So i'm using a Desktop USB wifi adapter and when i first bought it Early this month (September 1st) it was working great, my speeds normally averaged 1mb/s on steam and regular downloads. Youtube was blistering quick with no stop/pauses to buffer. Since a week and a half ago it suddenly slowed to a crawl. CSS ping is abysmal ranging between 400-900 at all times. Youtube is a pain now to watch and downloads regularly are only 3 kb/s to the highest at 70ish kb/s.

I downloaded a driver for my adapter from the company and it shows alot more data about my connection such as link quality and throughput. My quality is hovering around 88-mid 90's. The router is only 20ish feet away and travels through only one wall and one wall of glass. My signal strength is thus always very good or excellent. I've tried every USB port, poking around every setting, googled my way everywhere over the past week and a half and got no where. I'm started to think my adapter is kicking the can since it's a cheap Tenda adapter.

I doubt that the provider is throttling. It's a more business catered provider called Paetec Communications according to speedtest. Another thing worth noting is that my ping on speedtest (although i know it's not fully accurate) is always stupid high even in my home server city.

Any thoughts? I'm running XP

First thing that comes to mind is to check if it's a problem with your local network. How is the latency if you ping your router or another device inside your LAN? Ping inside a small LAN should be 10 ms tops. You can also try rebooting your router...

here's some info i got from Run NDT lab. Maybe someone could decrypt this network hieroglyphics lol. I've restarted several times out of normality and pinging to the router i get 1ms

Your system: Windows XP version 5.1
Java version: 1.7.0_07 (x86)

TCP receive window: 65536 current, 65536 maximum
1.0E-6 packets lost during test
Round trip time: 483 msec (minimum), 998 msec (maximum), 809.88 msec (average)
Jitter: 515 msec
0 seconds spend waiting following a timeout
TCP time-out counter: 1121
0 selective acknowledgement packets received

No duplex mismatch condition was detected.
The test did not detect a cable fault.
No network congestion was detected.
No network address translation appliance was detected.

0.4253% of the time was not spent in a receiver limited or sender limited state.
53.25% of the time the connection is limited by the client machine's receive buffer.
Optimal receive buffer: 67108864 bytes
0 duplicate ACKs set


WEB100 Kernel Variables:
Client: localhost/127.0.0.1
CurMSS: 1400
X_Rcvbuf: 87380
X_Sndbuf: 174336
AckPktsIn: 193
AckPktsOut: 0
BytesRetrans: 0
CongAvoid: 0
CongestionOverCount: 0
CongestionSignals: 0
CountRTT: 193
CurCwnd: 67200
CurRTO: 1121
CurRwinRcvd: 65536
CurRwinSent: 5888
CurSsthresh: 2147483647
DSACKDups: 0
DataBytesIn: 0
DataBytesOut: 598524
DataPktsIn: 0
DataPktsOut: 423
DupAcksIn: 0
ECNEnabled: 0
FastRetran: 0
MaxCwnd: 67200
MaxMSS: 1400
MaxRTO: 1469
MaxRTT: 998
MaxRwinRcvd: 65536
MaxRwinSent: 5888
MaxSsthresh: 0
MinMSS: 1400
MinRTO: 1107
MinRTT: 483
MinRwinRcvd: 65536
MinRwinSent: 5840
NagleEnabled: 1
OtherReductions: 0
PktsIn: 193
PktsOut: 423
PktsRetrans: 0
RcvWinScale: 7
SACKEnabled: 3
SACKsRcvd: 0
SendStall: 0
slowStart: 46
SampleRTT: 879
SmoothedRTT: 866
SndWinScale: 1
SndLimTimeRwin: 5407235
SndLimTimeCwnd: 4319288
SndLimTimeSender: 428380
SndLimTransRwin: 1
SndLimTransCwnd: 7
SndLimTransSender: 7
SndLimBytesRwin: 414640
SndLimBytesCwnd: 166140
SndLimBytesSender: 17744
SubsequentTimeouts: 0
SumRTT: 156306
Timeouts: 0
TimestampsEnabled: 0
WinScaleRcvd: 1
WinScaleSent: 7
DupAcksOut: 0
StartTimeUsec: 658021 D
uration: 10156289
c2sData: 2
c2sAck: 2
s2cData: 8
s2cAck: 2
half_duplex: 0
link: 100
congestion: 0
bad_cable: 0
mismatch: 0
spd: 0.47
bw: 13.19
loss: 0.000001000
avgrtt: 809.88
waitsec: 0.00
timesec: 10.00
order: 0.0000
rwintime: 0.5325
sendtime: 0.0422
cwndtime: 0.4253
rwin: 0.5000
swin: 1.3301
cwin: 0.5127
rttsec: 0.809876
Sndbuf: 174336
aspd: 0.00000
CWND-Limited:
39.30
minCWNDpeak: -1
maxCWNDpeak: -1
CWNDpeaks: -1

The theoretical network limit is 13.19 Mbps
The NDT server has a 85.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 1.64 Mbps
Your PC/Workstation has a 64.0 KByte buffer which limits the throughput to 0.61 Mbps
The network based flow control limits the throughput to 0.63 Mbps
Client Data reports link is 'T1',
Client Acks report link is 'T1'
Server Data reports link is 'OC-48',
Server Acks report link is 'T1'

You could probably use tracert tool to find the bottleneck. Type something like "tracert -w 1500 youtube.com" and look for a hop on the way which takes long to respond.

Thanks madcat will try when i get home tonight


EDIT: I think i fixed it. I went about changing the region channels and etc to 1-11 and then i unchecked a couple of stuff and when using tracert, i don't get crazy high 500+ ping anymore. yaaaaay

The joy of wireless !, microwave ovens, channel ( which you seem to have found ) as neighbours wifi can affect yours, position of the moon and venus etc.....

Are you running g or n as n gives better performance. What router/ access point are you running, log onto it and ensure that it's set to perform the same as your usb plug, i.e. if its g then set it to perform to only g, same for n.

Sacrificing a goat in a pentogram seems to also help.........

Basicly, ensure that the access point/modem is setup to perform at peak and playing with channels is the best you can do. Also try moving the access point to give good coverage, mount it on a wall or clear line of sight. Windows are ok, but concrete, iron roofs, etc all reduce performance. If you don't have a significant other or parents, run an eithernet cable and try not to fall over it as that gives the best performance.

I'm just going to assume that it was fixed yesterday. Got home and discovered it's been renamed and set back to Channel 11. The night before there was a power outtage and the router got reset and put back to channel 1. Since last night my speed shot up on steam to 1.9 mb/s

A power outage won't do that, it will turn off and restart, or fry itself.

What will do that is someone using the reset button on the back.

Either your house is haunted or someone there reset it.