Streaming / Downloading Issue

when i open any webpage in firefox or ie8, it only sometimes loads. half the time, the progress bar will sit about halfway loaded, then eventually give a cannot connect to webpage error, and then when i refresh it will load almost instantly. the second problem is streaming of any sort, and downloading. streaming from any site, no matter how "fast" it is (Internet vs, say, msn), takes forever. i click play, it will buffer 1 second...play one second...buffer for 15 seconds and gain about 3 seconds of playable material.

occasionally, it will completely stop buffering and i will have to refresh the page to try again. also, something strange on Internet for me is that i have to wait until the video is completely done buffering to click on any other links on the page. for example, if i am watching x video, i have to wait until it is done buffering to click on and have y video successfully load. then it just repeats the buffering issue again. note that i can use "copy link location" options in firefox, restart the browser, and then paste it back in to get it to load without having the first video buffer all the way (sorry if that was a bit confusing, it's an odd problem).

downloading aspect is that it will start out fine (still with cruddy download speeds, 230 kb vs advertised 10 mb), then drop to 0 kbps and then eventually give me a cannot read source file. this applies to everything, essentially, from Internet (i download the videos to watch instead of waiting 30 minutes for a 2 minute video to load), to rapidshare and mediafire and even simple driver downloads. i think that is everything, if i remember something else i'll edit it ;p

i can't test the connection with an ethernet cable until basement construction is finished, and i can run an ethernet cable up from the new media center to my room. i am using the adapter "atheros 802.11 a/b/g/n dual-band wireless network module" that came installed with vista x64 on the original computer, which i upgraded to windows 7 and installed the "original atheros wireless lan driver" for windows 7 found here, which i then updated with driver-genius professional edition to the most recent version (yeah, i actually paid money to try and get this fixed...).

the only other thing i can think of which may be an issue, if the build of windows 7. every except the network is fully functional, so i am pretty sure that's not it. here is a ss just to be sure.

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/4840/buildx.jpg

any questions, just ask. i really will try and help get this problem solved.

edit #1: i have a laptop, from hp, with vista x32 on the same network. runs beautifully, buffers fine, nice download speeds, and all the extra fluff that you can add to this list. but it has a different adapter, so that's why i'm thinking something is going on with the atheros. if you think that's the problem too, can you point me to a good non-usb wireless adapter?