comp prob: wireless slow down when on battery

[olicon]

I don't even know if I'm just fooling myself or not, but I notice that my wireless tends to slow down (and I get more "page cannot be displayed" messages) when I switch to battery power on my laptop. I suspect it's the laptop trying to save its battery by sending less juice to my wireless receiver. If it's true, is there a way to force the computer to not do it?

 

[ErGo]

My hp laptop does not do that ... I think you need a new battery.
Edit - then again, my battery lasts about 20 minutes by just browsing the internet...

 

[BlindTom]

Tried power plan settings or something like that?

On mine it makes me set LCD brightness and power to CPU etc.

 

[olicon]

I'll try that. I don't recall seeing anything about wireless, etc though. But yeah, thanks for the advice.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Hmm... Unfortunately this depends on what version of windows you're running, but if it's XP, try this:

Go to control panel
Select 'system'
Select the 'Hardware' tab
Click on 'device manager'

In device manager, locate the section called 'network adapters', and find the wireless device. (what it's called depends on who made it. Mine says: '(intel(R) PRO/wireless 3945ABG Network connection)
Right click on it, and select 'properties'.
There should be an 'Advanced' tab, although that may depend on the device.
You should be able to manually change things like 'transmit power', 'Power Management', 'Ad-Hoc power management', and a lot of other things. - The precise details unfortunately depend on the device itself. But change power management settings from 'auto' or 'power saving' towards 'maximum performance', and it should help.
However, this will of course make your batteries run out more quickly.

If you're using Vista, you can do much the same thing, but a lot of the details on how to do it are slightly different. (and unfortunately, I don't know them...)