Wireless Laptop speeds -Survey

[coffee]

I am working on a clients laptop and noticed that during a speed test with Ookla the laptop is getting 4.44 Mbps down and 12Mbs up. They connect to a comcast modem/router/wireless box. I see that their wireless network card is a qualcomm with 802.11ac

Shouldnt this be faster?

What speeds do you get?

 

[GTP]

4.44 down and 12 up seems strange? Usually the other way around.
Wouldn't that depend on their line speed though? What internet speed were they promised by the ISP?
What about the modem/router is it in good shape?
Have you tried another unit and checked speeds?
No filtering or limits in the modem/router?
They haven't inadvertently changed settings in the modem/router to limit bandwidth?
Any Aerial damage in the laptop?
Tried a reboot/manual disconnect/reconnect/hard reset on the unit and tested again?
Wireless network card should handle whatever is thrown at it.

 

[NJW]

4.44 down and 12 up seems strange?

Faster up than down usually means a high contention ratio, either locally or at the ISP.

@coffee What does Ookla say if you use an Ethernet connection?

[UPS cable diagram]

Should this be here? Edit: no, wrong thread!

 

[coffee]

Oops! Wrong thread!!!
Now thats a first for me. I guess I was a bit tired last night lol...

 

[coffee]

Yes, Interesting issue. I wanted to get some comparisons of wireless internet speeds because I do not really do a lot of wireless here in the shop. My cell phone. Sometimes when fixing laptops of course but because thats not the nature of the issue with the repair I do not normally check the laptops speed.

This speed test is from my neighbor and we both have comcast. I fired up an older laptop I have here in the shop and getting the same thing. Comcast of course denies any issue on their end.

On my modem, I bought it myself. I do not rent from comcast. On the neighbors its a comcast all in one modem/wifi/router. So, It could be some incorrect settings in some way. I dont know.

 

[Markverhyden]

I use a mix of tests. I'll run two pings piped to a file for the record so to speak. One is IP, 8.8.8.8, and one is FQDN google.com.

When it comes to testing sites I never use just one. I've had similar situations where the numbers are way off. I'll use speedtest.net, speakeasy.com/speedtest and I'll do a search of <isp name> speedtest which will bring up their own. The reason why I do the ping is latency issues are not always reflected in those web based speed tests. And for serious stuff I'll do iperf as well as actual files transfers.

 

[fencepost]

Do you have another system on the internal network that you can test bandwidth to? There's the good old "copy a big file" method, but you can also use something like iperf (open source) or PsPing (sysinternals). Kind of like double-checking to make sure you're not using a 30-year-old 4-wire "Cat5" patch cable when troubleshooting for gigabit problems.

 

[Diggs]

What does a wired connection get?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

What does a wired connection get?

Yup, first thing I'd do if I had any question about wireless performance. This will likely eliminate wasting tons of time looking in the wrong places.

 

[coffee]

My wired connection is 158Mbs. I tested with mine and get the same 4Mbs download speed. I was just wondering about the speed of AC. I tested with a different laptop on my connection and I get the same 4Mbs download. I have my own modem so Im thinking its something to do with comcast programing of modem. I dont know just guessing there.

 

[phaZed]

Comcast can be a real crap-shoot. In my area.. one neighborhood will be able to reach full speeds while another neighborhood is seemingly 'overloaded' and the speeds suck.

The wealthiness of the neighborhood often has an effect on the service quality.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

My wired connection is 158Mbs. I tested with mine and get the same 4Mbs download speed. I was just wondering about the speed of AC. I tested with a different laptop on my connection and I get the same 4Mbs download. I have my own modem so Im thinking its something to do with comcast programing of modem. I dont know just guessing there.

OK, so now we're narrowing things down.
Wired...you bench at 158 megs. I'm going to guess you have a 150/20 package from Comcast. So...what's your upload bench at..when WIRED in?

So if you bench 158/and lets say 20 megs wired....and you bench at 4/12 wireless...we can start with a site survey.
Find out neighboring wireless. And are you on running on 2.4 or 5?
And look at wireless settings. Specifically which security (should be WPA2 AES for best performance).
What we have for neighboring wireless channels on both 2.4 and 5
What we have for possible other wireless noise in the building

 

[nerd2u]

How far are you from the wireless router look at he actual db level not that bar crap and see. Perhaps your getting a poor WiFi connection.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[Diggs]

In reply to original question -

Using a Cisco 802.11n rated router on Charter's 100 Mb connection I get 30-35 Mbs down with a ping of ~.21 ms on multiple 802.11n devices around the house and shop. I get 12 Mbs up which is the limit of my service with Charter.

 

[coffee]

My wireless access point is on top of my new cabinets in the basement shop. I have it pointed to to the upstairs. I get 4Mb/s down on a unrelated test laptop I have. Over at my neighbors on her laptop at her wireless comcast connection she also gets 4Mb/s down.

I will check the compression and other settings like others have suggested.

@Diggs - I appreciate the information in your last post very much. That is what I was originally looking for.

 

[Markverhyden]

Have you tried something other than speedtest.net?

 

[nlinecomputers]

http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest Give much more information about the quality of the signal.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yeah forgot to answer part of your original question.."what speeds do you get".
AC wireless "should" get around 200 Mb/s.

I just ran a test from my Lenovo laptop, copying a Windows ISO from our Synology NAS. Figured doing a local file transfer of a large file would be a good test of wireless speeds, removing the internet and ISP from the equation, and other traffic on our internet pipes.

I averaged just above 30 MB/s....which translates (multiplying by 8) to around 250 Mb/s (what you measure internet speed and transfer rates with).


Outside my office is just a Unifi UAP-AC-LIte...only a 2x2 MIMO AP.
I don't have many clients with a > 150 meg internet pipe....but I'll be onsite at one with a 150 meg pipe with Comcast and I'll run a benchmark tomorrow. Pretty sure I will have "max speeds" near 150/20 (minus about 10% for QoS throttling).

 

[coffee]

Recap here:

My setup for Internet speed tests from wireless are:

Laptop ---> Ubiquiti AP -----> comcast cable modem ----------------------> internet.

Wired Speed: 158Mb/s down
Wireless: 4Mb/s down

My neighbor who has this issue of slow speeds has a AC wireless card in her laptop and connects straight to the comcast wireless router.

My test laptop is an older one with I think a B or N wireless in it. It gets the same download speed. --- 4Mb/s

I downloaded a new kernel with my test laptop and my download speed of that averaged 543k/s

Signal strength is excellent on my Ubiquity wireless AP.

Ill download something from my internal server and note the speed in my next reply.

 

[nlinecomputers]

Ok this is clear as mud. If I follow you on this. Both your laptop and the clients laptop have poor WiFi downloads from her router? Replace her router. If you have done that and nothing has changed and wired is still working better than WiFi then you have a source of interference disrupting the signal. Time to get out the WiFi analyser and find channel with less noice.