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HeavyGreg

1 Message

5789

February 13th, 2007 19:00

trouble w/ built in wireless cards

Hi.  I am new to this forum and have limited computer knowledge.  With that said I bought each of my kids Dell Inspiron laptops for xmas with wireless cards built in.  I have a netear wireless router in my home office that is 2 years old. It is model # MR814v2.  My company laptop works great with it.  My company laptop is a compaq with a netgear card.  My 2 new laptops for my kids work half the time but are extremely slow.  I am wondering if the new laptops don't interface well with the 2 year old wireless router.  Can someone give me advice on what to look for. TIA - Greg

volcano11

2 Intern

 • 

28K Posts

February 13th, 2007 20:00

You don't say which wireless network cards are installed on the laptops nor which model laptops you have (essential information whenever you post a question here).  2 years is ancient in the computer world. I would recommend going to the Netgear site and upgrading the firmware on the router.  If this doesn't help, be sure to tell us which wireless cards are in the laptops.
 
Steve

trueamericanevi

48 Posts

February 14th, 2007 09:00

Upgrade your firmware (usually not critical unless having problems or want a new feature which comes with the new firmware, and the reason could be is the wireless type. Make sure the wireless adapter and wireless router are the same wireless type (usually wireless-G) but you could have B since you said it's older.

This shouldn't make a difference because wireless-B is compatible with wireless-G. But it still wouldn't hurt to check it out. Just find out what cards each laptop has, which card YOUR laptop has and wireless type your router is.

You know it could also be the position of the router in the house. If it is wireless-B your kids are going to get slow internet speeds (11mbps max.) PLUS if they are far away from the router it will surely decrease. Wireless-B's range is about 150 ft. from the router. I am assuming you are closer to the router when you use your laptop. Wireless-G on the other hand the max data rate is 54mbps and has a range of about 150ft. If you have B, not G I'd recommend switching to G since if they are far away from the router, the speed doesn't start decreasing right from 11mbps, it starts decreasing at 54mbps.

-Your friendly neighborhood techie, Tony.

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