low bit rate connection in 11.3, normal in WinXP

English Network/Internet
1

hey guys,

my laptop is an HP nx6325, and I’m running OpenSUSE 11.3 and also WinXP
my wireless card is the infamous Broadcomm 802.11 card…

today for some weird reason, the connection to may wireless routes is very poor, the bir rate is only 1 Mbit/sec
the thing is, that when I boot in WinXP the bit rate is at it’s highest (54Mbit/sec)

this happend to me before, but it was the other way arround, the bit rate dropped but only in WinXP, and I thought it happen because the Win was virused…but it’s the first time it happens to drop under Linux…

the web browsing is very poor, my ssh connections are also kind of poor, and when I tried to zypper install something…it couldn’t get the update xml file…(I believe this is also because of the poor connection)

how can I test it? how can I improve it?

btw the routers position hasn’t changed at all, yesterday it was working fine…

thanks

2

On 01/04/2012 05:36 AM, harvested wrote:
>
> hey guys,
>
> my laptop is an HP nx6325, and I’m running OpenSUSE 11.3 and also WinXP
> my wireless card is the infamous Broadcomm 802.11 card…
>
> today for some weird reason, the connection to may wireless routes is
> very poor, the bir rate is only 1 Mbit/sec
> the thing is, that when I boot in WinXP the bit rate is at it’s highest
> (54Mbit/sec)
>
> this happend to me before, but it was the other way arround, the bit
> rate dropped but only in WinXP, and I thought it happen because the Win
> was virused…but it’s the first time it happens to drop under Linux…
>
> the web browsing is very poor, my ssh connections are also kind of
> poor, and when I tried to zypper install something…it couldn’t get the
> update xml file…(I believe this is also because of the poor
> connection)

I think you have other problems. It is likely a new source of interference that
comes and goes. If you have the option, try changing the channel. You should try
1, 6, or 11.

> how can I test it? how can I improve it?
>
> btw the routers position hasn’t changed at all, yesterday it was
> working fine…

3

where should I change this settings?
in the routers settings or on my machine?

thanks :slight_smile:

4

On 01/04/2012 02:06 PM, harvested wrote:
>
> where should I change this settings?
> in the routers settings or on my machine?

In the router, of course.

5

Compare:
wndw.net
Wireless Networking in the Developing World : Second Edition
Chapter 2: A Practical Introduction to Radio Physics
Page 15

Frequencies and channels
Let us look a bit closer at how the 2.4GHz band is used in 802.11b. The
spectrum is divided into evenly sized pieces distributed over the band as individual
channels. Note that channels are 22MHz wide, but are only separated
by 5MHz. This means that adjacent channels overlap, and can interfere
with each other. This is represented visually in Figure 2.4. …]

1000×233 14.9 KB

Figure 2.4: Channels and center frequencies for 802.11b. Note that channels 1, 6,
and 11 do not overlap.

[Picture from wikimedia commons - original was taken from this Ebook. The book is avilable under the US/unported Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. ]

And I would not count much on the figures/icon given by the Microsoft operating system (probably only the maximal brutto data rate of your connection ).
More reliable regarding the real/netto throughput may be a comparion of many tests with a web based (DSL) speed test (if there are no flashplayer problems or something alike that might influence that tests on different operating systems …:wink: ).

Regards
Martin