Wireless hub question.
 

My wireless internet - laptop running Vista to a Cisco linksys hub. It works fine but I was told it would go faster using a regular twisted pair cable (RJ45 each end). That way it doesn't need to encrypt and unencrypt the signal. I've tried the cable but can't figure out how to get it to use the cable and not to do the default wireless to the hub. Has anyone got any ideas?

Open the network and sharing control panel object, then "change adapter settings" right click on the wireless and select "disable."

Even easier if this is a laptop you should have a switch somewhere on the laptop to turn the wireless on and off quickly.

This. Either a function key or a physical switch.

Yep, most laptops have a physical switch to disable the wifi, or may have a keystroke combination using the "fn" key and one of the function keys or you can do it via the software.

just an example
I think this is from a Lenovo, just check your function keys for the "Wifi" symbol
https://ccit.college.columbia.edu/si...s/keyboard.png

or maybe something like this example from an IBM
https://ccit.college.columbia.edu/si...are_Switch.png

Wow, thanks guys!!!!

I found, under Network Connections, the Local Area Connection was disabled. So I enabled that and flicked the switch on the front of the Toshiba, then we are all go :)

Of course, unless you have fiber or similar the only time you'll "go faster" is when you are transferring stuff on your local network only. Your web browsing won't be sped up in the slightest.

Really depends on what the wireless is. If it is an old 802.11b access point then that totally sucks. If it is something newer like and 802.11n access point then it probably won't be a noticeable difference.

If it is somewhere in between - like an 802.11g on 2.4 Ghz you might notice but if it is 5Ghz I doubt you'll notice. The Encrypt/Decrypt load probably isn't that high on your laptop to be honest because it isn't really doing very intensive encryption. If you were to look at transferring over a good IPSec VPN tunnel vs not - there you might see a difference. Intel processors - even the lower power mobile processors though are very powerful so even then I think it would be hard to notice.

Now, if it's an older single core or 32-bit machine - I still doubt the wireless encryption will hit it very hard but the IPSec VPN example might.