Linksys Wireless Router Problems - Help please

[Shoupie080]

Thanks in advance for anyone who can help me here.

Ok I use a linksys wireless router which I share with my girlfriend. The first problem i'm encoutering is I think the people in the apartment below us are jumping on our network even though I have it secured with an impossible password. I don't know much about security but i'm sure they could get into it if they knew enough about router security. So my first question is how do I know if there's someone other than myself and my gf using the wireless? And also, how do I stop them if they are using it. Someone said something about only allowing the MAC address for my computer and hers but I don't know how to do that.

My second problem is that I play a lot of counter strike and those of you who play know how important your ping is. Well my gf downloads and uploads a lof of music and pictures which always gets me booted from servers. I was wondering if theres a way I can limit her bandwidth to about half of what it is now so that this wont be a problem.

Please try to make any response to either problem as non-complicated as possible. I know how to log into my router via the IP but thats about it.

Any help would be awesome.

Cheers!

 

[BloodRaven]

chances are that if you have your wireless access point password protected then the average person cannot get on your secure network. they would have to know a great deal about networking to gain access. i suggest keeping with the password protection vs. MAC address. the MAC address is easier to hack than a password. when you notice a slower than normal connection go to network place folder and look at the computers on your network. if you see one that you do not notice then you have your answer. other than that and P2P clients running eat up bandwidth like crazy. if your playing CS. turn off the client. all that network traffic will give you sluggish in-game ping.