Any wireless networking gurus out there?

[Simon]

Hi

I've recently taken delivery of my Vortex III i7-3940XM with an Intel Ultimate 6300 wireless card and have re-built it and am writing an in depth review.
I've been assessing performance and have run into an issue with my wireless setup.
I have a BT HomeHub 3.0.
I know that I will not see a real world speed of 450Mbps, BUT ...
I find it suspicious that my real world speed appears to be limited at 54Mbps.
In an attempt to improve matters I re-configured the hub to use the 40MHz band improving its reported (actual) speed from 130Mbps to 300Mbps.
I have installed the drivers (13.0.0.107) downloaded from PCS that appear to be the latest. However, I find it odd that the Wireless Mode property doesn't have any 802.11n options (6. 802.11a/b/g is set), although 802.11n appears in the channel width properties and there is an 802.11 mode property that is set to Enabled.
So, I would expect to be able to see real world transfers of at least 150Mbps and hence being seemingly limited to 54Mbps is unacceptable.
Anyone have any ideas?

Simon

PS I can create sufficient data to utilise bandwidth above 54Mbps because when I'm connected using a wired connection I see utilisation of about 850Mbps.
PPS I found and installed an updated driver 15.2.0.19, but it doesn't help.

 

[tom_gr7]

i'd give pcs a bell mate, i have noooo idea!

 

[Simi]

Well, I'm not really an expert, but I do have some knowledge on the matter. First off 450Mbps is a meaningless sales term, but you already knew that. In reality the peak, and I mean absolute peak transfer rate you could expect from current 802.11 N gear is half the rated connection speed, due to the nature of the technology. In your case 300/2 = 150Mbps.

Wireless routers effectively need half the connection speed for transmitting to clients and the other half to receive transmissions from clients. Some of the newer, pricier routers have ways of overcoming this limitation, but I don't think that applies to any ISP supplied router.

Tranfer rates are determined by hardware, distance from the router and interference from neighbouring wireless networks and other sources. Now all that being said there are a few things you could try to improve your transfer speeds. (Use this program to acurately measure your transfer speeds http://www.totusoft.com/files/LAN_SpeedTest.exe.)

1.) Ensure WMM is enabled on both your router and your network card. For some reason disabling WMM on certain devices automatically limits their throughput to 54Mbps.

2.) Ensure you use WPA 2 for security on your network. Using WEP (or leaving it open) for that matter will limit your throughput to 54Mbps.

3.) Use http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/ to monitor the wireless networks around you and find the wireless channel with the least interference. Your router normally does this automatically, but it may be unaware that the channel it's using is conflicting with another network in an area you wish to use your laptop.

4.) Using 40MHz channels is the main way 802.11 N improves speed over 802.11 G, but unless your router has ~1/2 the 2.4ghz spectrum (e.g. channels 1-5) all to itself, it won't provide any improvement. 20MHz can actually be faster in some cases, experiment with both to see which is right for you.

5.) Move your router. Moving your router by just a metre can drastically alter the wirelss signal in some cases. Try to keep it as far off the ground as possible for the best signal, and position it as close as possible to where you normally use your laptop.

6.) Buy a new router. I don't know anything about the BT HomeHub, being from Ireland. But if it's anything liike the routers ISP's here hand out, it's not going to be up to much. It's also probably something that can't be easly replaced. So the only thing you can really do is buy your own top of the range router and configure it to work in conjunction with your BT HomeHub (some routers are so locked down, that even this is impossible). This would require quite a bit of research.

7.) I'm sure there's an obvious answer to your problem I'm missing, so try to research it yourself and ask in other forums. Boards.ie is my personal favourite place to look for advice (someone there, recommended pcspecialist to me, when I was looking for a new laptop ;-) )

 

[Simon]

Hi Simi

Apologies for the late reply but I didn't get a notification that you had posted - will check my subscriptions again.
Anyway, guru or not this was a helpful and well considered answer so +rep.
I am using WPA2-PSK and my router limits itself to 130Mbps unless I select the 40MHz channels when it seems to deliver 300Mbps. It also has smart channel selection.
I reckon I do have WMM enabled, but I'll double-check. I wasn't sure about the benefits, so hadn't paid undue attention to it.
The signal strength is Excellent, so don't think I need to re-position.
I'll try the monitor that you recommended - I had been looking for one, but hadn't found anything that helped.
If I have any success I'll update this thread.
Meantime, thanks a lot for your help.

Simon

 

[iPHAILZ]

Try changing the security type from TKIP to AES in the wireless networks properties (can't remember exactly where). It did the trick on an old acer laptop for me before.

 

[Simon]

Thanks for the tip, but already using AES ... seems like I should have provided more detail in my OP. Sorry!