Slow internet with sonicwall wifi

[Rosco]

Hi everyone. I have been busy so havent been on here as much.

I have a client with a sonicwall router (SonicWall TZ 105W) that the wifi is going incredibly slow over wifi. They had the sonicwall installed when they got vonage phones in Dec 2016. This was one of the approved routers.

The office isnt big maybe 5 or 6 computer connected but all wireless. The area is maybe 1000 square feet over a few rooms. Its on the 20th floor of a 28 floor office building so maybe metal in the wall is interfering.

If i plug into the router with my laptop it is double to triple the speed.

I have looked through the settings and do not see anything that would indicate the slow speed. The have stopped paying for any services on the sonicwall but that shouldnt matter for this i think.

I have recommend hard wiring the office but that are so particular about looks that isnt ideal for them.

Any ideas about what i can do to improve this situation would be helpful!

 

[TAPtech]

Can you quantify this a bit? Are you talking about WiFi vs copper for a LAN share? If so, a gigabit connection should be double to triple the speed.

 

[HCHTech]

I have a client with a sonicwall router (SonicWall TZ 105W) that the wifi is going incredibly slow over wifi. They had the sonicwall installed when they got vonage phones in Dec 2016. This was one of the approved routers.

Well, first of all, a TZ105W is old and slow at this point (It is currently in Active Retirement Mode, and EOL is 9/10/20). The last day you could order a 105W was 9/10/15, so someone had it sitting on a shelf somewhere for a while before they sold it to your unlucky client.

The have stopped paying for any services on the sonicwall

Of course they have. I might suggest to them that you can only support it (and Sonicwall can only support it, btw) if they maintain the license. Which, if they had, you could just call Sonicwall, have them troubleshoot it, and possibly replace it free of charge. You can bring the license current for a $50 penalty, plus the cost of a 1-year license, which can't be much on a 105. Looked it up, it's $299 retail.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

#1...it's wireless "N". So around 65 megs real world speed would be optimal. Start adding more clients at the same time....cut that bandwidth. #2 Add in additional wireless interference from neighboring offices...since you stated a 28 story building. And with it being 2.4..you will have TONS of overlapping channels starting to cut into your 3 non-overlapping channels, thus hurts performance even more.
#3 Are they using the extra secure "wifi-sec" of the Sonicewall? (Adds VPN security)..or just plain jane WPA2? Hopefully not older WPA or WEP.

 

[putz]

TZ105 is lowest on the totem pole even for when it was being sold. It might not deliver the performance you are looking for. You might be better off purchasing a more modern access point and disabling the wireless on the sonicwall. Otherwise if you want to try and troubleshoot it, this is what I would suggest given my experience with Sonicwall products:

Update to latest firmware. Try disabling all security services on your wireless zone. Make sure you dont have the wireless configured for all wireless bands... Many times by default it will be set for b/g/n combined. I like to set it to N only. Configure the 2.4ghz band to 20mhz and check for RF interference and configure the channel to one that has the least interference. Double check to make sure you dont have bandwidth management enabled. Not sure if someone created a bandwidth object for max bandwidth an applied it to the ACL for the wifi traffic? If its still garbage, try disabling Aggregation and Short Guard Interval options if they are present in the wireless settings and try setting EAPOL to v1. I have noticed these last few settings on Sonicwall devices dont always work well with other wireless clients when they are enabled.