S and K.

Mimo I have tried. It was no better and any device that needs a card, if that is what 802.11N does, will be no help with the PDA.

" then connected to that via an Ethernet cable a wireless AP"

Sorry, but you'll be getting bored with my constraints, but one of them is that there is no way we'd want to lay an ethernet cable from one end of the flat to another.

I need to find a solution that uses the cables for mains and phones that we have.

If I leave my existing Belkin ADSL modem and wireless router in situ in my study at one end of the apartment and connected a similar device to the phone socket - using the same line - in the room at the other end of the apartment what problem of confliction would I have?

If it was simply a matter of turning them on and off depending where I was working it would not be a big deal.

TP

TP, 802.11n does not need new cards in PCs or PDA's, I am surprised at your findings using MIMO as its has hugly more ability to hold high data rates over longer distances (I have had it make a connection from about 100 meters from my house) the correct placement of the Ariel's is important (there are normally 3 on mimo units).

Using the mains Ethernet should work OK but remember that I dont think you have yet found out why your wireless setup does not work properly you need to be sure whats not working.

Using 2 separate wireless APs or routers is a recipe for problems and conflicts on wireless Chanel's. With a single ADLS line you cant have both modems active one would have to be a AP.

Good luck not much more I can suggest.

"802.11n does not need new cards in PCs or PDA's"

Are you saying that my existing PDA will then be able to pick up 11n then?

" I am surprised at your findings using MIMO"

I seem to have created a barrier half way down the flat that would impress MI5 or the ultimate bug detectors.

When you said
"TP that sounds like a recipe for disaster to me,"

I thought you were refering to when I said "I already have a pair of those Devlo jobbies that transmit an ethernet signal though the mains"

But in your last message you said "Using the mains Ethernet should work OK"

Have you had second thoughts or did I misunderstand your earlier post?

I don't intend to try it today but at least I already have the Devlo kit and a spare WiFi router to put at the other end. In the light of any cleverer or simpler solution it could remain on my list of possibilities - until it then screws up my TiVo that is also working through the mains when it dials in each day.........

Life is full of challenges - to say nothing about making money out of shares....

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

TP

I've altered my register settings as Kayak kindly suggested in order to request 16 files at a time. I reckon things are loading faster but it's hard to say as my 8meg connection is running at 1.89meg at the moment (groan). How will we ever get to higher broadband speeds with the present telephone wires???

"802.11n does not need new cards in PCs or PDA's" Are you saying that my existing PDA will then be able to pick up 11n then?

Answer
I would not say it like that but In affect Yes

" I am surprised at your findings using MIMO" I seem to have created a barrier half way down the flat that would impress MI5 or the ultimate bug detectors.

Answer
This could be related to the devlo but I dont thinks thats likely, do you have anything thats large and metal and plugged into the mains there? Devlo can cause EMI on the mains and this could be concentrated here. Anything else that producing EMI? eg a DECT base station, A Mobile mast bolted on the outside wall etc

When you said "TP that sounds like a recipe for disaster to me," I thought you were refering to when I said "I already have a pair of those Devlo jobbies that transmit an ethernet signal though the mains" But in your last message you said "Using the mains Ethernet should work OK" Have you had second thoughts or did I misunderstand your earlier post?

Answer
The thing that I thinks sounds like a disaster is using multiple wifi transmitters in a flat, the delvo shoudl work but it will probably make the radio spectrum in your flat more complex and thus more likely to have problems.

Bolshi, your telephone wires are fine, you posted you were connecting at 8192Kb/s and that is the most you will connect at with BT at present. The throughput issue is a different one. It could be due to congestion at the exchange or at the ISP. To determine which you need to try the tests on Kitz's site. They bypass the ISP so if you get perfect speeds with them the problem is with the ISP, and if you get the same results then it is congestion at the exchange.

S.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I'll keep experimenting.

TP

Kayak:
Finally got the BT wholesale speed tester to work.

They report a speed of 699 kbps

I did a standard BT help desktop speed test straight after and it came up with 0.878Meg

This all at 8-45pm.

Those are pretty dire speeds Bolshi. They indicate the exchange is overloaded. BT wholesale don't guarantee 8Mb/s throughout the day but they have said people should expect at least 2Mb/s at busy times. Your result is much lower. Repeat the BT wholesale test a few more times, once late at night, and then complain to BT. Mind you they probably already realise and will do something about it eventually.

