Thinkpads Forum

So I am currently living with a few roommates, and we have internet that gets pretty slow in the evenings.
However, it seems that I have it the worse; when it gets slow, I am almost completely unable to open a website without the page timing-out several times while everyone else is at least able to load a page at decent speeds.

I have a T410 with a Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6200AGN networks card. I have access to the router and there are no settings that give priorities to anyone. I have tried loading an older image of my system which does not help, and virus scans show nothing. I don't really download or visit sketchy websites so I don't think its related to spyware/viruses. Also, bringing my laptop next to the router has no effect.

I have the roaming aggressiveness and transit power of the network card maxed out, but after looking around I'm not sure what other settings can really help my case.

My next step is to reformat the entire machine and start completely anew. I'm just wondering if this could be an issue with the hardware itself or even the networks card. Would forcing a change to my computer's MAC address possibly help?

Shadowku wrote:My next step is to reformat the entire machine ... Would forcing a change to my computer's MAC address possibly help?

You may wish to do a little more debugging/analysis before "trashing" your system. Examples:
-- Is there "slowdown" if you connect the machine to the router via an Ethernet cable? [Disconnect the wireless to insure that the active connection is the wired one.]
-- Is accessing other wireless networks also slow or is the slowdown only on your router?
-- Is your wireless connection "n"? If so, what happens when you force a "g" connection?
-- What happens if you use a different DNS service or bypass DNS by using numeric IP addresses?
-- What is the latency of your connection?

Changing the MAC address is unlikely to have any effect on the problem you describe ... unless, of course, you have a bad wireless card, and you change the MAC address by changing the card, thus replacing the culprit.

EOMtp wrote: Is there "slowdown" if you connect the machine to the router via an Ethernet cable? [Disconnect the wireless to insure that the active connection is the wired one.

Yes actually, there is also slowdown if I connect to the main router directly via ethernet cable. I thought it was strange that it would still be slow.

EOMtp wrote: Is accessing other wireless networks also slow or is the slowdown only on your router?

So far, accessing other networks has been fairly fast, and I have never seen this problem on another network.

EOMtp wrote: Is your wireless connection "n"? If so, what happens when you force a "g" connection?

The internet is fairly fast now as it is late at night. I'll give it a shot tomorrow and find out when it gets slow during mid day.

EOMtp wrote: What happens if you use a different DNS service or bypass DNS by using numeric IP addresses?

From what it feels like I doubt it will make a difference but I'll give this a shot. I noticed however that even accessing the router takes forever and I will timeout a few times before I get to the page I want on the router. This kind of indicates to me that my computer might be doing something behind the scenes. I have disabled most of the startup processes and autoupdates that might have an effect.

EOMtp wrote: What is the latency of your connection?

I'll also check this tomorrow when it's slow.


I'm hoping it's not hardware related. It doesn't improve when I disable the Intel network card and use the onboard one though.

Shadowku wrote:Yes actually, there is also slowdown if I connect to the main router directly via ethernet cable. ...
So far, accessing other networks has been fairly fast, and I have never seen this problem on another network.

Based on your comments above, it's a fair bet that the problem is at your router or farther upstream. No need to wipe your system ... yet!

Given how inexpensive routers are, you should replace the router and check if Internet access continues to be slow. Although not wireless, a $5 D-Link DI-604 is great and will be perfect for this test. If a new router solves the problem, then just reconfigure your existing wireless router to be a wireless Access Point, connect it to the new router, and it's done:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=%28 ... &_osacat=0

To test if the problem is your software:
If you have backup/restore software, then "trashing" your system, i.e., wiping only the C:-drive, is a non-event. You can backup your existing C:-drive, install a fresh copy of whatever operating system you want to test, and determine if the problem was your software. If results are the same as your existing system, then just restore the backup you made, and you have your system back. [You sound like you have ability to run such a test, so ... if you don't already have multiple partitions on your drive, then re-partition the hard drive so that you can backup a relatively small C:-drive (the operating system drive) to a larger partition on the same physical drive. A flash drive with bootable Acronis TrueImage on it will do the work.] However, based on your comments, changing the router is likely to be more productive ...

EOMtp wrote: If you have backup/restore software, then "trashing" your system, i.e., wiping only the C:-drive, is a non-event. You can backup your existing C:-drive, install a fresh copy of whatever operating system you want to test, and determine if the problem was your software.

Okay so.. swapping to wireless g.. or anything besides a/g/n disables my connection to my router (its wireless n only it seems).
I haven't tried bypassing DNS but I'm quite convinced that it wouldn't make a difference.

I actually happen to have a non-wireless router here.. I will test that out tonight. It just got bad (it was fast all day yesterday.. miraculously).
I just realized that I still have the base installation of my system on the included harddrive that I have never used (swapped to SSD as soon as I got my T410) so I can swap the harddrives and see what happens.

I don't mind whiping my system because I like to do it every year or so anyway, and its about time. But I'm worried about my hardware being the culprit here as I am hit the hardest when the internet gets bad. I haven't looked into it yet but where would my Intel Advanced-6200 card if I decide to replace it?

Shadowku wrote:... where would my Intel Advanced-6200 card if I decide to replace it?

See Page 103 of the Harware Maintenance Manual (HMM):
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... 535_01.pdf