Instable Wireless Connection

[kirab]

Hey everyone, here is a bit of information before I start:

Dell Inspiron 5150
P4 3.06GHz
512MB RAM
Dell Wireless WLAN 1350 Adapter

and wireless router:

Linksys WRT54G (802.11b/g router)

My wireless connection to my laptop was perfectly fine, but then I reformatted my hard drive and have been having problems ever since. It's quite strange because either the connection is really good/fast or it's really bad. There's no mid-range. For example; downloads are fast, games ping low but sometimes ping super-high, and also I can't ping most sites using 'ping x' on ms-dos.

I was just wondering if anyone had any insights as to why this was happening?

Edit: Some more information

- packet loss in games
- can't ping sites outside of ISP
- fast but unstable, high ping spikes
- downloads can go very fast (like normal) but is unstable sometimes making it go slow, but then picking up again (very unstable)

Anyone have any ideas?

[mbossman2]

step 1: make sure that you have the most current drivers installed for your wireless card.