WNDR3700 2.4 Ghz vs. 5 Ghz Performance

[Sydero]

I was wondering what kind of speeds you guys were getting with 5 Ghz when you're near to your router compared to 2.4 Ghz.

Recently when my laptop was ~2.5m in range without barriers I decided to compare the performance of 5 ghz vs. 2.4 ghz. Consistently I found that reading from my connected external drive to be faster on 2.4 Ghz than 5 Ghz. My laptop has a Centrino 6200, so I doubt the adapter is to blame. Even at such a close distance my adapter refuses to goto 300 Mbps in Windows 7, remaining at 270 Mbps, while the 2.4 Ghz AP remains at 300 Mbps.

Is 5 Ghz a joke for this router or are certain batches/revisions to blame? Are you guys getting better results than me? I currently have a WNDR3700-100NAS rev. 02R1 router.

 

[stevech]

Did you measure the real IP layer speeds? The 802.11 air link rates are somewhat correlated, but the only thing that matters is the IP layer yield.
Put Qcheck (freeware) on two PCs on your fast LAN. Note that the PC's CPU speed becomes important at these goal speeds, for TCP traffic. For UDP, not so much.

I never got half gigabit ethernet speeds with very fast PCs when doing file transfers using windows shares on NTFS. A LOT of overhead. CPU speed dependent. Much worse yet if you use SMB or one PC is Linux.

So Qcheck or one of the freeware software packages, or $$$ for the industry standard Chariot.

 

[Sydero]

No I am just measuring the transfer rates that Windows 7 reports... however when I consistently see that 2.4 ghz is outperforming 5 ghz for file transfers in windows, why would I need extra software to tell me what I already know?

Could finding my real IP layer speeds suggest that the laptop I purchased this year can't handle 5 ghz?

 

[overdrive31]

stop worrying about link rates especially when using 40MHz mode which inherently is unstable, stick with good old 20MHz mode.

 

[stevech]

Could finding my real IP layer speeds suggest that the laptop I purchased this year can't handle 5 ghz?

5GHz is no faster than 11g in 2.4GHz.

Your laptop should give you 22+ Megabits/sec with a wired connection and perhaps 20% less with an idea WiFi signal. That's more than most people have from their Internet provider.

 

[Sydero]

5GHz is no faster than 11g in 2.4GHz.

Your laptop should give you 22+ Megabits/sec with a wired connection and perhaps 20% less with an idea WiFi signal. That's more than most people have from their Internet provider.

I'm talking about local network performance. People with other routers have mentioned better speeds because they have a better connection at 5 Ghz. Why are you talking about 22 Mb/s plus, this is 802.11N not 802.11G. I can download and upload wirelessly at speeds well beyond 22 Mb/s on my local network.

 

[thiggins]

No I am just measuring the transfer rates that Windows 7 reports... however when I consistently see that 2.4 ghz is outperforming 5 ghz for file transfers in windows, why would I need extra software to tell me what I already know?

270 and 300 Mbps reported in Network Properties are not "transfer" rates, but link rates. (see screenshot in 5 Ways To Fix Slow 802.11n Speed, Fix #1).

The difference in these two link rates isn't significant.

You can determine actual speed by using the speeds reported by Win 7 when you're doing a large filecopy (like a ripped DVD file).

In the same room at about 10 feet, you should not see any significant difference between 2.4 and 5 GHz. But there is the possibility that you are overloading a receiver at that close range. So you could try the experiment by moving the client to the other side of a wall or reducing the WNDR3700 transmit power.

5 GHz, however, will have reduced range vs. 2.4 GHz.