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How to speed up your network

4 ways to speed up everything attached to your network

By | PC World | 05 March 11

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Not all varieties of slowness are created equal. If computer-to-computer file transfers or web page loads are bugging you, consider focusing on your wireless network configuration instead of mucking about in Windows or inside your computer case. Here are some common ways to give your computer a boost by scrutinising the network side of the equation.

Get your traffic in shape

If you're up for some advanced network tweaking, consider traffic prioritisation for your router. Traffic prioritisation - aka traffic shaping - is a technology that en­­ables you to tell your network to let one form of traffic have precedence over another. For example, you may want to give voice and video the highest priority, so your video calls go through with no lag and stutter, while giving e-mail and file downloads lower priority be­­cause they are less sensitive to delivery delays.

These days, more and more routers are adding Quality of Service features. Look for router models designed for gaming use or for 'experts' and then venture into the QoS (Quality of Service) settings in the product's configuration menus. True experts may also consider downloading third-party firmware for popular routers to add QoS feature support to their network routers.

See also: Group test: what's the best wireless router?

  1. Speed up everything attached to your network
  2. Get your traffic in shape

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Comments

Gary Gemmell said: One of the single biggest solutions to signal breakup is changing from dhcp to static addresses That way your wireless nic doesnt have to keep renegotiating with the dhcop for its ip address when you loose a signalTweaking other things like map registers and scan interval amongst others can also benefit depending on your wireless setup - very basic article I must say I was hoping for some real in depth stuff

John said: If I were to change my Router for a better one would the encryption currently in use be on my Laptop and therefore applicable directly to the new routing or would I need to sort out encryption for the new RouterTrouble is that the encryption for the system as it currently is was done by someone else and I dont know what code was used

Martin said: venture into the QoS Quality of Service settings in the products configuration menusAnd do what exactly I thought this title was PCAdvisor - so lets not forget the advice partA very lazy article

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