My Thinkpad R500 came with Vista Basic by default. After trying to adjust to the 'speed' of this operating system, I gave up and simply downgraded to Windows XP. With it came new problems. One : Low volume(audio) Two : Slow Wireless Actually, wireless was working - fast and slow, sometimes too slow. The hulu.com page would take light years  to open. I just kept ignoring the issue for the first few days, thinking that there were either too many users on the network, or that it was a temporary ISP issue. But today, a simple CNN IBN feed had to buffer every few seconds and that is when I finally gave up and started looking for a solution. The solution, apparently, is a simple one. On my Thinkpad, when the wireless driver was installed, it selected the 'Maximum' Power Saving feature by default. This meant Least performance.  All I had to do was to turn it off. To do that :
  • Go to Device manager
  • Click Network Adaptors
  • Double-click on the Wireless card
  • Select Advanced Tab
  • Select Power Saving Mode in the left
  • Turn it off in the drop-down on the right.
And thats it! My wireless connection was now blazing fast again. This worked on my R500 but apparently there are other Thinkpads that have the same problem and I guess this simple fix would help users of those laptops too.

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