Having Unsecured Wireless Network.

[Devine.Integrity]

I am getting angry at my connection >=[

Once again, Im here to post cause I need help. Okay, so I have 2 sisters and my mom use the computer. our broadband is Linksys. In total we have 3 Laptaps, and 2 PC's. The people who are mostly online are me, my sister, and my older sister. We both share the broadband linksys. Im not much of a computer tech, but latley the internet connection has been going WAYYYY too slow now and these days.

Do you guys think it is because we left our cable unsecured. Whenever I try to access our internet it say "Unsecured wireless network". It also says following information such as: Information sent to this network can be visible by others. Is it safe to have an unsecured wireless network.

I have no clue if its my laptop however. My laptop is made from Toshiba. And by GOD does it have annoying internet connectivity! Well for the last week...I think, my internet would always go off every 30 seconds. I would have to open my Wireless connections and disconnect from it then reconnect again. Its getting REALLY annoying!

So I am asking help for anyone who has advice from my slow internet...

Please list me some specific disavantages if we are using an "unsecured wireless network"...

EDIT NEW!: Okay now there is this thing that pops up saying: "there is an IP address conflict with another system on the network"? What does that mean?

Not so long after that my internet had a foced problem that made me had to shut it. ?

[awdark]

Unsecured anyone can use it, anyone can see everything you send, receive or do over the internet.

Chat on AIM? Your neighbor can be reading your conversation.

Your laptop... simply put is not configured quite right for your router. Try to turn off wireless power save. Should fix it.

And go enable WEP... some say its worthless but I see it as good enough of a sheild.

[Devine.Integrity]

^Are you serious? Anyone could see where I am going? *Shivers. lol. What happened when you have the WEP though? I remember some of my friends have it, you have to enter a WEP key right?...aww man those are long. Do I have to enter it all the time or something?

[j79]

^Are you serious? Anyone could see where I am going? *Shivers. lol. What happened when you have the WEP though? I remember some of my friends have it, you have to enter a WEP key right?...aww man those are long. Do I have to enter it all the time or something?

How many people live near you? If you're in an apartment complex, you definitely want to secure your network. If you live in a single family home and there's some distance between your house and your neighbors, there's a chance that the slow speeds are due to the router or some other misconfiguration...sometimes simply resetting the modem (and router) will bring speeds back up to normal. Also, personally, I've never had good luck with Linksys routers (I stick with Netgear...)

When you do secure your router, use WPA (rather than WEP).

[Devine.Integrity]

^Oh which reminded me, I SO remember the time when I would steal my downstairs neighbors internet everytime I visited my grandmother. Haha. But she secured it now. Luckily however I do not live at an Apartment Complex. I live in a quite neighborhood and whenever I look and search for connections I see everyone's is secured except ours.

Is it a long process to have it secured. I mean, just to let you guys now, my laptop is not the one who is incharge with the modem. My younger sister's P.C has the modem. So will I still be able to connect even if I do have the WPA?

>_<, sorry I am such a noob, can you tell me the differences between them two.

[Guest OsiX]

WEP is pretty useless as well, use WPA if its an option.

[Guest Tepper]

Or even MAC filtering.. is good to stop ppl... or so I hear.

[awdark]

Nah mac filtering is as trivial as wep... the only thing is I have never accomplished hacking my own routers =\ dunno why it never worked!

WPA isnt supported on all hardware.

[Guest thatguy]

no you dont have to write down the wep key everytime.

[Devine.Integrity]

I am probably on the verge on throwing out my effing laptop! Does anyone else use Toshiba? Cause my sisters laptop is dell and it has 50 times better internet connection instead of this JUNK! I am really about to just kill IT! I always told myself, if I were a laptop I would probably kill MINES FIRST! Okay, I always try to download things however my gay internet always gets off within 2 minutes. can it not wait for at least 5 mintes! GOD! I hate it.

Well it doesnt actually "Disconnect me", the stupid modem just lowers my speed to= 1.0 and my Signal strength to= Low. Forcing me to reconnect to the stupid linksys!

Anyways, yeah, this was from my old post.

Is it a long process to have it secured. I mean, just to let you guys now, my laptop is not the one who is incharge with the modem. My younger sister's P.C has the modem. So will I still be able to connect even if I do have the WPA?

