Archived CalgaryPuck Computer Help Thread

[Devils'Advocate]

I have a Linksys Wet11 wireless bridge and a Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless router.

With an ethernet cable plugged into the router, I'm getting 3.1 megabits per second.
Wireless, via the bridge, I'm getting 300 kilobites per second.

So I'm going 10 times faster with the cable.

I see that there are "high speed" routers on the market now using 802.11g, while my router and bridge are both using 802.11b. I presume that if I want to improve the wireless performance I'm going to have to purchase both a new high speed router and a new high speed bridge or network card?

I suck when it comes to this networking stuff, so any help would be appreciated.

[TheCommodoreAfro]

Originally posted by Buff@Sep 11 2005, 01:56 AM
So the computer screen is still black? You can't do anything? Well first thing I suggest is to make sure that the monitor is properly plugged in to the power source, both on the outlet and the monitor. Check to make sure that the monitor is securely attached to the computer. Turn the monitor on.

Sorry if I am going through what seems to be painfully obvious steps, I once drove 1/2 hr to a clients to 'fix' their 'broken' computer and all I had to do was turn the monitor on!

If your monitor doesn't work after all of this, either the monitor has died, or the video card had died. Can you test the monitor on another computer? Can you test another monitor on the computer in question? If you can you'll get a better idea where the problem lies.

I suppose that I should have mentioned that I have a laptop. There isn't much I can do unless I borrow a monitor but the power goes on, and nothing happens...

Sounds not nice so I'm just going to take it in for repairs. But if anybody has any suggestions let me know.

[Buff]

Originally posted by Devils'Advocate@Sep 10 2005, 11:52 AM
I have a Linksys Wet11 wireless bridge and a Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless router.

With an ethernet cable plugged into the router, I'm getting 3.1 megabits per second.
Wireless, via the bridge, I'm getting 300 kilobites per second.

So I'm going 10 times faster with the cable.

I see that there are "high speed" routers on the market now using 802.11g, while my router and bridge are both using 802.11b. I presume that if I want to improve the wireless performance I'm going to have to purchase both a new high speed router and a new high speed bridge or network card?

I suck when it comes to this networking stuff, so any help would be appreciated.

In a nutshell, yes. Wireless-G is substantially faster than Wireless-B. I don't remember the stats and am too lazy to look them up, but it is quite a big difference.

I am curious as to why you have the wireless bridge. Do you not receive a strong enough signal from the wireless router? The bridge... is it your network card? Which setup do you have:

a)Router->Computer w/ wireless bridge installed
b)Router->Bridge->Computer w/wireless nic installed

I ask because I've heard people call their wireless nic a bridge before.

Also, you don't need to throw away or sell your wireless-b nic. It can still connect to the a wireless-g router, although, it will work on wireless-b speeds. It could come in handy if you want a second connection.

[Devils'Advocate]

The reason I have a wireless bridge is because the network card is BUILT INTO MY MAC. It's a G4 tower and thus has expansion slots; if I really wanted a wireless network card I could put one in. But the bridge gave me more flexibility. For example, I can also use the wireless bridge for the PS2 or other gaming systems.

So Wireless Router-->Wireless Bridge-->Built-in regular network card. So the wireless bridge sits on top of the computer (or PS2) and has an ethernet cable running from it to the network card.

I did check it out and 802.11b maxes out at 11Mbps while 802.11g maxes out at 54Mbps. However, I'm not sure why I'm getting a signal from Rogers at 3Mbps and that is getting dropped to 300Kbps over the wireless equipment. If it can handle 11Mpbs why is it only sending 300Kbps?

[Buff]

Crap, now you're really going to make me think. Isn't the differnce bits and bytes? I'm not certain at the moment. I'll look it up later and hopefully remember to post the info here.

EDIT: Uh, what Photon says below... (phew now I can play around instead of doing homework tonite!)

[photon]

Usually people use little b to denote bits and big B to denote Bytes to help with this kind of communication.

A 3Mbps connection is a theoretical maximum connection of 375KBps. Taking into account overhead, downloading something at 300KBps is reasonable for a 3Mbit Internet connection.

With my 7Mbit Shaw link, I rarely download over 820KBps even though my theoretical maximum is 875KBps.

http://www.dslreports.com/stest

Good place to do a speed test.

[DJRice]

Could be just me, but I dont notice any difference going from 512 to 1gig ram.
Is it just me? Im able to multitask fine with email, many browsers, mp3, msn, Photoshop, couple folders and still have 200+MB memory left. Do I really need this extra ram? Cause if I dont need it, Ill refund it and I could always use the money in my wallet on something more useful.

thx

[Flames_Gimp]

dont need iti for what you're applications are. i have a gig of ram, because I do lots of video editing and stuff, besides ram is pretty cheap these days.

