Internet tip

[lolsteve]

So we're on 60mb virgin broadband however through talks with my housemate the only time we've been able to access anything near that speed is at 4am. Not ideal. Also the internet lag spikes quite frequently during gaming again not ideal.

So we decided to try and go for the Ethernet route the cable was £3 so fk it worth a shot, since 7 people are trying to get access to one box we thought that maybe it's all the ins/outs that's causing the problem. So two of us have switched to direct Ethernet cables and wow what a difference.
Instant 57mb with a 8ms ping that doesn't fluctuate at 9pm on a sunday when only 10 minutes before hand we were on 17mb with a ping that jumped from 8-150ms.

This probably doesn't mean a lot to many of you but anyone who is a student/shared house with internet problems might find that a £3 cable and 20 minutes of tearing up carpet with a couple of beers might find themselves in a better situation

[306Puggy]

Yeah mate, also I can recommend Powerline adapters if your room is too far from the router they are really good. I get 200mbps throughput with mine consistantly and they never drop out. Just don't get TP-Link ones as they drop out every five minutes or so. had me going mad at my ISP for connectivity problems until I traced it to the Powerline adapters. I have Devolo ones now, highly recommended. For my gaming needs wireless really isn't an option anyway.

[Grant]

200 mbps Downloads speed? Or 200mbps Line speed?

[Scott]

200mbps LAN he means Grant

Steve you should be able to get full speed over wireless, you'll just need to make sure you have a decent router and wireless card on your laptop. I'm guessing you're using the VM router though?

[WiNgNuTz]

200mbps LAN he means Grant

Steve you should be able to get full speed over wireless, you'll just need to make sure you have a decent router and wireless card on your laptop. I'm guessing you're using the VM router though?

Damn, you beat me to it.

When i moved into my current place, i had an old (about 2-3 years) WiFi card in my PC, which was surplus to requirements at the old house, as the landlord didnt give out the wifi key as there were lan sockets in our rooms, so i was hard wired. My connection to the wireless router in the new house wasn't great, but was good enough for what i was using. When that adapter died, i obviously replaced it with a new one, and found that the connection strength was greatly improved! I now regularly see speeds of about 34Mbit/sec, whereas the old card only saw speeds of about 22.

[C.A.R.]

VM 'not-so-Super' Hub is it?

Yea, that'll be your problem

I'm on BT and the PS3 is hard-wired to the router...

[r3k1355]

It's gotta be hard wired on high speed broadband, wireless just can't cut it.

You get all sorts of problems with signal reception that cut the speed, then thats usually compounded by the router which often has insufficient antennae to support many users.

But people look at their computer and it says it's 'connected at xyz speed' so they assume it's a problem elsewhere.

[silverzx]

Wired > wireless.

[Grant]

200mbps LAN he means Grant

Was gonna say....

[me-tm]

Wait, what?

You were trying to use wireless for gaming?

*facepalm*

[silverzx]

Wait, what?

You were trying to use wireless for gaming?

*facepalm*

Once a nub, always a nub.

[lolsteve]

We've been "upgraded" to the superhub 2 which in a nutshell has done diddley f**k. Last year in a house of 4 we had 3 on wireless gaming etc and even at peak time it was fine , maybe this year 7 computers + phones, xbox etc is just too much.
I really thought that the whole N rated wifi adapters/router would be as good as wired nowadays. we've spent ages on the phone with virgin asking why we don't have 60mb when they said we would and them turning the superhub on and off a million times all seems so silly now when we should have just plugged in
Also been using wireless for gaming for years now and never had any real problems til this house

[mr_fish]

In student areas Virgin are useless. We had it in our uni house and it worked but was dog slow...got cut off a couple times (yes the bill was paid), got fed up in the end and complained loads. Managed to leave and sign up with BT infinity....what a difference

[r3k1355]

Our Student Virgin was a piece of shit as well.

The engineer eventually came out and told us they'd so oversubscribed the area that the VM gear couldn't hack it, and until it was all upgraded there was nothing we could do.

I called back, complained and got the account cut to the lowest package and the account reimbursed, then stopped paying the bill as we didn't owe anything more on the rest of the contract.

[Eeyore]

wired is the way forwards. My mobile data has just been shut down after an evening of my pc being tethered to it. So ive just had to pay £40 for the month to connect to the local BT OpenZone wifi!

[Pug-Mike]

just phone them and complain haha

[Ruan]

Wireless is never really a valid option unless it's purely for places that have WiFi hotspots...

To make Wireless viable you need a GOOD adapter, good antenna and a GOOD AP on the other end, only then will you see remotely acceptable speeds.