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#16
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Really slow wifi
On 4/6/2018 12:32 PM, Patrick wrote:
On 06/04/2018 15:56, Chris wrote: I have an Asus PCE-N15 Wireless PCI-E card for the wifi. Does 'Device Manager' indicate any problem with the Card? Have you installed a Driver from ASUS? W10 may have installed an unsuitable Driver in the absence of any other Driver. PCE-N15 Tabs: Drivers & Tools, FAQ, Manuals & Document, Warranty https://www.asus.com/uk/Networking/P...Desk_Download/ A simple speed fix may be to limit what protocol the router uses. To my knowledge most routers today will operation on the a/b/g/n protocols. Sometime restricting the router to the one protocol will increase the routers performance. I have my router set to n only, and I is performing better. When you do this you must make sure that all devices can use the protocol you set on the router -- 2018: The year we learn to play the great game of Euchre |
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#17
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Really slow wifi
On 4/8/2018 11:24 AM, Chris wrote:
On 06/04/2018 20:40, mike wrote: On 4/6/2018 7:56 AM, Chris wrote: Hi all, Am a longtime computer user, but new to win10 as I've just built a cheap gaming machine. My last extensive exposure to windows was win98, so please be gentle. My experience since then has been linux (mostly) and Macs. This is a home machine running Win10 Pro version 1709. Rest of the spec is an intel i3 8100 (coffee lake), 8GB RAM, nVidia 3GB GTX1060, a Samsung 820 64GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. I have an Asus PCE-N15 Wireless PCI-E card for the wifi. The problem is that the networking is crushingly slow on this machine (i.e. measured in low kilobits per sec). Every other device in the house incl. smart TVs, Mac laptops, linux desktops, phones, etc. have really good connectivity (measured in megabits per sec) - they are quite happy streaming Netflix etc. However, this PC stuggles to even refresh newsgroup headers or load googe.com in a browser. Where do I find where the wireless device drivers are so that I try and tweak them? Where else can I look to try and boost the networking on this machine? Or alternatively, what could be interferring with the internet speed? Given the location of the router relative to the PC ethernet is not an option, so please don't go down that road. Other devices (incl. the linux PC which this windows machine is replacing) have no problems using wireless in the same room as the PC. The PC seems throttled somehow and I'm not sure where... Any help/pointers happily received. Have you tried the card in a different computer? No Swapped out the antennas? No, but am thinking of an extension. Moved the computer slightly? Yup Changed the channel of the router? No. We're in a detached property with little/no interference from neighbours. Moved the computer right next to the router? Not possible. I'm recommending that you TEMPORARILY relocate the computer to determine whether it's a signal strength problem. Certainly, that is possible. If you have other diagnostic options, ok. But, when you run out of easy options, that's another one to try. Tried a different access point? Got a neighbor who'll let you access theirs? While you've got the computer upstairs close to your router, it's not much of a stretch to carry it next doors. Again, it's a hassle, but when you're out of easy options... Don't have a spare. Would be nice to determine whether the problem is related to signal strength or interference or some software issue. Agree. WiFi Analyzer on a smartphone is a good way to look at signal strength and interference from other access points on the same or near channels. I once had a speed problem. Turned out to be the huge mirror in the next room right in the signal path to the router. Moved the antenna slightly and the problem went away. Thanks for the suggestions. I would ideally like to try it in another computer, but it's an internal PCIe card so not so conducive. Also, the old computer was in exactly the same position with no problems. "Exactly" is an over-used term. My experience is that I have more problems due to multipath than signal strength. In the case of weak signal and multiple reflections, a few inches can make a difference. You've got two antennas. I assume you've already tried starting a big file transfer, and watched the rate in performance monitor while you twisted the antennas around to different angles. If only there were a way to temporarily relocate the computer close to your router to eliminate a whole bunch of software/driver related issues. If it don't work up close, you're wasting your time trying to fix it at a distance. It's really intermittent. I've fiddled with the device settings and set it to "wifi mode: b/g" which seems to have stabilised things a little. That sentence has no actionable content. Fiddled? Seems to? Stabilized? How much is a little. |
#18
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Really slow wifi
On 09/04/2018 00:49, mike wrote:
On 4/8/2018 11:24 AM, Chris wrote: On 06/04/2018 20:40, mike wrote: On 4/6/2018 7:56 AM, Chris wrote: Hi all, Am a longtime computer user, but new to win10 as I've just built a cheap gaming machine. My last extensive exposure to windows was win98, so please be gentle. My experience since then has been linux (mostly) and Macs. This is a home machine running Win10 Pro version 1709. Rest of the spec is an intel i3 8100 (coffee lake), 8GB RAM, nVidia 3GB GTX1060, a Samsung 820 64GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. I have an Asus PCE-N15 Wireless PCI-E card for the wifi. The problem is that the networking is crushingly slow on this machine (i.e. measured in low kilobits per sec). Every other device in the house incl. smart TVs, Mac laptops, linux desktops, phones, etc. have really good connectivity (measured in megabits per sec) - they are quite happy streaming Netflix etc. However, this PC stuggles to even refresh newsgroup headers or load googe.com in a browser. Where do I find where the wireless device drivers are so that I try and tweak them? Where else can I look to try and boost the networking on this machine? Or alternatively, what could be interferring with the internet speed? Given the location of the router relative to the PC ethernet is not an option, so please don't go down that road. Other devices (incl. the linux PC which this windows machine is replacing) have no problems using wireless in the same room as the PC. The PC seems throttled somehow and I'm not sure where... Any