set up questions and intermittent internet slowness

[joetiii]

I hope someone can help me with some set up questions and speed issues I have with my ne RT N66U dual band router. I recently had to upgrade because my Netgear died a slow death and I needed a faster router that could accomodate my home office PC which wirelessly connects to the internet. We have the usual plethora of iTouch, Roku streamer, Android phones all connecting to the router wirelessly along with a Home PC and WD back up hard drive hard wired to the Router as well. Oops almost forgot the kids Xbox which is also hardwired.

Anyway, my HP work desktop is approx. 40 ft from the router and it sees a strong 2.4G signal. The PC was new in March '12 and for some reason, it can not sense the 5G signal. I have a slightly older HP laptop runnikng Win 7 that can sense the 5G network from one room further away than the PC. What's up with that?


Secondly, I know enough to make myself dangerous so please bear with me. I know the 5g range is smaller than 2.4G so I figured I would try to use all the closer devices on the 5G network. Unfortunately, my Roku streamer can not sense the 5G signal and it sits 5 feet away, though my 2 year old Lexmark wireless printer sitting in the same room as Roku can log on to 5g. Why?

Next is I am getting varying levels of speed from the internet and this is my primary complaint and reason for this post. I can run an Internet speed test from my ethernet connected PC and get speeds ranging from 10.mbps to 18 Mbps. On my work PC connected to the 2.4 band, I only get 1.3 Mbps to 3.2 Mbps. I do the tests during the day when there are no other wireless activities in the household going on. Speeds around 3.0 are OK for me to work with, but when the speed is down to 1.0, I can not wait for content to load. It drives me crazy. What Internet download speeds should I realistically expect from this router on wireless network? I did not have this slowness with the Netgear until the very end of its life. (of course, I did not have all the other devices either) It will be a real PITA if I have to hardwire the work PC as I have a 200 year old house.

I must say that I asked the Geek squad for help and they suggested I make sure I am connected to a good channel compared to my wireless neighbors. I have used my android app to discover the neighbor's channels and I am on Ch 1 which is far from the 2 other channels I sense.

I went into the admin section of router and see that it has many configurabl options to make it acheive maximum performance. Based on my commentary so far, what do you learned people suggest I start with tweaking to improve my situation?

I have not upgraded the firmware from current version it shipped...3.0.0.4.220

I am appreciative of any all all comments.

Thanks>

Joe

 

[mikeg]

Have you tried to update the wireless drivers in your devices ?
As for finding which channel to use why not use inSSIDer on your pc
and see if you can see both yhe 2.4 and the 5 GHz band ?
The wifi analyzer I have on my android can only see the 3.4 GHz band.
Have you checked your cables to the router so that you have cat5e or cat6
cables only ?

 

[joetiii]

Have you tried to update the wireless drivers in your devices ?

I will try that first on my work PC. The Broadcom WLAN driver is from 2010.


As for finding which channel to use why not use inSSIDer on your pc
and see if you can see both yhe 2.4 and the 5 GHz band ?

OK this will be next but where to run progran SSIDer? help!


The wifi analyzer I have on my android can only see the 3.4 GHz band.
Have you checked your cables to the router so that you have cat5e or cat6
cables only ?

I am using the cable that came with router and assume it is 5e. I will check for sure to see.

Thanks for the comments so far. will report back.

joe

 

[joetiii]

Well it says the WLAN on my office PC is up to date, so I guess it is not designed to offer dual band covaerage.

Time to check the Roku but I am doubtful on that as well.

Can someone clue me in on SSIDer?

 

[RogerSC]

Well it says the WLAN on my office PC is up to date, so I guess it is not designed to offer dual band covaerage.

Time to check the Roku but I am doubtful on that as well.

Can someone clue me in on SSIDer?

You can download and install "inSSIDer" on a pc that uses wireless, like a laptop, and run it there. It will tell you what channels are in use in the bands that the pc can use. For example, if you want to know what channel to use yourself on your router, you can bring up inSSIDer and look for the least used channels in your area (concentrate on 1, 6, and 11 for 2.4GHz band). I use channel 11 here, but channel 1 is also okay at my house. I can see that my next door neighbor uses channel 6, so that is one that I don't use. You can also see your own router signals of course, and if your pc wireless works on the 5GHz. band, you will see its signal there using inSSIDer. Of course, you will also see your router's signal on 2.4GHz. on inSSIDer when you're using it to look at that as well.

Another use for inSSIDer is to help set up the orientation of the router and the router antennas to get the best signal in the areas in your living space where you want the best signal, or where the signal is marginal. Since inSSIDer gives an indication of relative signal strength, you can change the orientation of your antennas to maximize the relative signal strength at particular locations, and see how your signal strength changes.