legalmind]

Clone the mac off your the computer that you signed up.
The mac from your nic card and make it the mac for that cheap router, if it does that.
Sorry, but you have to spend more them $50.00 for a class router.

[j79zlr]

what the hell is your problem with Linksys, I've used/hooked about a bunch of them and havent had any problems. Why would a home user spend more than 50 bucks on a router, that is ridiculous, Linksys makes a great product.

[blebs]

Have Heart Will Fly!

Have heart with AVR, now FAA won't let me fly!

[YeOldeStonecat]

Originally posted by legalmind
Clone the mac off your the computer that you signed up.
The mac from your nic card and make it the mac for that cheap router, if it does that.
Sorry, but you have to spend more them $50.00 for a class router.

If his ISP used MAC authentication, or his modem wouldn't synch up to the MAC of the new router, then he wouldn't be online in the first place. He's clearly online already, since he's downloading. Most modems reset their learned MAC after powering down anyways, which he's already done.

Linksys routers do support MAC spoofing BTW, as do almost any of the home market routers out there.

"but you have to spend more them $50.00 for a class router."

And what is "a class router"? You mean SOHO or business grade router? Yes there are more robust routers out there, but for the average home user...a home market broadband router should be fine. And after installing and working with most of the brands out there, Linksys is my fave of the home market broadband routers. Not everyone needs a Netopia, Nexland, or Cisco as their home router.

Cablequery....does your router have recent firmware? Have your run anti/ad ware software on your rigs to clean them up (such as Spybot Search 'n Destroy or Lavasofts AdAware).

[cablequery]

I'm going to ignore the insults of my meager little wireless router for now, although I think they still run about 80 bucks at the cheapest internet store.

I have run ad-aware and spybots search and destroy tools, each of which did find and delete a number of items. I have no idea if those deleted items were causing any problems or not, but they are gone now.

I also went through the procedure I found on this site to find and set what appear to be the optimal MTU/MSS settings.

There is a newer version of the firmware for my router, but the spec sheet talked about xbox stuff and aol stuff, neither of which have any relavence in my case.

Do you think I should still upgrade the firmware?.

Thanks for your comments.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Originally posted by cablequery
I'm going to ignore the insults of my meager little wireless router for now, although I think they still run about 80 bucks at the cheapest internet store.

Do you think I should still upgrade the firmware?.

Thanks for your comments.

Ahh...wireless. Which model?

I've installed probably over 200 of those little Linksys boxes. IMHO, best of the home market routers. By home market routers, I mean those around or under a hundred bucks, designed for the networking novice (read "home user").

I'll continue to use them for situations I see fit. Not everyone needs a Cisco, Sonicwall, Netopia, Nexland/Symantec, or some other 700 dollar solution. And I install Netopias, Sonicwalls, Netgears, Nexland/Symantecs, etc....so I'm quite familiar with the differences in between those, and entry level home market routers. I use a Netopia at home now, but also have two Nexlands, a Netgear, two Linksys, and a Symantec R series router.

BTW, this months PCWorld or PCMag had a huge wireless router writeup...including quite a few of the big boys brands...and guess who won the "G" wireless benchmarks? Yup..the little blue guy.

Back to your issue....are your wireless NIC drivers running the latest version? Yes I'd also go with the latest firmware upgrade. Linksys releases firmware updates at a very fast pace. Sometimes it's not always a good one, you may find matters worse, or a new version introduces a new glitch. Other times you may see problems go away, even though there's no mention of the problems as "fixes in the new version".

I prefer static IP setups on my home LANs behind routers, especially where there is no NT server available to manage DHCP. I don't find the DHCP of routers to be the most stable thing on a network, no matter what brand of router it is. Here is an article on setting up fixed UP's behind a router.

Also I prefer to have SSID broadcast disabled, and manually set it to a non-default SSID.

How close, or what distance, is your wireless running at? What's in between that may affect performance?