Low speed using a Dlink DWA-140 NIC with a Dlink DIR-655 wireless router

[WebMaximus]

Hi,

I have the products in the subject line and I'm very happy, I get about 60 Mbit both up- and downstream (I have a 100/100 Mbit fiber connection).

For this reason I recommended a friend of mine to buy the same setup (DIR-655 and DWA-140) when he said he wanted to switch over from wired to wireless but still don't loose too much speed.

Today I helped him install the router and the NIC and all went fine but for some reason the best speed we were able to reach was about 15 Mbit downstream (he has a 24/1 Mbit cable modem connection) and when we tried wired connection we reached his max 24 Mbit without any problems and we tried both with his PC directly connected to the cable modem in the same way he was originally connected before buying the router but also PC->router->cable modem and in both cases we reached his max speed.

Any idea why he can't reach more than about 15 Mbit when running wireless when I reach about 60 Mbit using the exact same products? Also worth mentioning is the result was the same regardless of the distance between the NIC and the router, even when placing his PC next to the router we didn't get any higher than approx 15 Mbit despite the connectivity reported was excellent.

I went through all different settings in the router and tried to figure out if there were anything in there that I needed to change/adjust but couldn't find anything in particular. What I did change was to configure the router to only support 802.11n since he doesn't have any other devices and the DWA-140 is a 802.11n compatible NIC but that also didn't change the low wireless speed - I've heard that a mixed mode environment can slow down the speed.

Right now I feel abit stupid since I told my friend before buying the new HW that he would be able to reach his max 24 Mbit without any problem considering I get approx 60 Mbit using the same setup so if anyone can give me any tips what might be causing the low wireless speed I would really appriciate it.

Thanks in advance,

Richard

 

[thiggins]

Draft 11n only mode won't do anything since the router already knows that it is dealing with a draft 11n client. Try setting Auto 20/40 mode to see if that raises the speed a little.

 

[WebMaximus]

I belive that is how it's already set but I'll doublecheck that next time I visit my friend. Any other tips...what about the NIC, are there any settings there that could cause the low speed and thus need to be adjusted?

 

[thiggins]

It's possible. But generally, the default settings that come with the NICs are fine.

 

[WebMaximus]

OK, well...will have another look both at the router and the nic and see if I can find anything I missed last time.

Thanks anyway for your input!