[awdark]

Usually its caused by the fragmentation threshold

Check your router for similar settings (most show you the fragmentation threshold they use)

[Guest aznfishyfart]

i have a toshiba laptop and no problems when using wireless

if it bothers u that much buy a wireless card for ur laptop instead of using the internal one

it'll work better

[Devine.Integrity]

i have a toshiba laptop and no problems when using wireless

if it bothers u that much buy a wireless card for ur laptop instead of using the internal one

it'll work better

^Hmm...how much are those things? Im thinking of getting one. Can you recommend me on which is the best brand to get, thanks!

Hey! I couldnt find the Fragemntation Treshold thing, Heres what I get when I click "properties"

I also click on Advanced, and Wireless network but I still cant find it.

Sorry, Im a noob! I just dont know how to operate thing. Also tell me what should I do to the F.T thing.

EDIT: Download Accelarator is getting on my last nerve, going to uninstall...it always keep kicking me offline. Anybody else use DAP? Im feeling that DAP + SLIMBROWSER are not friends.

[awdark]

Whoops, click configure then the advance tab

Those cards are usually about $20

[Devine.Integrity]

Im still not able to find it for some very odd reason...here, this is what I see in the advance tab...

20 dollars is not bad, do you use those things and are they even worth thier price?

[Guest aznfishyfart]

i haven't used one yet for my laptop

but a friend was having problems at school staying connected

he got one and now he never complains

[Devine.Integrity]

4/29. I am still dealing with the same problem as of today. The internet speed is always getting slow to about 1.0 mb tops. The signal strenght is also low as well.

I would have to always reconnect so I can get my 54.0 mb/Excellent speed that will only last for about 45 seconds top before it gets back to 1.0mb. Im getting pissed off at this Toshiba.

Any other suggestions?

[DaRkViEt73]

Connect directly to your linksys router by using a cable, wait a minute until you're able to surf the internet then go to http://192.168.1.1. If you guys have never setup your router before then the default username will probably be blank and the password will be "admin". Or on newer linksys routers both the default username and password will be "admin".

Once you can get to the setup screen of your linksys router, change the SSID of your router from the default "linksys" to something else... something random like "server" or even "boaismyangel" if you want . Set your wireless channel either to AUTO or use another channel like 1, 6, or 11.

After you've done all that and you can verify that the wireless works better, then consider securing your router with a new username/password as well as setting up a WPA key (aka password) for all your wireless laptops.

The 2 most likely reasons why you're having this problem is either due to interference with a neighbor's router [which changing the SSID and wireless channel can help fix] or your laptop's built-in wireless card sucks [spend that $10-20 on another one for goodness sakes!]. I'm not sure if an IP conflict [two laptops/computers using the same static IP on your linksys router] could cause that problem or not but it's possible. If that's the case, set your IP address to AUTO.

[Guest agiri]

^ I wish I had those directions when I was securing mine. T__________T!

I'm assuming her network card is fine since it did, at one time, give her internet she was satisfied with.

You should definitely ask your sister's what exactly it is they're up to on the internet. If they're downloading large files, using streams, etcetc., it might be the culprit of your slow internet.

AND, you should DEFINITELY secure your internet. The above directions only work if you have a Linksys router. I'm not sure if you mentioned what router you had. Anyway, some of the sections are a bit hard to find, but the areas you wanna look at after entering 192.168.1.1 and entering your password are:

Wireless > Basic Wireless Settings; for the box to change your SSID

Wireless > Wireless Security; to chose your security type and enter your keypass

I recommend WPA Personal. WEP is trash in comparison.

[Guest GO!zilla]

since no one replied with an alternative...

Only connect your modem to one of your computers (faster/newer comp the better). Basically have 1 to 1 connection. This is to eliminate any other possibilities. After u have that 1 to 1 connection with a computer and the modem do a speed test. You can do it on either of these sites.

http://www.speedtest.net/

http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

Find out what speed you are suppose to get with your internet provider. For me i am suppose to get 6-8mbit down. When i do it even when its being used by 3 computers, i still get 6mbit down. Once it went below 4mbit, i called my provider and bithed at them. In within 30 seconds they boosted it back up to 6mbit.

That can be the scenario with you.