[Mizafim]

For those of you who are aware, I've got a pretty messed up network at home. For the unaware, the basic setup is this: my dad's computer and laptop go through a Linksys WRT54G V8.00 router by ethernet cables, which connect to the main router, also a WRT54G. This one has wireless turned on, and so my laptop, my sister's laptop, and my PS3 connect through this, as well as my desktop by ethernet, and the main router, in turn, is hooked directly to my Speedstream modem. This, however, isn't the immediate issue.

So, as you can see, with six devices running at any given moment, it's getting a little...slow around here. Downloads that should take minutes are taking significantly longer than that, but I'm not sure whether it's my ISP (Bell's given us the runaround before, and deserves a kick in the teeth for it), or the fact that my router's dealing with six devices. Used to be I could stream videos with fairly minimal wait. Now it takes ages to stream a thirty second clip.

I'll admit to having a better-than-average understanding of networks and the like, but it's not up to snuff with what I imagine some of you have, so I'm here to ask if anyone here knows if I'm overtaxing my router, and if so, what kind of replacement I should be looking for (uber-gaming routers aside; I don't have a few hundred bucks to drop on one).

[linuxelf]

I doubt the problem is the speed of your router. That router is capable of 100mbit, and I doubt your Internet connection comes anywhere near pushing that limit. Unless you're sending lots of data from computer to computer within your home network, barring a hardware problem with the router, the speed of your router probably isn't your issue.

[Mizafim]

Alright, that's basically what I was thinking, but because of the number of computers running through one router, I wasn't sure if it would have some kind of complications. Good to hear that I don't have to worry about forking out more money.

Time to give Bell shit again, I guess. To think, they almost got....two, three days without a complaint from us? Gotta keep 'em on their toes.

[Solar]

Well what is your bandwidth limit from them? do you have an upspeed/downspeed?

Even though your wired will have 100mb your wireless is limited to 54 and that could depend on your house acoustics as well. I've had my lap tops wireless serice degrade from my old wireless router as I went around corners and such (MIMO is the way to go IMHO).

Have you ran bandwidth test periodically on a wired and wireless computer when you know nothing else is going on lately?

how secure is your service? some hackers like to poke in, take up bandwidth but not really do any harm.

I now have a 1000g router with 108mb wireless MIMO capabilities attached to a 8 port gig switch for my network needs. Only time I now have internet slow down is when I'm opening up a large file from my NAS box to my main machine (it's wired and has top priority on my network, squashing everything else)...

[J_A_X]

There's a plethora of reasons why it could be slow. One which is often overlooked is line interference. check all cabling, make sure everything looks good, clean, kink free. Second, do a speedtest on the computer that's connected directly into the modem. Do some of the extra tests as well: http://www.dslreports.com/tools

Anything that can help you know exactly the problem. Good chance it's the bell side of things that are effed.