I am thinking more about going to linux, esp. when the XP final days of MS protection arrive and no third party security guard shows up. I have two equal capacity machines w/ XP, and want to keep using the laptop as an RV TV via a USB tuner we've had.
I will look at puppy linux on the HP desktop.
I moved the router to same room as desktop and laptop and the realtek signal reading rose from 75 to 85%; from the WinXP monitor's less useful Status, from wafty 48 to 54 Mbps Very Good to a steady 54Mbps Excellent -same for drsktop.
The added info from the Realtek monitor said that the link quality was still 72%. This may be significant and imply what Sea'scape says - maybe a new neighbor was added to my wifi channel suddenly, less than a week ago. HMM...maybe neither router or adapter are at fault/
One thing I can take away is that speedtest.net varies wildly from one test to the next - they should use it at casinos.
