Computer lagging with wifi??

Question

I just recently got high speed wireless internet and ran into a few problems... Ever time I connect to it, it goes super fast, but then every thing lags!!! My computer is fairly good with 512mbs of ram and a good P4 processor.. I wonder why...

Answer 1

That is because when you are using a cable, it is able to transfer up to 100mbps of data. When you are using a wireless (assuming it is 802.11g protocol, the most common), the fastest it can transfer data is 54mbps. If you are sharing that wireless connection, cut the speed in half for each additional PC. If you are any distance from the wireless, have wall, pipes, floor, etc in between you and the router, reduce it further.

Using an ethernet cable is always faster then wireless.

Answer 2

First of all, do you mean wifi as in you got a wireless router installed in your home or wifi as in you connect via a cellular network or something like that?

Signal strength may fluctuate during the day or some outside source could be generating interference which would slow you down significantly. The best course of action would be to call your ISP and troubleshoot it with them, unless it's a wireless router that is customer managed, then its up to you to track down the problem. In the mean time I would use windows task manager or some other network monitoring tool to try and see at what point the lag becomes an issue. If you can correlate that with something else, than you're golden.

Answer 3

what is the signal strength on your WiFi connection? Anything less then 40-50% isn't to good. That means some of your data is not reaching your wireless router, so it has to be retransmitted, which can cause lag. Its hard to say really why though, make sure you have security enabled, someone could be using your WiFi and using all your bandwidth.

Answer 4

yeah, it takes up more bandwidth