New WiFi Adaptor, still not fast enough

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jamesrt

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#2301370 18-Aug-2019 21:12

David321: I think the adapter might only be USB 2 capable

The specs on the PBTech page you've linked to clearly state USB2.0.... So, yes.

Username01

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#2301601 19-Aug-2019 11:18

David321:

Hi all, thanks for the help so far, I thought I would clear a few things up and see if I should still be expecting the same results.

The laptop is USB 3 capable, I had put the adapter into the USB 3 slot but get the same results, I think the adapter might only be USB 2 capable.
The laptop have a brand new Samsung SSD so that should not bottle neck the speed.
The laptop also has a gigabit Ethernet port, when I connect with a cable I am getting about 650mbs and on WiFi threw the adapter I am getting between 50 and 100.

I know WiFi will always be slower but should it be that much slower considering the hardware in this laptop, I know its old but with a brand new motherboard and brand new SSD and USB 3.0 and an i7 processor I thought it would perform a little better with this adapter than what its doing now??

Your Toshiba L750 may have decided to drop its USB 3 capability. Disabling/Uninstalling it in the Device Manager, then rebooting may force it to remember.

Zeon

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#2301695 19-Aug-2019 13:16

That laptop probably has a mini PCI-E WiFi adapter. Considering this will be on the PCI-E bus there won't be internal bus bandwidth limitation like with USB2 and it probably has decent antennas available (at least 2.4ghz antennas). If so he could get a cheaper model off AliExpress? They look like this - they would likely be under one of the plastic plates with a screw under the laptop:

Speedtest 2019-10-14

David321

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#2311734 6-Sep-2019 13:31

Zeon:

That laptop probably has a mini PCI-E WiFi adapter. Considering this will be on the PCI-E bus there won't be internal bus bandwidth limitation like with USB2 and it probably has decent antennas available (at least 2.4ghz antennas). If so he could get a cheaper model off AliExpress? They look like this - they would likely be under one of the plastic plates with a screw under the laptop:

I like that idea, although it would make my $60 dongle useless, but if these are cheap enough off aliexpress I would certainly look into getting one, as you say, I would not be limited by the speed capability of USB 2.0.

I do find it interesting though that this dongle I bought had written on the box it can handle speeds of up to 900mbs (or something around that mark) but being USB 2.0 it would not be able to actually put that into the computer

_David_

richms

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#2311743 6-Sep-2019 13:42

Those speeds are the over the air rate. It means that it will take less air time than a slower adapter so have less effect on other network users compared to if you had a crappy old 54 megabit adapater and were maxing that out using the whole wifi channel all the time.

Richard rich.ms

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#2311751 6-Sep-2019 13:55

Also be aware that laptops especially the OEM / big brand names (IBM/Lenovo, Dell, HP, Toshiba etc) typically don't support every variant of mini PCI-E adapters, quite often they will only support specific hardware devices.

So again, I would look into purchasing a new laptop that has AC 3x3 mimo support built into the chipset and it will work. Otherwise you will just be throwing more money at not getting to an outcome you desire.

Lenovo

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allio

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#2311774 6-Sep-2019 14:16

And - as others have said - get used to the idea that you will never get anything close to gigabit speed with wifi.

I have a 3x3 AC1900 router and 3x3 AC1900 PCI-e client and typical real world speeds are about 500Mbps in the same room, and 250Mbps upstairs. My laptop with an 2x2 Intel AC card maxes out at around 300Mbps even just a few metres from the router.

sbiddle

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#2311790 6-Sep-2019 14:38

David321:

I do find it interesting though that this dongle I bought had written on the box it can handle speeds of up to 900mbs (or something around that mark) but being USB 2.0 it would not be able to actually put that into the computer

Which is no different to any modern WiFi device that is labelled AC1300 - this is impossible since most routers only have Gigabit ports.

Throughput over WiFi at layer 3 can only be about 50% of the PHY rate. That's just the way WiFi works.

darylblake

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#2311846 6-Sep-2019 16:07

Yeh, on an old laptop its not gonna happen.

I get about 200-300meg on my 2017 macbook pro. It also depends on how busy my access points are at the time.

To reach speeds like 500Mb+ you gonna need TCP to ramp up with no lost packets. Over wireless, thats just difficult.

Iphone x gets between 200-500meg depending on the wifi noise.

Wired on my home connection UFB gets 930 down 510 up on a speedtest...

You also need to remember that your machine has to translate all encode all the data to the adapter, and decipher it back again. Thats gonna require cpu overhead as well.

I have rarely seen 802.11ac get more than about 400 meg sustained. Too much 5Ghz noise around in most cases.

I just did a speedtest in my office on the wifi and got 110 down 140 up..... office is on 1gig duplex.

Dont fret it.. 100megabit on an old laptop is pretty decent.

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