I can't seem to find any online references that'll help me, so let's try you guys.

I have an 802.11g network. It consists of a NetGear WPN802 AP, a Sony Vaio laptop with builtin 802.11g (Centrino-based, or Intel 2200BG at any rate), and a Mac Mini with its builtin 802.11g (although it was installed after the fact). The AP is connected to my wired network via an older NetGear dual-speed hub, which is the only ethernet infrastructure at all.

The problem is that it's very, very, slow. There's no problem authenticating or getting an IP address or passing data. It never seems to actually cause an error of any sort. It's just very, very, excruciatingly slow. Okay, it's still faster than my internet connection, but trying to pass any sort of LAN data is an exercise in tedium. I can't stream any video, for example.

In tests, I've found that the best throughput I can get is about 3.5Mbps. I know I can't really expect 54Mbps, but that's nowhere close. The "Wireless Network Connection Status" window on the Vaio shows that it's connected to the AP at usually somewhere around 36Mbps, but even if I get it directly adjacent to the AP and get a connection reported at 54Mbps I still get less than 4Mbps throughput. Getting it closer does seem to increase the throughput slightly, though, from about 3Mbps to about 3.5. And I've tested with the same computer on the wired network and get a reasonable throughput.

Things I've considered include a bad connection between the AP and the hub, which is not something I've completely discounted. (It would be nice if there was more information available about that on the AP, and it's not a managed hub.) I've also considered interference from other sources, but nothing I do (like peg to 802.11g instead of auto-sensing, changing channels, disabling SSID broadcasts) seems to have any positive effect. (Occasionally I shoot myself in the foot.)

I had what now seems to have been the same problem with a different AP, too, although also NetGear. I was thinking at the time that it was a range problem, so I got the extended range AP, only to find the problem was the same. So it's not just a broken AP, unless both of them are broken.

(Just now I noticed that Windows claimed that the speed dropped to 1Mbps for a significant time while I was typing this up, but then went back when I reloaded a random web page. I assume it was just saving power as I'm on the laptop right now, and it's not plugged in. Also, I've watched it during a data transfer test and not seen that problem, only slow packet counts.)

What else can I try?