Router worries (bandwidth competition)

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Well, I have a Netgear 824V3 router and five computers sharing a 30 mbs connection. One of them, a desktop, is connected to the router with a short normal ethernet cable. Two other desktops connect through good Linksys cards... I'm surprised how well those little guys can pick up the signal. The remaining two are identical Lenovo laptops, except the one connects via on onboard Intel wireless device and the other uses a DLINK USB card on a very, very long cable (like a 10 metre USB cable or something.

Now the small question is, can the long USB cable arrangement be a culprit in bandwith troubles, as in it taking long between the card and the CPU because of the 10 metres of USB cable in between? Note that USB can't achieve more than 11 mbps, while my network is 30 mbs and when that particular laptop is running together with any other computer, the bandwidth falls dramatically. As in the other computer getting even 300 kbps or up to 5 mbps at any rate. Given that USB can't get more than 11 mbps, it shouldn't be able to "claim" more, right?

However, it also happens without that computer being there. Typically, the first PC to connect is golden, but the rest is in trouble. Or, if a second computer manages to squeeze in, the first one is in trouble. Like they can't cooperate like civilised men (some combinations of who's online and who's not work better than others, so distance might be an issue).

Anyway, I don't see any option in my router's settings to allocate minimum or maximum bandwidths to particular computers. What can I do (as in, any freeware tools or something) to block any single PC from hoarding too much - and reserve some for every single one of them so that it's no longer like one computer runs at 29 mbps and the rest get 4 or 2 or 0.5?

 

So here's the thing...

From PC to router, you have a 100Mbps connection. Over WiFi you have a (maximum) of 54Mbps. the speed from your house to your ISP is 30Mbps (I'm super jealous btw!)

Any modern router can handle the traffic of 5 PCs all using a moderate amount of bandwidth. IIRC, routers divvy up the bandwidth to the ISP evenly across all connected PCs...you can change that percentage in some routers...anyway, it sounds like something is messed up with the settings.

I'd try to reset the router...which clears out any changes you've made to it, and start over.

 

Yeah, it does look like bad settings, but it's all on factory stuff, actually. Today, I've also managed to go from 1 to 8 mbps by just skipping the router when there was just one PC online in the network anyway. In fact, I've seen as low as 30 kbps, so at the moment I'm blaming ISP, but several days ago it was fine for a while until weekend came. Weekend was like 1-2 mbps. I even have lags accessing the router from a connected PC. The whole problem started in the last week of August and has survived 3 modem and 3 router replacements by the ISP. The last router was patently factory state. This is probably just another face of it. And now, it's more like all computers getting crappy tranfer anyway.

Theoretically, the presence of other wi-fi networks shouldn't affect the bandwidth welfare of the one PC which is connected to my router via cable, but could it be? I don't know for sure, after all. The ISP surely has set up a lot of such networks in this block of flats. Sometimes 4 other networks are in range, or more. Wonder if it's not the ISP infrastructure not being able to cope with all the new connections and bandwidth upgrades. As in everyone logs in, connection goes to the Underdark.