USB Adapter - Sudden Connection and Speed Problems

[Lilabrae]

Hi all. I'm brand new to the community, just signed up as I don't know what else to do, so please forgive me if I've missed something!

For about the last week I have been having serious problems with my wireless internet connection.

I am running Windows 7 on a custom built PC. Ivy Bridge quad core processor, 8gb RAM (not sure how helpful this information is but I'm trying to be thorough). I am connecting to the network via a wireless USB adapter. It’s a Belkin N300 micro adapter and has been absolutely no problem since I installed it a couple of months ago.

ISP is Sky and the router is Sagem (not having much luck finding out the model number, I'm afraid).

I woke up about a week ago and my speed was suddenly non-existent, gone from 1mbps to about 40kbps. Ping tests come back with a lot of loss.

Since then, I have had trouble connecting to the network at all (sometimes it will, sometimes it won’t – no regular pattern). When I can connect the speed is atrocious, anywhere between 0.5kbps and 200kbps (very rarely), and sometimes I can’t even load Google, despite my network signal being at full strength and saying I'm connected. Sometimes it says it’s connected and yet I can’t even ping the router.

There is no new interference, nothing has changed in the layout of my house, we have no new phones or microwaves. All other devices on the network are fine (one hard wired PC, 2 laptops and 2 phones - iPhone and BlackBerry).

It connects via ethernet perfectly. Using the adapter downstairs in the same room as the router is also perfect, so I was lead to believe there was some sort of sudden distance issue, but why would that be after months of it being perfect? As I said, absolutely nothing has changed. I live in a house, not an apartment block so there should be no interference with other routers and it's been fine for months.

I have spent hours over the last week Googling and trying everything I can think of. I have searched many posts on this forum from people with very similar problems but nothing that worked for them has worked for me. I am a complete layman, need step by step instructions as if to a five year old, but have tried:

- Changed channels on the router.
- Reset router, modem, adapter and PC countless times.
- Uninstalled and re-installed the adapter.
- Updated adapter drivers.
- Tried every cmd ipconfig I could find (renew, dnsflush, winsock, stacks etc).
- Set to Google DNS.
- Changed network security and encryption.
- Uninstalled and re-installed AVG.
- Run two different spyware programs.

I am tearing my hair out now. I can’t work, I can’t surf, I can’t stream, I am so frustrated I want to cry 🙁 Please help! Thank you.

 

[ttjambe]

Do you have other wireless adapters? It looks like you've done most of the troubleshooting short of sorting through the individual packets with captures software looking for corruption. Chances are something burnt out in the adapter. By reset, do you mean a complete reinstall and a factory default settings restore? Some newer routers let you configure the priority for each device.

 

[Lilabrae]

Thanks for replying!

Unfortunately not at the moment, but I did order a fairly cheap new one so I can test that (I'd rather fix this and end up with two adapters that work than not spend the money and not be able fix the problem).

I did a complete reinstall/factory reset of the adapter (twice) but I'm worried about touching the router in case the ISP gets a bit funny about helping with future problems (I've heard stories). It's about two years old now, I think, and I've not come across any priority configuration settings in the admin panel, but I can have a hunt just in case.