Problem with the MR814 and MA111

[firestorm225]

Alright, I just picked up a Netgear MR814 router and a MA111 USB adapter, both are wireless B devices.

I set up my network and everything, and then I ran a speed test on the computer with the MA111 to make sure that I was reaching the maximum speed of my DSL connection.

However, the results were poor. My DSL connection is 1200kb up/256kb down. However, the speedtest indicated results of 200kb up and 20kb down.

I updated all the drivers/software, I don't have any security up at the moment, and here are my stats:

MA111 distance from router: About 25 feet with two walls in the way
Signal strength according to the Netgear software: 100%
Signal from the router from the Site Survey tab: ranges from 35%-45%

Are my speeds typical of what I should expect with that signal strength? Does anything seem wrong? I had a G combination but I returned it to save money (the B router is free after rebate, the USB adapter is $20), and I was very happy with the G, however, I'm not even coming close to maxing out my DSL connection which is what I was hoping for (since I don't need to do a lot of transferring between the PCs)

[jajmon]

If you are using a USB 1.1 connection, then there's your speed problem. Here is some info on USB speeds found at

http://www.usb.org/faq/ans2#q1

Q1: How fast is USB?
A1: High speed USB products have a design data rate of 480 Mb/s. Full speed USB devices signal at 12Mb/s, while low speed devices use a 1.5Mb/s subchannel.

Q2: How does this compare to other connections used with PCs and workstations?
A2: Here's a quick list of the maximum transfer rates for various connections in megabits (Mb) and megabytes (MB) per second:

serial port: 115kbits/s (.115Mbits/s)


standard parallel port: 115kBYTES/s (.115MBYTES/s)
Original USB: 12Mbits/s (1.5MBYTES/s) < USB 1.1
ECP/EPP parallel port: 3MBYTES/s
IDE: 3.3-16.7MBYTES/s
SCSI-1: 5MBYTES/s
SCSI-2 (Fast SCSI, Fast Narrow SCSI): 10MBYTES/s
Fast Wide SCSI (Wide SCSI): 20MBYTES/s
Ultra SCSI (SCSI-3, Fast-20, Ultra Narrow): 20MBYTES/s
UltraIDE: 33MBYTES/s
Wide Ultra SCSI (Fast Wide 20): 40MBYTES/s
Ultra2 SCSI: 40MBYTES/s
IEEE-1394: 100-400Mbits/s (12.5--50MBYTES/s)
Hi-Speed USB: 480Mbits/s < USB 2.0
Wide Ultra2 SCSI: 80MBYTES/s
Ultra3 SCSI: 80MBYTES/s
Wide Ultra3 SCSI: 160MBYTES/s
FC-AL Fiber Channel: 100-400MBYTES/s

[firestorm225]

It is a USB 1.1 adapter. I'm not sure if USB 1.1 is considered "low speed", but according to that FAQ, even low speed should hit 1500 Kb, while I'm only getting 200Kb.

[SavageBasher]

usb 1.1 can only take a max of about 600 kilobytes non stop. Now, I don't know about you, but thats faster than my download speed, which is a max of 250 kilobytes a second.

[firestorm225]

If you're talking in kilobytes, my maximum is about 160KB (as reported by DSL reports). And like I said, I ran a speed test on DSL Reports on the computer with the MA111, and I was only hitting about 25KB, so there's definitely something odd.

I was thinking the culprit is the the router signal which is at 40%, and my signal was to weak to get anything faster.

[firestorm225]

Anyone? Should I just try a PCI based adapter or what?