My Wireless Network Connection's signal is LOW and my labtop is SLOW AS h**l?

Question

GOD! HOW CAN I MAKE THE CONNECTIONS BETTER AND MAKE IT FASTER!!! Help please!!

Answer 1

Move closer to the router. Or hardwire it. Or get a better router.

As for your laptop being slow, you need to be more specific. Is the the internet that is slow? That would be caused by the low signal strength. Or is it slow in general? Perhaps you should Defrag it and run some virus scans.

Answer 2

Connect to http://www.speedtest.com.  Is that slow?  If not, you have the same problem everyone else has - the internet is slowly getting overcrowded, so it's getting slow.  (I have a problem with yahoo answers - on a 15mbps connection.)

If speedtest is a lot slower than the connection you're paying for, there are a few things you can try:

The antenna - make sure the SIDE is aimed at your laptop.  The weakest signal is off the ends.  (I'm going to have to put up a web page about wireless routers, so I don't have to type this out for everyone with the problem.)

In your mind, draw a line between the laptop and the router.  Anything other than walls between them?  Large metal objects - like appliances - kill the signal.

Interference:  Any cordless phones near either the router or the laptop?  Microwave oven?  Any other wireless devices?

And how far apart are the router and the laptop?  The best range you're going to get - outside, no other electrical devices or walls nearby - is about 100 feet - with a good router and a laptop with a good antenna.  Indoors that can reduce to 25 feet or less.  (You can use directional antennas, but if the problem is the internet, that won't help much.  No matter what you do, you'll still get 40kbps downloads on some paths and from some servers.  I still do - with a 15MBps commercial pipe.  That's megabytes, not megabits.  [It's the inside end of a web server farm.])