Not being familiar with your router (is it a Linksys?), I'm not sure what options it presents you with.
I have a Linksys router WRT160N that in principle suppports b, g and n networking speeds, all at once or separately. However I found that the "Channel Width" setting of "auto (20MHz or 40MHz)", while it "should" work with the combination of old and new computers we have on this network, in practice provided a poor connection. The best setting was "20 MHz," which is a narrower channel width and hence fewer bits/sec, but is very reliable, and supports 54 Mb/s (g speed) and also 130 MB/s (n speed) on the same network very solidly.
The Linksys user guide stated: "
For best performance in a network using Wireless-N, Wireless-G and Wireless-B devices, set to Auto (20MHz or 40MHz). For Wireless-G and Wireless-B networking only, select 20MHz Only(Default). Set this toAuto (20MHz or 40MHz) for best performance. |
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I have WIreless-N computers and one Wireless-G (my iMac G5 PPC), but my experience was that the above instructions were not correct and only setting the width to 20 MHz resulted in the highest speeds and very reliable connections.
By the way, the Belkin router I had before this Linksys one didn't offer this "channel width" choice at all, so like you, I was perplexed for a few days after getting the new one and finding a less reliable connection, until at least I tried this narrower channel bandwidth. I am wondering if something like that is going on for you ...
You may want to explore settings on your new router that the old router didn't have. If those new settings are configured in such a way that the older computer is compromised, the trick will be to figure out how to set them so it works with both older and newer computers. In my case it was easy, but I don't know what your setting choices are.
Some of the older G3 computers cannot use WPA2, some can -- it sounds like yours can. And you have found that the security method isn't a factor anyway. Sometimes it's simpler to just turn off security when experimenting as it removes that variable from the mix.