wireless issue

using vista on my new HP, the internet speed is normal when browsing, but when downloading wirelessly, its painfully slow - at dialup speed almost. what can i do to fix this?

also, how does one make the taskbar transparent with vista premium?

 

First use a bandwidth test such as Speedtest to check your internet connection both while plugged in via ethernet and wirelessly. If you're getting a discrepancy, then it's your router.

As far as the taskbar, the only way to change it is to use another theme in the control panel. For some reason, Microsoft only decided to allow you to change window panel colors and not the taskbar in personalization.

 

well, slow downloading can be a number of things, if you have high speed internet, i.e. DSL or Cable, then your transfer rate should be super high, however if the server or website that you downloading from has much lower bandwidth, then your download will be very slow.
P2P download speed is solely depends on the ratio of leechers (peers) and seeders (seeds)...

So, here: http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/
Do a speed test for your wireless connection and see how fast you are getting.

As for enable transparent taskbar, you need to enable Aero feature in Vista Premium:

Right click desktop - Personalization - Window Color and Appearance - check "Enable Transparency" and done
NOTE: When you maximize a window, all Transparency (Aero) effect is gone


EDIT:
Lithus, dude, why are you always faster than me at posting? lol ...

 

well the thing is, on my old laptop, a much older HP pavilion running windows xp, the speed is normal. its only on this one, with vista, that its super slow. so i know its not my router or connection. its some setting within that i need to tweak but dont know what to do...

 

have you installed the wireless card update since you got your laptop?
I remember people are having problems with their wireless connection under Vista: like weak signals, lost or slow connections....

anyway, go ahead and install the update.

I don't think you need to change or tweak anything... my laptop works fine with wireless connection since I got it...

 

how do i access the update? sorry, im an idiot.

 

hmmm...sounds like you have never updated your drivers since you got your laptop...anyways...since you didn't tell me your model number.
So, this is how I would find the driver site:

First go here:
http://welcome.hp.com/country/us/en...id=re_R329_prodexp%2Fhhoslp/split/support
and type in your laptop's model number. like mine would be "dv6000t"

then you will be presented with a page which has a picture and list of stuff you can do for your laptop model, make sure it's the right model.
and click on "Software & Driver Downloads"

then choose your operating system, in my case, Windows Vista (32-bit)

and there you go, the next page will be the driver site, it's recommended that you bookmark this page for future update downloads.

so now go and find the "Driver - Network" section and download the latest update for your wireless card and install.