Slow speed to a network laptop via wireless

[Ozpa]

(I hope you don't mind that I copied this post from my thread on LTT since I really want to get help on this)

Hello everyone!

I have been having this problem and not sure when it started but it has been at least a year since I started noticing it.

We have a small home network with 2 PCs (desktop and laptop) that are both connected to a router (Asus RT-N66U) through wireless and ethernet respectively and the router is connected to the internet modem through ethernet cable too. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron N5010 (i3-350M, 4GB, DW1501 Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card) and even though the card is n I was never able to get speeds higher than 3.5MB/s when I was uploading files to the laptop from my desktop PC (forgot to mention the laptop's signal & noise averages -20dBm and -90dBm). But the speed is not the problem.

The weird thing is that the speed when I take files from the laptop to desktop is solid around 3.5-4MB/s but when it's the opposite the speed is barely a crawl 1-5KB/s, overall the connection basically freezes up for like 5 seconds before any action when thing are getting moved to the laptop. But again, when files are taken from the laptop is all well and good.

I'm pretty sure it's the laptop's fault because I have upgraded my router 4 months ago and I had the exact same situation. I have updated to the latest wireless drivers a few days ago and it was working fine until the laptop got restarted. I used to change some options in the wireless card properties (Advanced tab) and it started working at 3+MB/s again but as soon as you restart the laptop it's back to a crawl.

I can't figure out why is uploading files to the laptop is so slow (while at the same time downloading from it is working fine).

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[Fraoch]

I've found filesharing to often be inconsistent like that. There's a lot of variables and things don't often go according to plan...

Try testing raw speed using iperf. This eliminates hard drive or filesharing issues and focuses on raw networking speed. If you get similar differences with iperf, focus on the network (drivers, settings, etc.) If speeds are about the same both ways, it's a filesharing quirk which may be difficult to pin down.

For years I'd have an issue where it took minutes to bring up the folders on the share but once they were up, filesharing worked at a decent speed. It went away on its own...I'm not sure what I changed. It wasn't the network though.

 

[stevech]

The weird thing is that the speed when I take files from the laptop to desktop is solid around 3.5-4MB/s but when it's the opposite the speed is barely a crawl 1-5KB/s.

more commonly, the client/laptop-to-router is slower because the laptop's WiFi hardware often has a lower power transmitter = weaker signal = slower data rate.
Just checking: MB/s means MegaBytes/second, whereas we say Mbps for bits per second. So 4MB/s = 32Mbps which is very good for WiFi, assuming you are some distance/walls away.

1-5KB/s suggests a very weak signal at the laptop, fault hardware, etc.


Some questions
I'll assume that some other WiFi client in the same location works OK both directions. diagnosis by elimination)
And I'll assume the destination for from-laptop data is not flawed.

What WiFi connection speed does the laptop show when speeds are slow?
Have you tried putting the WiFi router on a different channel, say 1, 6 or 11?
Have you used the laptop on some other WiFi system without slowness?

 

[Ozpa]

more commonly, the client/laptop-to-router is slower because the laptop's WiFi hardware often has a lower power transmitter = weaker signal = slower data rate.
Just checking: MB/s means MegaBytes/second, whereas we say Mbps for bits per second. So 4MB/s = 32Mbps which is very good for WiFi, assuming you are some distance/walls away.

1-5KB/s suggests a very weak signal at the laptop, fault hardware, etc.


Some questions
I'll assume that some other WiFi client in the same location works OK both directions. diagnosis by elimination)
And I'll assume the destination for from-laptop data is not flawed.

What WiFi connection speed does the laptop show when speeds are slow?
Have you tried putting the WiFi router on a different channel, say 1, 6 or 11?
Have you used the laptop on some other WiFi system without slowness?

Hello

I wrote down the speeds correctly yes.
I don't have any other devices at home right now that I could test the speed with and compare, I have a pretty big hunch it's something to do with the laptop.
The laptop and router are in the same room hence the good signal strength that I mentioned in 1st post.
Ok so I switched from 6 to 11 and in 1 try it was slow, so then I switched to 1 and the speed to the laptop (which was previously 1-5KB/s) is now at an average 3-5MB/s (depends on the size of the file transfered)! Looks good right, but as soon as I restart the laptop it's back to a crawl (being on the same channel). I keep trying to change channel to 6, 11, and back to 1 and still no dice.

 

[sfx2000]

I'm thinking driver issues on the Laptop WiFi card...

sfx

 

[tipstir]

Are you just doing file transfers or are you measuring from a Internet browser?

Not a lot you can do for tweaking the WiFi NIC. You can changed the TCP.sys setting from fallback of 10 for MSC (max session connections)

Also the Internet Bandwidth you are paying for say you had 50 mbps down, but the laptop was only using 3 mbps down. All Windows even version XP, 7, and the 8 suffer from this too.

Again there a tweaks free can correct this issue. Then there is the TCP Global settings if they're in the default mode then that makes it worst.

Also internal sub system file structure if the registry is corrupted or have data junk files or dump load of temps that don't need to be on the system. Old installers from Windows updates and a bunch of MCX files. If you clean the system on a regular bases and make sure the system HDD is not fragment then you have would have one heck a system like almost new again!

What I describe I do that on Windows laptops and tablets the only way to keep them running at peak performance for LAN/WAN wired or wireless mostly wireless.

Also Malware, adware, animalware, spyware, viruses, software out of date all these can plague the system.

And last Microsoft has Processor Explorer app for free install it which only involves copy the folder to your C:\Programs (x86) and create a shortcut for the desktop. Run that app and see what's lurking on the system.

 

[Ozpa]

I'm doing file transfers in my network (but only the transfer TO the laptop is slow, not FROM the laptop). Downloading files from the web is at full speed(10mpbs) of my connection, no problem there.

The laptop is clean of any junk, I might re-install the laptop soon just to see if the problem fixes itself.

 

[stevech]

assuming the laptop is near wire speed when using ethernet rather than WiFi?

 

[Ozpa]

I haven't tried using it on ethernet, but even if it works fine it has to be on wifi because a wire accross the room would be non-satisfactory :-(

 

[tipstir]

On the DELL for the NIC WiFi Status what does it ready for Connection Speed?

54, 64, 150, 274 or 300 mbps?

Remember this is on the laptop itself not from the WiFi Router. What does it read?

 

[Ozpa]

In the connection status window is says 72mbps.