router issue

Hi im having speed issues. my network consists 2 computers, 2 ps3's, a linksys wrt54g v2 wireless router, and a cable modem. A side note would be i use ps3 media server on both computers to share to the ps3's. one ps3 and one computer are hard lined and the other two are wireless. Intermittently i get limited to no internet connection and i cant figure out why. when the primary computer is plugged directly into the cable modem i get 1.5 megs solid downstream nonstop when its hooked up to the router i may get 100k....I was thinking about buying another nic card and having all of the outside requests handled by the primary rig but i figured id ask and see what the pros have to say.


Athlon II X2 4400e, Asus M4A785TD-V Evo, 2GB g-skill DDR3-1333 DDR3 SDRAM, 2 SAMSUNG 500 gig hd

 

A few thoughts: Is your wireless secured? If not, is it possible that someone else is connected to your router and saturating your bandwidth? When the problem occurs, can you temporarily disable wireless on the router, disconnect any other hardwired devices from the router (to rule out the possibility of an infected PC on your network), and see if your connection speed goes up? If it's still slow with only one hardwired computer on the router (and depending upon how network savvy you are), you could also run WireShark to see what traffic is coming & going on the computer you're testing from. If the issue was the router, I'd think the problem would be consistent and not intermittent.