SLOW: 13 MB/s on Gigibit to 5Ghz wifi LAN (Windows7)

[abowlofsoda]

Wired PC, NIC set to 1gig, Link Speed 1gig
(Gigabit tp-link tg-3269 NIC card)

Wifi PC - Connected at 5Ghz, WPA2 AES, -70dBm Signal, Link Speed 450
(tp-link TL-WDN4800 Wireless Dual Band adapter)

Router, latest firmware, 40 dual bonding (20 cuts my mb/s in half)
(ASUS RT-N66U)

I have all the latest drivers on everything.

Windows 7 64bit

I have high quality Cat6 cable (probably about 30ft long)

I'm on the wired PC trying to copy a 3.5gb file from the Wifi PC to the (wired) PC i'm on. After trying every setting in the NIC card for flow rate, offloading, jumbo frames, etc and rebooting a gazillion times- the most I'm able to get is 13.5 MB/s

I went through every Google link I could find on the subject and its all the same crap over and over. Alot of it is misinformation. Netsh commands actually hampered my connection speed down to 5-6 MB/s. I have since set everything in netsh back to default and used every reset command I could find, rebooting after it all. I stayed at 5-6 MB/s until I reboot the router- then i was back to anywhere from 12 MB/s to 13.5 MB/s.
This is past the 100 mb/s cap and I have checked all my link speeds over and over to make sure I'm not connected at anything but 450 on the wifi and 1gig on the wired.

Like I said, I have read every link thru 3 pages of Google and read through every thread here I could find and tried it all. I can't get it any faster.

Any ideas?

 

[L&LD]

At -70dBm and upload speed of 108Mbps, you may have reached the limit of your hardware / environment.

Try re-orienting the router and / or the laptop with respect to each other.

Try using the laptop on wall outlet power with the high performance battery option.

Try moving the laptop closer to the router and / or with a more line of sight location.

Use a different Channel.

Use different channel widths.

 

[Nullity]

With my RT-N66U and a 2x2 client my highest recorded speed was ~120Mbit.


The fastest speed I have seen mentioned was ~270Mbit, using the Asus USB-N66 which is a 3x3 client. See this thread for more information: http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=21139

I have kinda given up trying to improve my wireless throughput, considering that I use Linux and should probably be happy that the wireless even works.

 

[abowlofsoda]

Thanks for the replies.

13 Mb/s sounded so low- especially reading about others getting 25+

I can lower the noise floor with better antennas, possibly. I do not have a laptop and I nearly have a line of sight to the router without any walls in the way.

What could I expect out of an AC router in this same setup?

 

[L&LD]

An AC router will give you better performance if you choose one that is AC 1900 class or higher. But it is your client device that will determine the actual throughput increase you will see.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/tools/charts/router/bar/116-5-ghz-updn-c


Not sure if you will see what I am seeing in the above link (select N900, AC1900, AC2350 and AC3200 class routers), but the 'up to' increase can be over 2x what you have now.

Again, depending on your client's capabilities.

If you have a brick and mortar store that allows returns, you can test for yourself what a new router can offer you in your environment. Any of us will just be guessing as the variables are almost infinite.

 

[azazel1024]

Just an AC router you'll probably see gains in the 0-50% range, even using the same client, the newer routers just work better in my experience, even compared to what was already a good 11n router.

-70dBm is right on the edge of a weak signal. Pretty much anything less than -50dBm is strong/very strong. -51 to -69dBm is medium and -70 and lower is weak (-80dBm and lower is very weak).

Bigger antennas depends, if you aren't also picking up more interefence, which on 5GHz isn't terribly likely, then figure you'll see about 10-20% increase in performance for every 2dB increase in antenna gain from some extensive testing I've done.

HOWEVER, YMMV. So if you have 4dBi antennas on your PCIe card or router and swapped on some 8dBi, you'd probably see in the 20-40% range for gain.

MAYBE.

Both my TP-Link WDR3600 moving from 5 to 7dBi and my TP-Link Archer C8 moving from 2/3 to 5dBi both show roughly a 20% increase in performance at medium range and further on both bands. The Archer C8 also saw a gain on 5GHz at short distances too, but the WDR3600 saw no gains on either band at short distance (still capped at ~25MB/sec). I also tried some 7dBi on the Archer C8 and saw a roughly similar increase of 10-20% on both bands, THOUGH I lost performance at short and medium range...reason why is my router is perched up high in my office near the ceiling on a shelf (because I want to feeding both my basement and the rooms above it, so 7dBis probably are too compact in their radiation pattern and most of the stuff in the basement is going to be below the optimal radiation pattern, at long/extreme distance it moves in to the sweet spot again.

That is the caveat emptor, higher gain antennas can increase performance at longer ranges, BUT they have more compact radiation patterns (IE less vertical coverage). So if you need to extend coverage to a floor above or below you, higher gain antennas might make things worse there.

 

[abowlofsoda]

Thank you- all excellent information I can definately use