wireless router vs ethernet cable

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action55

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#10334 16-Nov-2006 19:31

I have a wireless router (DSL-G604T ADSL Modem) and Sony Vaio laptop build in Wi Fi. I am about 2 meters form the router and as you would expect have full signal strength. The wi fi connect to start with at 54mps then drops to about 36 mbps not sure why?

My main question is when I do a speed test for internet speed on the wi fi card I get about 1.5 mbps when I plug on the Ethernet cable I get 4.5mbps. I just cant work out why there is such a differences. If the wifi card can do 54mbps why can I get the same sort of speed as I do via the Ethernet cable?

Any help here would be great as there is a big difference in speed.

Thanks

rob

tonyhughes

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#52720 16-Nov-2006 21:06

I assume you are using WPA encryption (if not, you should be).

The drop in connection speed could be interference (from within your home, or an external source), and thats a non-event really.

The speed difference - i get that too - same router. Turn off all encryption then do a speed test, your results should be a bit faster. The overhead of encrypting and transmitting the data slows the data rate down. Its normal. I do urgent large downloads on a PC hooked up via ethernet.

My PC runs at about 6Mbps most days, while the laptop 2 meters away runs at about 2 - 3Mbps. If I plug it in, it speeds up.

Upgrading to Mimo/Pre-N gear would probably help.

freitasm

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#52728 16-Nov-2006 21:25

If you want really fast speeds you will connect using the cable. No questions asked about this. Wireless LAN is a convenience, not an improvement in speed.

action55

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#52752 16-Nov-2006 22:50

thanks, I i did the test with out any encryption not much of a change. I will just have to plug it in if i need that speed.

Dosnt make much sense for it not to run at the same speed if 801.11g can run at 54mbs. I will run some other test to see what sort of speed it gets doing some file transfers. I guess from N gear when it comes out at a better prices.

Interesting i will do some more reading up on it.

thanks guys for your comments.

Rob

tonyhughes

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#52774 17-Nov-2006 08:12

Do a test of local file transfer speed on your LAN, you will find that just like Jetstream, the theoretical max speed is unobtainable. Many factors come into play, including the overhead of the TCP traffic itself.

Its *normal* to not get anywhere near full speed over most networks.

My first network was 10Mbps, but due to my coax tv aerial cable bodge job (hey, i was on a budget), most i ever got was about 1Mbps, which was more than enough to play Doom/Duke3D across.

Even once I went to proper abling, I still only got 3 Mbps.

Last time I played with LAN speeds, I got 6 Mbps on an 11Mbit 802.11b system, and about 45Mbps on my 10/100 Ethernet.

cyril7

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#52788 17-Nov-2006 09:14

To confirm what the other have said the wifi links never seem to give as much as promised. On my Belkin router if I connect via wifi then nzdsl never gets much above 1.5Mb/s, but direct on cable 3.5-3.8Mb/s, sometimes it gets below 1Mb/s on both but thats a contention issue on TCNZ's part, different thread elsewhere :) My ADSL connection rate is 6224/160.

If you want to check your TCP performance in your home network use ttcp, or the Windows version (but command line) is wsttcp. You need to set one end in receiving mode, the other in transmit and tell the transmit end the ip address of the rx mode pc you want to test. It will give you the true throughput of your local network. You can test both TCP and UDP performance.

In my case a 1GHz 98SE machine via 60meter 100BaseT cable to Belkin ADSL/802.1g router and 2.3GHz Laptop via 20meter 100BaseT cable gives approx 78Mb/s throughput eachway. Same setup but the Laptop via Wifi (which reports 54Mb/s connect all encryption off) gives around 40Mb/s.

These two Laptop configs (one via cable other via wifi) are what also give me the two different ADSL connection rates in the first paragraph. So I suspect there may be a MTU issue in the Wifi link to ADSL that is causing a slow down in speeds as its not really the Wifi link as it says it can do 40Mb/s bothways between the laptop and router.

Cyril