Posted: 2/17/2015 9:58:55 AM EDT
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Hey, guys - we have a ton of laptops in my family. I have a great 2 year old alienware with windows 7, my kids and wife all have toshibas and an acer with windows 8.1. For some reason they ALWAYS have trouble with internet, they often can't get pages to load and when they will load it's really, really slow. Meanwhile I almost never have problems. We have satellite internet (exede), and we're running on a belkin n450 router. I'm getting really tired of everyone having to borrow my laptop for work and school because theirs isn't working. Any ideas on what might be slowing them down but not affecting me? |
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I'm going to ask the dumb question here: are the Win8 laptops connecting via Wireless or wire?
Does the problem change if you switch to using wired vs wireless? If wireless: What protocol, speed? (I'm not a fan of Belkin routers: the last 2 I played with were unstable or defective. Others have had better success. Just my experience.) |
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Quoted:
Hey, guys - we have a ton of laptops in my family. I have a great 2 year old alienware with windows 7, my kids and wife all have toshibas and an acer with windows 8.1. For some reason they ALWAYS have trouble with internet, they often can't get pages to load and when they will load it's really, really slow. Meanwhile I almost never have problems. We have satellite internet (exede), and we're running on a belkin n450 router. I'm getting really tired of everyone having to borrow my laptop for work and school because theirs isn't working. Any ideas on what might be slowing them down but not affecting me? Does you alienware have an intel wireless card? What about the other laptops? |
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Thanks, all - We're all connecting wirelessly. The router's on the top shelf of a hallway closet, connecting w/ a wire would be impractical. Alienware (the system with no problems and windows 7) has Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230 Wife's Acer (windows 8.1) has broadcom 802.11n network adapter. Both kids have Toshibas (windows 8.1) with Realtek RTL8188E Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC |
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Quoted:
Thanks, all - We're all connecting wirelessly. The router's on the top shelf of a hallway closet, connecting w/ a wire would be impractical. Alienware (the system with no problems and windows 7) has Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230 Wife's Acer (windows 8.1) has broadcom 802.11n network adapter. Both kids have Toshibas (windows 8.1) with Realtek RTL8188E Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC Now bear in mind that there could be other solutions to your problem, but I have a feeling that the non intel wireless cards in the other laptops are the weak link here. Since you alineware connects without any problem I don't see the router as being the problem. IMO, not intel wireless cards are usually more problematic regarding connectivity, signal strength, and performance. Assuming the other laptops do not have other wireless cards blacklisted, you may want to consider replacing their wireless cards with intel replacements. |
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Quoted:
Thanks, all - We're all connecting wirelessly. The router's on the top shelf of a hallway closet, connecting w/ a wire would be impractical. Impractical? Yes. Key to fixing this issue? Yes. Connected of the offending laptops with a network cable and see of the problems go away. Yes you might be inconvenienced for a few min. This will tell you if it's a wireless problem or not. |
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Quoted:
Impractical? Yes. Key to fixing this issue? Yes. Connected of the offending laptops with a network cable and see of the problems go away. Yes you might be inconvenienced for a few min. This will tell you if it's a wireless problem or not. Quoted:
Quoted:
Thanks, all - We're all connecting wirelessly. The router's on the top shelf of a hallway closet, connecting w/ a wire would be impractical. Impractical? Yes. Key to fixing this issue? Yes. Connected of the offending laptops with a network cable and see of the problems go away. Yes you might be inconvenienced for a few min. This will tell you if it's a wireless problem or not. OOOhh, that's a great idea! Never even thought of plugging one of the stuck laptops directly into the router - that would tell me instantly if hte problem is the laptops having trouble with my home network. Thanks! |