Question : Wireless LAN Bandwidth Tester?

I just setup my first simple 802.11b wireless network (for under $70, no less - thanks to the good old Christmas Season!). I bought a Netgear wireless DSL router and a USB "Network Everwhere" generic looking 802.11b receiver. Everything installed without a problem.

However I am curious as to a detailed integrity report of this signal. When I am on Newsleecher (usenet reader) it provides me with a real time speed graph. On my wireless network I notice that speed graph gets up pretty high for about 5 minutes then vanishes down to 0.0 kb/s for a few seconds, then back up. I haven't had a chance to test out an actual wired link with the Netgear router (I don't have enough cable length yet). I also have been playing some online games over the wireless connection and notice a bit more latency and lag, which seems to travel in cycles, much like the newsleecher graph.

My Windows XP Pro wireless network icon always shows my signal strength as "excellent". I'm not getting booted from my Yahoo or Messenger programs on a regular basis, either. My only clues that I am experiencing temporary signal drop offs are my Newsleecher program, some online games being a little bit funny, and watching the little green LED on the USB adaptor seem to get brighter and dimmer.

My question is, is there any program out there which can consistently check the integrity of the signal over a period of time? What would I need to setup if I did have such a program? I've tried to download large files from another network but that's not very consistent, and I don't seem to have a program other than Task Manager to graph the throughput.

Thanks in advance!

Answer : Wireless LAN Bandwidth Tester?

If you want to monitor the signal strength of your access point, you can try netstumbler from www.stumbler.net  It doesn't work with all hardware, and I found that running the latest release will sometimes cause me to loose my network connection.  The program will also show you if there are any other access points within range that could be causing interference on the same channel.  A new version is expected soon.

I had been having issues with my wireless connection contantly being dropped.  If you are loosing the connection and quickly getting it back, I found two quick things to look at...

First, disable the checkbox, "Enable network access control using IEEE 802.1X" under the Authentication tab of your wireless properties.  This helped with one wireless network connection I had.

Second, depending on how noisy the environemnt is, I found that Windows XP will often drop a network connection to try to connect to some weak access point accross the street, so disabling Windows from cofiguring the network connection helped a lot.  The only problem I found with this is that the access controls which came with my network card weren't as nice as those in Windows XP.  The added stability was worth it though.