File-sharing sites cause common problems
Question:
Hi I have a Linksys wireless router in my home. My daughter has one computer upstairs and I have one in the basement - both of which share the same wireless router.
It seems that every day my wireless router stops functioning and I have to manually reset or unplug and re-plug in the system in order for it to work again. This is very frustrating, especially when I’m in the middle of important work. Can you please help?
Answer:
I am happy to tell you that you are not the only one with this problem. In fact, it is quite common in today’s day and age for people to suffer with what is known as a wireless router overload. The most likely cause of your problem is the sharing of files such as MP3’s or movies by your daughter or perhaps yourself on what’s called a Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing website called lime-wire, e-donkey and many more.
Understanding how technology works helps to understand this problem. A standard wireless router only contains a limited amount of memory. Every, time it connects to a computer (in your case, two computers) that memory is getting used to secure the connection between the router and computer. Picture a little, imaginary worker inside the router reaching out and grabbing onto your computer while you’re connected and hanging on while data is transferred. Now that you know how the router works, it is important to know that every time you connect another computer to the router, that worker has to grab onto it as well, thus slowing the connection since more memory is being used. When using any Peer-to-Peer websites, your computer has to connect to thousands of other computers in order for transfers to be successful. When this happens, that imaginary little worker has to hang onto all of them at once, which is often too much for the router to handle, often resulting in a crash of the hardware.
The recommended solution is to possibly upgrade the wireless router to a more expensive model, which will be more reliable. Another solution would be to open the file-sharing program, in the options/settings menu, you can change the amount of peers that the computer will connect to when acquiring files for transfer. This should significantly decrease your amount of hardware crashes and improve your time spent online.
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