Is 801.11b really THIS slow??

[famousdavis]

Thanks to my PPT friends, I'm transferring files from my PPC onto my PC for the first time ever! Yea! :D

But, Shaaazam! The file transfers are slooooow!

I run 802.11g at home, and file swaps between my desktop and laptop occur very, very quickly. I know PPCs all use 802.11b, which is a lot slower than 802.11g....so is it really this slow?

I'm moving a 30MB file. My PPC is right next to my router, so signal strength is optimal. It takes about 14 minutes to move 30MB! Is that what I can expect with an 802.11b connection??? It just seems awfully, awfully slow.

My PPC is the Dell Axim X50v, so CPU power isn't an issue. Signal strength isn't an issue. There's nothing running on my desktop, and no background processes on my PPC.

Reasonable? Or unusually slow?

[Darius Wey]

14 minutes for a 30MB file is slow. Under 802.11b, you should be receiving a theoretical transfer rate of about 1MB/second. Of course, other factors can affect this such as signal strength (dependent on range and objects blocking the path) - but this doesn't appear to be the problem. Have a look at your router settings and try to make sure that it has been configured to work optimally at the designated speed. This is usually the cause for half of the problems of "slow transfers".

[benn600]

I would say that I get around 400-600 real KB per second on my hx4700 and 802.11b network. That is a complete estimate and I estimate my potential error at 50%, but that gives you a general idea.

[Sven Johannsen]

Did you finally get a network connection going, where you can see desktop files in File Explorer or Resco File Explorer on the PPC, or are you connected via AS and using AS Explore on the desktop to move the files? I just moved a 14.8M file in about 2min..not using AS. That's on 802.11b of course, but attached to a 'b' AP.

Transferring that same file from my desktop to my Tablet over 802.11b was about 45sec. Certainly the processor in the two devices has some bearing, and I was copying to an SD card on the PPC and a hard drive on the Tablet, so the disparity is explainable. But it seems your file should have been around 4 min, not 14.

[famousdavis]

Did you finally get a network connection going, where you can see desktop files in File Explorer or Resco File Explorer on the PPC, or are you connected via AS and using AS Explore on the desktop to move the files?

I got a network connection going between my PPC and my desktop PC.

So you've at least confirmed my suspicions, that although I have a connection now, there is something interferring with the rate of transmission over my WLAN. I'm not sure what setting I'd change on the router, though. I made sure that it was 802.11b-compatible, but what else would I look to do on a router?

[famousdavis]

POWER SAVE MODE!

On my PPC, I had the WLAN setting for Power-Save mode turned on. Once I disabled that, BAM! the transfer speed was just fine...maybe two minutes to transfer a 30MB file onto my laptop.

I don't know what Power-save mode really does, but it certainly affects the performance of the network connection!

Thanks all, for helping me to step through and think rationally through my problems.

Now, I just need to get ActiveSync to work on my wireless network, and I'll be all set....

[disconnected]

Where do you find that power-save mode?

[famousdavis]

Where do you find that power-save mode?

Well, here's what I do on my X50v:

On the Today screen, at the bottom right, there's the icon for WiFi connections. First, I tap that icon and a screen appears that lets me turn-on WiFi (I don't use the hardware button to turn-on WiFi because I kept turning it on accidentally). On that same screen, there is an option for the Power Save function: Disable, Enable, Auto. I had formerly set it to Enable, but that, it turns out, was the cause of my slow data transfer. Once I disabled the Power Save feature, I got data transfer times in keeping with others experience.

Hope that helps!