Unexplainable halving of speeds on WiFi

T

thecrafter

I have LOVED the Cock for
Joined
Feb 11, 2011
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I'm having a really weird issue with my wireless. Somewhere around the time when I switched from Win 7 to XP, my laptop wireless speed dropped by 60% from 10Mb/s to 4Mb/s.

My other laptop is still doing 10Mb/s so it's not a network issue. And also it isn't a virus or anything and hardware Ethernet is doing 10Mb/s.

I thought maybe it's a power saving issue so I turned off all Wireless power saving features within the drivers (BIOS doesn't have any WiFi power savings), and still the same result.

I'm up to date with all the latest drivers, including WiFi (which is an Intel 4965AGN). Just tried uninstalling and reinstalling just to be sure.

I've tried everything I can think of. I know for a fact I had gotten 10Mb/s in the past on this laptop. Maybe the WiFi is dying? But it doesn't explain why I have 5 bars signal strength constantly and the speed doesn't fluctuate or anything and no drop outs...

Really don't understand. Anyone have ANY ideas?
 
thecrafter said:
Somewhere around the time when I switched from Win 7 to XP, my laptop wireless speed dropped by 60% from 10Mb/s to 4Mb/s.
Click to expand...

I think I found your problem. ;)

But seriously, if everything is up to date, then it might just be the way it is.
 
change the channel your wireless run on for one.

anyone else connecting to the wireless?

you have it set to B /G or G only

also why the switch from 7 back to XP?
 
MrGuvernment said:
change the channel your wireless run on for one.

anyone else connecting to the wireless?

you have it set to B /G or G only

also why the switch from 7 back to XP?
Click to expand...

Tried changing from 11 to 9 and no change.

Set to G only. Tried B and it was slightly slower.

Nothing else connected other than these two laptops
 
With torrent I manage 10Mb/s download.

Over the internet (tried at least 5 sources, including filehippo, CNET and MajorGeeks), I max out at 4Mb/s.

Now I ran several speed tests. Two manage 8-10Mb/s, but 3 others show a consistent 4Mb/s. All are from servers very close to me.

With one that is showing 4Mb/s, in the past showed 10Mb/s, and over ethernet is still showing 10Mb/s. It seems like it's being picky with the source, as if a packet routing issue perhaps but still makes no sense
 
Anyone know where I can test a real life download speed over HTTP that you know gets at least 10Mb/s download?

As mentioned with the above internet sources I max at 4Mb/s but maybe they are limited to that? Although I REALLY doubt that
 
I'm inclined to say it is because you went from 7 to XP.

Why did you switch from 7 to XP?
 
Don't try to test your wireless network's speed by downloading from the internet, there are way too many potential bottlenecks. Transfer something locally.
 
Mackintire said:
download and use SSIDinsider and report back here.
Click to expand...

Hrmm what info do you need exactly? Doesn't display much useful information. I'm the only one at the current frequency, and at -30dB for range.

The only weird thing I notice is that it reports my rate to be 18. My router is set to 54, and I see all other 2Wire routers in my neighborhood (4 others) are all set to 18. Must be a U-Verse limitation or something. Either way my other laptop is connected to the same router and is getting normal speeds.
 
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It really seems to be that it's being picky with the locations as if it's a packet routing issue because some speedtests report the same 4-5Mb/s, others 11Mb/s.

And while torrents give 11Mb/s, downloading from HTTP gives 4-5Mb/s. Downloading from the same HTTP source (CNET for example) on my other laptop gives me full 11Mb/s :confused:

Also Netflix and Amazon VOD no longer do HD for me on this laptop but do on the other. Amazon defaults to the lowest quality, and films that have HD in Netflix don't render in HD.

All speed tests from http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ report the same 4-5Mb/s (any area)

All speed tests from http://www.speedtest.net report 10-11Mb/s (IL, WI, MI areas)

Happens on both IE and FF. No proxy is used
 
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What router are you using? Try updating it, make sure your ports aren't funked up, reset it, check settings. If everything checks out with your laptop then the problem could be there. My geuss is also the fact that you switched to XP. Even if you put the latest drivers on there who's to say the XP drivers aren't 2 years older than the 7 drivers since no one supports the ancient XP?
 
HeavensCloud said:
What router are you using? Try updating it, make sure your ports aren't funked up, reset it, check settings. If everything checks out with your laptop then the problem could be there. My geuss is also the fact that you switched to XP. Even if you put the latest drivers on there who's to say the XP drivers aren't 2 years older than the 7 drivers since no one supports the ancient XP?
Click to expand...

I already confirmed it isn't the router because I got two laptops connecting to the same router. One is fine the other isn't. I'm testing them from the same location of course (meaning I'm not testing one from 20 feet underground and one an inch from the router, Mr.Guvernment; it's a little insulting TBH. Not that I expect you to read this, as you couldn't bother to read my OP in the first place). It's software level. Either way router is 2Wire U-Verse POS with no control. Can't manually updates, it updates automatically.

XP has nothing to do with it man. It's not like XP had a brief 2 month stint as a OS and no one would have had a chance to catch this bug. This is also a very common wireless chipset, so if it was global... they'd know. Lay off with the XP comments everyone.

I also tried three different driver versions. One release September 8 2011 (yes, for XP), one release Nov 2010, and one from 2007 or 2008, forgot.

All have this problem.

I will load a live CD of Linux tomorrow but I don't think it'll do any good because as far as I know no one supports Intel wireless out of the box because it's "not free" drivers BS

Thanks for those that tried to help meaningfully, but I'm done. Shoulda known better that forum support gets you no where. These days people can't be bothered to read more than the title of a thread before spouting ridiculous questions that have been answered in the OP, or even better, blaming a proven OS with a solid background and 11 years of driver development as the culprit
 
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YES!!! SOLVED!

Used TCP Optimizer from http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php

Don't know what setting fixed it. Maybe MTU? I'd imagine it'd have the biggest impact but I'm not into networking so idk. Either way something got messed up along the lines after installing XP and this fixed it.

The dumb thing is.. Intel removed the settings of full duplex, half duplex, manual MTU settings, etc from the driver options when you go to configure, and instead replaced those options with their own useless ones.
 
With your user title, I don't believe you will ever be taken seriously :eek:



j/k :p have fun here.
 
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