Bolshi, do you get obvious crackling noises on your phone line when making voice calls? If so and especially if this happens after its been raining then I suspect you have some bad cabling somwhere between your house and the exchange.

I havnt read all your posts but if you get crackling noises and you have tried using your ADSL from the master connection in your house (BT will only take this connection as definative) then you need to report the fault and you will need to be very persistant. BT will do everything that they can to avoid rewing but if your persistant they will do it in the end (I think they have to). Try reporting the fault as a voice problem and it does not do much harm to exagerate the effect of the crackling, this fault is almost alway intermittant anyway.

His modem connects at 8192 Spaceman as per his stats, it's a throughput issue rather than a sync speed issue.

I had a problem with my work portable PC today when the hard drive failed. I have backups of most of my files but there were a few I wanted to get if possible.

I read some time ago about using linux in these situations so I downloaded knoppix and made a bootable CD with it (Knoppix is designed to use the CD-ROM and a RAM disk to run and it does not install anything on the hard drive). Using knoppix I was able to mount (unix talk) the hard drive and copy the files I needed off the machine and onto a usb hard drive.

A cheap and faily easy way of doing some basic data recovery.

Sorry K, I hadnt read all his posts, intermittant bad link could still be part of the problem ?

Could be, but the BT wholesale speed test is pretty abysmal so I think it is probably just exchange congestion. It's all very well upgrading everyone from 2Mb/s to 8Mb/s but the network will need upgrading too...

Morning lads. Finally got on line.
Spaceman. No crackling on line. Very clear. Although I may have to use this type of bargaining chip later !! Thx for the idea.

Kayak. Strange thing is that this morning Ive had intermittent failure of the Internet link for most of this morning. I suspect theres a problem and hopefully someone at BT is aware and is dealing (forever the optimist yknow).

I am testing, and listing the tests, as you suggest. I was loath to report it to BT at the moment because were off on a 2 week jaunt to the States tomorrow. They tend to email you with the standard If we dont hear from you within 48 hours we will assume that the problem no longer exists type of thing. So I think Ill need to be by the PC while they sort it out.

Thanks for info about the 2 meg minimum. I wasnt aware of that. One of the most irritating things was when I ran the speed test from BT desktop help, it gave the speed of less than a meg followed by the statement we think this is an acceptable speed for your line Roflol.

Megabits? Megabits? By the 'eck, tha' were lucky. Out here in the backwoods of Berkshire I get 512 kilobits and grateful for 'em. :)

Hiya,

Has anyone any suggestions? One of my computers scrambles a few times a day.

It is brand new ...a Dell 670 Precision dual processor with Quadro FX3450 and two wide screens. It is only running am terminal and CMC platform. It has scrambled several times a day since I had it. We know there is nothing wrong with the card as we tried another Dell in it's place and the same scambled screens happened.

I have another Dell 650 Precision dual processor beside it with ordinary dual screen graphics card and two ordinary flat screen monitors running tons of stuff and never had a problem. This computer runs a lower version of Java but it didn't help when we tried changing to the same Java version on the newer computer. The problem is worse if we run XP 64bit.

Any suggestions?
Thanks
Di

Bolshi, yes I think they say the minimum speed is 800kbps if you connect at more than 2Mb/s. If you're at the lower end of that though you should be able to get someone to listen.

Dynamite, what exactly do you mean by scrambled? Is it garbled like a badly tuned TV, are you seeing lines transposed in a regular fashion or text jumbled up or irregular patterns of pixels? Does the processor stop or is it just that the screen becomes garbled but still updates?

Not sure what you mean by "we tried another Dell in it's place". Do you mean that you put the screens on another Dell with another card, or that you put the card and screens on another Dell?

First port of call would probably be to update the display driver from the manufacturer's website and also check that both the card and the monitors are correctly identified by name in System Devices.

Anyway always look at the positive side. It could have fried rather than scrambled :-)

Very Good Kayak, no not fried, everything carries on updating but with missing lumps that are white and bits of terminal for instance stuck in the middle of CMC. As they update things come back but other bits of the screen go walkabout. So I am left with for example AAL prices on CMC with no trade buttons or trade buttons and no prices.

We tried another Dell computer with the screens and with another card and the same thing happened...hmmm could it be the wide screens then as we haven't tried other screens?
'First port of call would probably be to update the display driver from the manufacturer's website and also check that both the card and the monitors are correctly identified by name in System Devices.' Done all this.
It's all very annoying.

Thank you for your help Kayak.
Di :-)