am i overloading my router ?

[brewlio]

at present the wife and i are working from home as we are setting up/marketing a new business. neither of us are particularly technofiles. The home wireless network we've got comprises of a netgear dg834g wireless router that runs 2 desktops, 3 laptops, a PS3, 2 xbox 360's and a wirelss printer. the connectivity is shocking, and a test showed that at best it runs between 1.4M and 1.6M. I need to improve this.

It's difficult as we have 3 teenage boys who are online night and day. Is this router up to the job or do i need to invest in better model that runs at more than the present 54Mbps ? I've been into the netgear router settings (via netgear site, password etc) and it doesn't seem that i can improve connectivity from there. to tell you the truth i don't like messing with the router settings as i dont know what i'm doing and affraid i'll crash the whole home network. any help on improving connectivity or sugestions as to what hardware would be better to run every thing comfortably would be appreciated.

[WHT]

Several things are contributing to your problem....

Your most limiting factor is your internet connection. Lets assum it is a 10 Mbps connection, if not you can scale back your other speed metrics accordingly.

1) Reduce the speed of you Netgear to 24 Mbps. Running at 54 Mbps requires a strong signal and if you can't maintain the necessary signal levels...you'll have constant retires and that will slow you network down. A using a 24 Mbps data speed is sufficient for a 10 Mbps internet connection (and will still give you a 12 Mbps file sharing speed within you wireless network).

2) Consumer grade routers choke past typically five connected users, and with UP TO five users performance is degraded. You may want to invest in a better router. Linksys, Netgear, and DLink have several models starting around $100.

3) If the kids are running P2P apps, that could reduce you and your wife's internet connection speed to lower than 1 Mbps to the internet. Perhaps a second internet line for the kids?