Need help from an internet tech wizz.

[55Jay]

49 minutes ago, xylophone said:

It would seem that the explanation by RichCor has a lot of merit

Often does, at least to my recollection.  Glad you got it working, or at least figured it out. 

[rijb]

"It was BitDefender. It comes with a built in firewall (which I did not anticipate) and apparently, when it is first installed, it changes the settings on the network adapter on the pc it is installed on. In other words, it chokes the adapter with security that you would only want on a public network, not on a home network.

The solution: Open the firewall settings, go to the "Adapters" tab, and change the "Network Type" to "Trusted" (instead of Home/Office or Public), change the "Stealth Mode" to "Remote" (had to read a bunch of FAQ's on their web site to discover that one) and set the "Generic" to "On". That last one basically tells BitDefender to not look for any specific adapter type."

[xylophone]

13 hours ago, rijb said:

"It was BitDefender. It comes with a built in firewall (which I did not anticipate) and apparently, when it is first installed, it changes the settings on the network adapter on the pc it is installed on. In other words, it chokes the adapter with security that you would only want on a public network, not on a home network

Thank you for that feedback, but my Bitdefender has been installed for some time and is not a recent addition so I don't know that that would apply? HOWEVER it does bring me onto another subject which you've mentioned and you may be able to help with..........what setting do I put my laptop on with regards to the type of network it is connected to?

 

It's not a work connection because I don't know anybody here and I don't know which other computers are being used on the network. It's hardly a home network because there are eight or nine computers being used on the same network by people who come and go and that leaves the public network which could be relative to my situation because there are people coming and going in my little apartment block, all of them connecting to the same Wi-Fi router.

 

Not sure what my setting should be in this situation? Any suggestions would be most welcome and I will also look into the tweaks on Bitdefender that you suggested.

[xylophone]

15 hours ago, RichCor said:

Something to try set the new wireless adapter to a slower speed 54Mbps (802.11g) if that works then increase speed until you start getting problems again.

Not sure how I would go about that RichCor as I didn't see any place for adjustment on the things or anything in the literature suggesting that this could be changed, and of course I don't have access to the Wi-Fi router.

 

Perhaps I am best off leaving things as they are now with my original 150 Mbps USB adapter doing its stuff?

[Encid]

Just now, RichCor said:

If someone really wants to improve their wireless network performance I'd suggest going for a USB adapter with an external antenna, preferably a 'directional/panel' rather than an omni-directional stick.

The TP-Link 300 Mbps Wi-Fi Range Extender- AV500 Powerline Edition does a fantastic job without an external antenna.

[Encid]

Just now, xylophone said:

Perhaps I am best off leaving things as they are now with my original 150 Mbps USB adapter doing its stuff?

If it aint broke don't try to fix it!

Are you still getting buffering?

 

Just now, xylophone said:

It's hardly a home network because there are eight or nine computers being used on the same network by people who come and go and that leaves the public network which could be relative to my situation because there are people coming and going in my little apartment block, all of them connecting to the same Wi-Fi router.

Have you tried to log in to the router?

[xylophone]

7 minutes ago, Encid said:

If it aint broke don't try to fix it!

Are you still getting buffering?

 

Have you tried to log in to the router?

Trying to fix something that wasn't REALLY broke was what got me into trouble in the first place and means of got an extra high-power USB wireless adapter which I don't really need!

 

As far as I can tell, the buffering is back to where it was before and is very minimal and then only sometimes. My old USB adapter is now back up and running and everything seems fine.

 

And as I did ask another helpful person here, what should I have my Windows firewall set at (home network, work or public), as I am in a block of eight apartments with holidaymakers who come and go?

 

Thanks again for your help.

[johng]

3 hours ago, xylophone said:

Not sure how I would go about that RichCor as I didn't see any place for adjustment on the things or

[xylophone]

Below is the best I could do Johng and try as I might I couldn't get the pic onto the thread, so there is a link to the Word document............. and as you can see, it doesn't have the value options or the property options as shown in your example.

However as I said earlier, perhaps it is best to let things stay as they are because if I stuff around too much with my computer, god only knows what I'll do!!

 

The current TP Link adapter is rated at 150 Mbps and when I open up its status when it's in situ, it shows 65 Mbps.......... so perhaps I should be satisfied with that?

