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[Bionic]

KW is right, you should try using a hard wire 'crossover' cable between them and see if the speed improves. Don't forget that the more obstacles in the path of the WiFi signal the slower it will be and also if there are more than one pc sharing the connection. Have you any automatic updaters or downloaders running in the background? Have you any hub telephones or other WiFi equipment in the vicinity? Is your encryption the best that it can be? Make sure that it is the highest you can achieve and do not ever give out your password!
In fact change your password NOW.
Do a broadband speed test using any of the free facilities online and see what you get.
Thats all I can think of for now but I will watch your progress....

[TheBoy]

KW is right, you should try using a hard wire 'crossover' cable between them and see if the speed improves. Don't forget that the more obstacles in the path of the WiFi signal the slower it will be and also if there are more than one pc sharing the connection. Have you any automatic updaters or downloaders running in the background? Have you any hub telephones or other WiFi equipment in the vicinity? Is your encryption the best that it can be? Make sure that it is the highest you can achieve and do not ever give out your password!
In fact change your password NOW.
Do a broadband speed test using any of the free facilities online and see what you get.
Thats all I can think of for now but I will watch your progress....

We have already confirmed that the Wifi isn't being shared.  No need to read too much into the Daily Mail hype.

All Wifi is decryptable, just WPA2 takes a bit too long to be useful. WPA has flaws that allow easy-ish decryption in most home scenerios.  Live with it, accept it, move on.

But that certainly does not appear to be the issue here.  Remember, wifi is HD and unsegmentated, thus difficult to work out the true throughput.  Given the amount of noise that SMB causes, and the fact everything is crammed into that 2.4Ghz band, I'd say you'd be lucky to achieve anywhere near the speed of a 10Mb HUB (not switch) copying from wifi client to wifi client.

[aaronjb]

It would have to be pretty appalling to be that slow though, IMHO..

For comparison, I just copied a ~640Mb file from my laptop to my NAS using CIFS and it took ~2 minutes, averaging 47Mbit/s without overhead (~60Mbit/s including overhead) - that's on a '100Mbit' 802.11n link which currently has a Tx rate of 78Mbit/s..

I'd guess a 54Mbit 802.11g link ought to just about double that for a 640Mb file.

Let's face it, if the OP can download the file from the internet in 2 minutes, are you really saying that SMB makes the data ~7x bigger in transfer? 

Sounds like something other than just 'SMB sucks' is at work, to me..

[TheBoy]

It would have to be pretty appalling to be that slow though, IMHO..

For comparison, I just copied a ~640Mb file from my laptop to my NAS using CIFS and it took ~2 minutes, averaging 47Mbit/s without overhead (~60Mbit/s including overhead) - that's on a '100Mbit' 802.11n link which currently has a Tx rate of 78Mbit/s..

I'd guess a 54Mbit 802.11g link ought to just about double that for a 640Mb file.

Let's face it, if the OP can download the file from the internet in 2 minutes, are you really saying that SMB makes the data ~7x bigger in transfer? 

Sounds like something other than just 'SMB sucks' is at work, to me..

wifi to wifi is the killer

As said in 1st reply, its still bad, but sure as shite sticks to bedclothes, it isn't caused by someone stealing bandwidth.

[aaronjb]

Oops, I missed that both PCs were WiFi.. Still, 7x slower than a download from the internet sounds excessive - maybe 3x or 4x slower I could envisage..

I'd set the Mini upstairs to use the Wireless and try it here.. but that's too much like hard work

[aaronjb]

Oh and I don't think anyone is stealing his WiFi either .. but it could be being hampered by a crappy router - a lot of those things have pitiful 'processors' in that really can't shuffle packets all that quickly.

[TheBoy]

Oh and I don't think anyone is stealing his WiFi either .. but it could be being hampered by a crappy router - a lot of those things have pitiful 'processors' in that really can't shuffle packets all that quickly.

I reckon its a naff router as well

[Taxi_Driver]

I think i've improved matters.....

I've upgraded the firmware on the router to the latest version (which apparently has improved wifi drivers)

Doing a quick test on a 300Mb file, it took 5 mins to move it to the other pc, a vast improvement 

Thanks for all your suggestions 

[aaronjb]

That sounds much more like it

[Humpy]

I'd change your wireless transmitting channel if you know how. This is one of the things I  come across at work a lot, the higher the channel number the better and the odd channels are better than the even channels. Don't ask me why cos I don't know but I've found this through experience. Channel 13 is brilliant as a  lot of routers cant use it but not all devices can receive it.

Humpy

[aaronjb]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

That helps explain why picking the 'next free channel' isn't necessarily a good idea (since there are only three non-overlapping channel ranges for 802.11b, 4 for g/n and only 2 for double-width 802.11n)..

What channel works best depends a lot on the local environment (competing signals, wall construction, etc)..

[Kevin Wood]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

That helps explain why picking the 'next free channel' isn't necessarily a good idea (since there are only three non-overlapping channel ranges for 802.11b, 4 for g/n and only 2 for double-width 802.11n)..

What channel works best depends a lot on the local environment (competing signals, wall construction, etc)..

.. and that nicely shows how antisocial 11n is, although the limited power is spread over a greater bandwidth.

Don't forget that you'll also be contending with microwave ovens, video senders, alarms, bluetooth, Zigbee devices and any other junk that lands on that (license exempt, after all) part of the spectrum.

Not necessarily visible to a wireless LAN adaptor either, so, when you scan and find a nice free couple of channels, there might be a good reason why they are free (from WLAN).

It's a miracle that it works at all, in some respects.

[aaronjb]

Indeed it is! Or in the case of my parents house (where they also have some 2.4GHz wireless video senders) - doesn't work when you're standing in the line of fire between transmitter & receiver..