Wireless Connection problem - 99% solved?

[Stretchman]

Greetings!

I’m glad I found this forum.

I’m using a Ralink RT2500 wireless pci card to connect to my Microsoft MN-500 wireless base station.

A little history:
I used this card for a year without any problems at all. After a brief hiatus due to a hard drive crash, I’m using it again on the same machine, just with a new hard drive. I’ve got everything running smooth and up to date on a fresh install of Windows XP (SP 2).

The Problem:
My Ralink connection monitor tells me that I’ve got 100% connectivity with a strong signal and everything, BUT….my internet surfing speed is slow and poky. Web pages that used to take mere seconds now take quite a while to load, and some websites seem to hang. Downloads still work, however and I can connect to my home network.

So what I did was....
Thinking it was the card’s fault, I uninstalled it and replaced it with a Microsoft MN-510 wireless usb adapter. The Microsoft connection utility tells me the same thing: strong green bars and a full connection. Unfortunately the slowness of my surfing speed remains the same. So it’s not the card that’s causing the slow surfing speed, per say, but I suspect that there’s some obscure networking option in Windows XP that is hindering my connection somehow, though I’m not sure how to proceed. It’s one of those problems that feels like its 99% solved - i'm connected to the internet, my network, my wireless printer...etc, but the surfing the internet is damn slow and makes me feel like I went back to the days of my 33.6 usr, and I’m just not sure what that last step is.

A couple things I’ve tried:
Poking around services.msc for Windows Wireless Zero Configuration (found that it was Stopped and set to Manual)
Using Wireless Zero Config instead of my Ralink utility (didn’t help)
Updating Ralink utility drivers to most recent (didn’t work)
I also observed the slow surfing speed symptoms early on with SP 1. Unfortunately updating to SP 2 didn't help.

Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 FX-55
Case: Antec P180
Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI Premium ATX
Memory: 2gb Corsair XMS DDR-4000 (1gb x2)
Power Supply: Antec NeoPower 480watt
Video Card: EVGA Nvidia Geforce 7800 GTX acs
CD-Rom: Sony Dru-720a DVD+/-RW
Hard Disk: Western Digital Caviar SE16 320gb
Windows XP Pro (SP 2)

[glc]

I think I'd be looking at that base station next. Have you rebooted it?

[Stretchman]

Thanks for mentioning that - it completely slipped my mind. I will try it today.

Also, you don't think there could be something going on with Windows Firewall that might be inhibiting the connection somehow? My only other thought was to start playing around with my Ralink connection utility, but the documentation is rather poor.

[glc]

Can you borrow a laptop with a wireless adapter to see if THAT is doggy too? If so, and it is, it's your base station causing the problem.

[Stretchman]

Ah! That did the trick. I tried using my Powerbook G4 and found that Safari was also slow and sluggish. I reset the base station and both my PC and Laptop are surfing at high speeds again.

Thank you for your help, GLC, it is much appreciated. This forum rocks.