World's Slowest Wireless Connection

[anson2995]

Apparently I know nothing about wireless networking and need some help.

I just bought a new computer (an HP Pavilion with a 2.7 gHz dual core processor and 4gb of RAM running Vista, fwiw) and have found its connection to my wireless network is so slow as to render it almost useless. It takes 10-12 seconds to load google.com, and longer for more complex pages. Web browsing is painfully slow. Watching Youtube videos is practically impossible. Even connecting to my file server is excruciatingly slow.

I have another PC in the same room that runs like lightning, even though it's much older. (Compaz Presario, 1.9 gHz and 512 mb of RAM running XP).

At first I thought perhaps the cheapie wireless adapter I bought was the issue. It's a Belkin USB dongle, 802.11g 54 Mbps. The old computer's Linksys adapter says 802.11b, and like the computer, its about 5 years old.

Surely this can't be a hardware issue, but I'm stumped to figure out what the problem is. It's not signal strength, since the two PCs are practically side-by-side. Any ideas?

[HorseloverFat]

Could be interference. Sometimes you'll get some but still see 3 or 4 bars. Try switching channels. This is done on your router. There are 3 non-overlapping channels in wifi. 1, 6, 11. If youre on 6, try 1 or 11.