[4X4]

Originally posted by DJRice@Sep 12 2005, 05:46 PM
Cause if I dont need it, Ill refund it and I could always use the money in my wallet on something more useful.

Such as?

[DJRice]

Originally posted by Flames_Gimp@Sep 12 2005, 05:52 PM
besides ram is pretty cheap these days.

not laptop ram lol. if it was desktop sure i would keep it, being 1/3 the price.

[ken0042]

With it being a laptop; what is involved in downgrading?

For example, if it has to be intalled in pairs, and only has 2 slots, you will lose any abillity to upgrade without replacing the RAM down the road. (And then having 512 MB of ram to throw away.)

From the apps you mention; 512 is plenty. But what if you get into something else 6 months from now; will you be kicking yourself?

[photon]

Usually with laptops there's a single RAM expansion slot, so downgrading would probably involve removing the RAM that's there (there's probably 512MB on board and a 512MB expansion card).

Just keep it, you won't get what it's worth and for the extra few buck you'll save it helps keep the laptop running with bigger programs in the future.

[nfotiu]

I am trying to help my neighbours install their Ipod. They had only USB 1.1 ports, so I told them to get a PCMCIA USB card. The card itself seems to work fine, I can use their printer, etc. But, as soon as I put the Ipod in, the computer just freezes. I've uninstalled and re-installed everything Ipod related. Made sure all the USB drivers were the most updated, any ideas?

[Wolfwood]

Originally posted by nfotiu@Sep 19 2005, 10:08 AM
I am trying to help my neighbours install their Ipod. They had only USB 1.1 ports,

Does the Ipod show up okay if you plug it into a USB 1.1 port or does it still crash the system?

[nfotiu]

Originally posted by Wolfwood@Sep 19 2005, 10:17 AM
Does the Ipod show up okay if you plug it into a USB 1.1 port or does it still crash the system?

It gives an error about not being able to be used on USB 1.1, but doesn't crash the PC.

[Wolfwood]

Are you in ITunes when you connect the device and the computer crashes or do you have the IPod connected and then go into itunes?

Does it work alright on a different computer?

[VANFLAMESFAN]

I can no longer check my email, i cannot check my bank info, I cannot check anything that has personal info......when I try to log into MSN, it wont let me, so I troubleshoot it, and it says there is a problem with my norton intenet security, so I went to open it, and my subscription has expired, then I went to re-new it online and when I went to the checkout, it would not let me enter in my credit card info, it just said the page could not be found.............

Any help would be awesome, this is gettin really frustrating to me, Ive spent the last 2 hours trying to figure it out, Im makin no progress......

PLEASE HELP!!!!

[InTheSlot]

I'm relaying a message I get from my brother.

He said yesterday night when he was on his PC it was running fine. This morning he goes to turn it on, it loads up ok, but when he tries to start some programs like AIM and Internet Explorer, he gets an error message for both that says: "The application failed to initialize. 0xc0000022".

He also gets this message for programs like WeatherBug too. However, other programs like WinAmp and even playing Poker seem to work fine.


To my knowledge he hasn't installed anything lately. I also did a virus scan which removed a few viruses but that didn't fix it. I also ran HiJack this to remove any spyware that might be on his computer but still the problem persists.


Anyone have any ideas for solutions? Thanks in advance.

[ricosuave]

Originally posted by VANFLAMESFAN@Sep 23 2005, 02:51 AM
I can no longer check my email, i cannot check my bank info, I cannot check anything that has personal info......when I try to log into MSN, it wont let me, so I troubleshoot it, and it says there is a problem with my norton intenet security, so I went to open it, and my subscription has expired, then I went to re-new it online and when I went to the checkout, it would not let me enter in my credit card info, it just said the page could not be found.............

Any help would be awesome, this is gettin really frustrating to me, Ive spent the last 2 hours trying to figure it out, Im makin no progress......

PLEASE HELP!!!!

is the date and time correct?

maybe your motherboard battery is going

[Calgary Flames]

I got a new PC not too long ago, and have waited to ask this.. don't know why. It has a 200gb HD but it only shows up as 127gb in Bios and in Windows.

Here's what i've done.

-Installed new service packs
-Installed Maxtor's big drive enabler
-Installed newer bios

Anyone experience the same problem with a Maxtor 200gb drive?