Extremely slow internet on fresh install

Hi guys.

I am having a problem with my internet connect on 3 laptops for the last couple of days that I cannot seem to get my head around.

Ill start with the specs. 2 of the laptops are Acer Aspire One netbooks with the following:

Intel Atom 1.6ghz
1GB ram
120GB HDD
Atheros AR5007EG

One of these is an XP install which has been running since new and the other is a windows 7 Home Premium that I put on when i first got it over a year ago. The Windows 7 one has also been formatted and reinstalled a couple of hours ago

The other is a Compaq CQ70 with the following:

Intel T3200
2GB ram
160GB HDD
Atheros AR5700

This laptop has cleanly installed Vista Home premium on it. I have also tried 7 Home Premium with no difference.

The router is a Netgear DGN1000, I have updated to the newest firmware with no luck and have since rolled back to the previous version.

All 3 machines have been running perfectly for quite some time until a couple of days ago, nothing that I know of has changed the setup etc of any of the machines. As i was having problems, 2 out of the 3 laptops were formatted and reinstalled and the router was also reset to factory settings and then setup again.

The problem I am having with these laptops is that they are all extremely slow online and are also only downloading at approximately 150 bps! I have tried updated drivers, changing the router from N to B/G only and nothing seems to be making a difference.

I do have 2 main PC's which are currently working fine, a little bit on the slow side but they are fine in terms of downloading compared to the laptops.

I have tried the laptops connected through Ethernet to the router and they are perfect. I have also tried my WNA3100 adapter out of my PC and again works perfectly.

Any ideas as to what I could try would be greatly appreciated!

Hi, thanks for your reply

I setup the router as if it was a new one, not restore to previous settings

Heres the picture of Xirrus, my network is the Netgear one. Not sure why its showing twice though

Thanks for the Xirrus snap shot. Currently your network is not secured, perhaps others are using your Wi-Fi for Free and using your bandwidth. Your wireless channel selection is excellent, let's leave it as is for now.

Please secure your network with WPA2 so that no one can tap in to your network.
Securing Your Wireless Network: WPA/WPA2 (Recommended))

Please let us know.

Hi,

The only reason it was unsecured was because I had reset it again about half hour before I took the Xirrus screenshot and hadn't got round to adding any security.

I have enabled WPA-2 again now but there is no difference

Have you tried doing the same thing to the Wireless Adapters of all your computers that are affected?

changing the router from N to B/G only and nothing seems to be making a difference.

I did try looking to see if I could change that for wireless adapters but couldnt find anything under device manager for it. I will check again

Strangely, I haven't changed anything again yet but over night the laptops have decided to start working and downloading at the usual speed. I have not changed anything in order for this to happen though! Odd....

Still not perfect, some websites wont load 100% but it is now loads better.

I noticed that you are showing the use of two channels and also that your Network is showing up twice on the list, once with caps NETGEAR and the other with small case netgear.

When two channels show up it means you have channel bonding turned on which relates the the 20-40Mhz setting in your routers control panel. Channel bonding can sometimes cause problems so you might want to turn it off by changing to 20Mhz only frequency.

I also can't help but to think that your SSID showing up twice is another problem. I would reset the router and start from scratch making sure that channel bonding is turned off and that your SSID is correct.

Also I noticed that quite a few of your neighbors are using channel 6 so best to use a single channel that isn't being used by anyone and even better to use a channel that is 4 numbers away from anyone else.

I ran Xirrus again and the network was only showing up once this time. To be on the safeside I have started the router from scratch again and selected channel 9 this time.

I have been through every page of the router settings looking for anything about channel bonding or broadcasting on 2 different channels but cannot find anything relating to this, any ideas what it could be under? Cant find anything on google about it and my router either

I am amazed how many of those connections are open - don't these people do any research about security?