 

TP Link settings.docx

[johng]

here is the picture   transmit and receive buffers  look interesting    have you dug around in the other  tabs  ?

 

[xylophone]

37 minutes ago, johng said:

here is the picture   transmit and receive buffers  look interesting    have you dug around in the other  tabs  ?

 

Hi again Johng.........no I haven't dug into anything else because I really don't know what I would be doing and knowing my luck, I could well cause the entire World Wide Web to crash in one fell swoop!

 

So far so good and back to square one and by the way, as mentioned by RichCor, I got onto the TP Link website and did download another driver, however the product itself is deemed an "end of life" product so has no support. It looks like Powerbuy are selling outdated/equipment and when I mentioned this to them yesterday basically they couldn't give a sh*t......oh well only to be expected here.

 

May be best to call this thread to a halt because everything is working okay now (and I am a little wiser thanks to the feedback) however once again I would like to thank all the people who did come to my aid, and especially you and RichCor.....very much appreciated, thank you.

[johng]

3 minutes ago, xylophone said:

however the product itself is deemed an "end of life" product so has no support. It looks like Powerbuy are selling outdated/equipment and when I mentioned this to them yesterday basically they couldn't give a sh*t

I would disagree slightly with you there  about "end of life"     you are using windows 7  TP-LInk provides drivers for windows 7

but you seem to have  either    some sort of configuration problem   or the adaptor itself might be dodgy...if you try connecting to another (different) WiFi Hotspot  or try the adaptor on another computer you could narrow down which is which... if its less than 7 days since you bought it they have to exchange or give your money back.

[xylophone]

3 hours ago, johng said:

I would disagree slightly with you there  about "end of life"     you are using windows 7  TP-LInk provides drivers for windows 7

but you seem to have  either    some sort of configuration problem   or the adaptor itself might be dodgy...if you try connecting to another (different) WiFi Hotspot  or try the adaptor on another computer you could narrow down which is which... if its less than 7 days since you bought it they have to exchange or give your money back.

Hi again,

 

On the TP link website the product is not available and is stamped "end of life" and you cannot find it by going through the products available route, just by looking in the archives so to speak.

 

Well it did work, but as RichCor has suggested, it created its own problem because of the way my Wi-Fi is configured at the apartments.

 

Nothing really I can do about it other than to give it to a friend, because as you know taking something back and getting a refund here is tantamount to pulling teeth, so I have learned to leave well enough alone next time!

 

Thanks again for your help and perhaps the moderators would consider closing this now as the problem has been solved thanks to you good people.

[Encid]

Just now, xylophone said:

I got onto the TP Link website and did download another driver, however the product itself is deemed an "end of life" product so has no support

I had a similar problem when trying to get the latest drivers/support software for my TP-Link Powerline adapter.

The website defaults to geo-location Thailand, so I went to the Australian website and downloaded the software from their archives instead.

[Peterw42]

OP, the big thing you are missing, and a few people have mentioned it, any wifi device will only transfer data at the speed its coming from the internet. If the internet connection speed is 20mbps, thats it, a 20mbps wifi adapter or a 300 mbps adapter, the speed from the internet (20mbps)will be the same. 

Even if the 300mbps adapter worked, you would not notice any difference.

I would say the difference in adapters buffering etc, is to do with router settings and the 300mbps adapter operates on N wifi standard and the old one probably G wifi standard. 

If its an apartment or hotel wifi that requires a logon via a webpage etc, that usually means they have speed and data restrictions, and may slow wifi N traffic.

[Jai Dee]

Just now, xylophone said:

Thanks again for your help and perhaps the moderators would consider closing this now as the problem has been solved thanks to you good people.

We don't normally close topics unless 1) it gets out of hand and is difficult to moderate, or 2) it contravenes Forum Rules, or 3) the OP specifically requests it for privacy reasons or similar.

 

There are some very helpful posts in this topic... I'd recommend we leave it open.

[xylophone]

29 minutes ago, Jai Dee said:

We don't normally close topics unless 1) it gets out of hand and is difficult to moderate, or 2) it contravenes Forum Rules, or 3) the OP specifically requests it for privacy reasons or similar.

 

There are some very helpful posts in this topic... I'd recommend we leave it open.

Wasn't sure of the rules/protocols Jai Dee and I agree with you regarding the posts as there are some very knowledgeable people posting here.