help/pointers happily received. Have you tried the card in a different computer? No Swapped out the antennas? No, but am thinking of an extension. Moved the computer slightly? Yup Changed the channel of the router? No. We're in a detached property with little/no interference from neighbours. Moved the computer right next to the router? Not possible. I'm recommending that you TEMPORARILY relocate the computer to determine whether it's a signal strength problem. Certainly, that is possible. If you have other diagnostic options, ok. But, when you run out of easy options, that's another one to try. Tried a different access point? Got a neighbor who'll let you access theirs? While you've got the computer upstairs close to your router, it's not much of a stretch to carry it next doors. Again, it's a hassle, but when you're out of easy options... Don't have a spare. Would be nice to determine whether the problem is related to signal strength or interference or some software issue. Agree. WiFi Analyzer on a smartphone is a good way to look at signal strength and interference from other access points on the same or near channels. I once had a speed problem.Â* Turned out to be the huge mirror in the next room right in the signal path to the router.Â*Â* Moved the antenna slightly and the problem went away. Thanks for the suggestions. I would ideally like to try it in another computer, but it's an internal PCIe card so not so conducive. Also, the old computer was in exactly the same position with no problems. "Exactly" is an over-used term. My experience is that I have more problems due to multipath than signal strength.Â* In the case of weak signal and multiple reflections, a few inches can make a difference.Â* You've got two antennas.Â* I assume you've already tried starting a big file transfer, and watched the rate in performance monitor while you twisted the antennas around to different angles. I've run some tests using a live linux usb stick, so thisis using exactly the same hardware, in exactly the same location with no fiddling. It's notable in linux that the wireless card was configured and ready to use without any intervention - I wish I could say the same for win10... In linux I got a speedtest.net download of ~18Mbps and a large ISO steady download of ~2.5MBps (as measured by firefox). Rebooting into Windows 10, the speedtest.net is now ~10Mbps and the ISO download speed is 80-100KBps (again in firefox). The Edge browser is no better. I did this a couple of times and the numbers are consistent. There's definitely something awry in windows, especially with real-world downloads as opposed to speed tests. If only there were a way to temporarily relocate the computer close to your router to eliminate a whole bunch of software/driver related issues. If it don't work up close, you're wasting your time trying to fix it at a distance. It's really intermittent. I've fiddled with the device settings and set it to "wifi mode: b/g" which seems to have stabilised things a little. That sentence has no actionable content. Fiddled? Seems to? Stabilized? How much is a little. I know I'm not being very precise, but the performance is all over the place. All I can say is that, the web is actually useable rather than harking back to the late 90s... The settings I see in the device manager under the 'Advanced' tab a 11nAdHoc - disabled 802.11d - disabled Bandwidth - 20_40Mhz Beacon Interval - 100 Preamble mode - Short & long Roaming sensitivity level - low Wireless mode - IEEE 80211b/g (was 'Auto') Only 'Wireless mode' made any sense to me and is the only one I changed. Any suggestions for what else to try? |
#19
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Really slow wifi
Chris wrote:
I know I'm not being very precise, but the performance is all over the place. Any suggestions for what else to try? With Windows, you'd look to see how many different versions of Wifi driver are available, for the Wifi in question, look for release notes, and try different versions until you find one that works. Just because Windows has "in-box" drivers, doesn't mean they're good drivers. One version of Windows here, has a video driver that only turns on "half" of my video card. The second display channel isn't working. Getting the manufacturer driver (trip to the AMD site), fixed it. Same goes with sound. The sound driver may be generic. If I want control of my RealTek, I go get an actual RealTek driver, complete with the crazy looking control panel. If that driver includes a graphic equalizer, I can even fix the sound. Have a look around, to see what driver options are available. I know that companies don't like to list Win10 drivers, but... keep looking. Sometimes a trip to a Dell or HP site, for some third-party Wifi, will dig up a driver for it. Modern Wifi chips, actually have firmware for the MAC, that supports things like Wake On LAN and keepalive connections when a computer sleeps. A different driver may include a different version of firmware, which is loaded at boot time by the driver. And the firmware *might* affect behavior. Much older Wifi, ones which didn't run when asleep, didn't need all of that crap. Paul |
#20
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Really slow wifi
Paul wrote:
Chris wrote: I know I'm not being very precise, but the performance is all over the place. Any suggestions for what else to try? With Windows, you'd look to see how many different versions of Wifi driver are available, for the Wifi in question, look for release notes, and try different versions until you find one that works. Really?! That sounds like a real PITA! This is just a generic Atheros based Wi-Fi hardware. Linux works flawlessly with it. Just because Windows has "in-box" drivers, doesn't mean they're good drivers. I've tried the manufacturer's drivers with no change. One version of Windows here, has a video driver that only turns on "half" of my video card. The second display channel isn't working. Getting the manufacturer driver (trip to the AMD site), fixed it. Same goes with sound. The sound driver may be generic. If I want control of my RealTek, I go get an actual RealTek driver, complete with the crazy looking control panel. If that driver includes a graphic equalizer, I can even fix the sound. Have a look around, to see what driver options are available. I know that companies don't like to list Win10 drivers, but... keep looking. Sometimes a trip to a Dell or HP site, for some third-party Wifi, will dig up a driver for it. Modern Wifi chips, actually have firmware for the MAC, that supports things like Wake On LAN and keepalive connections when a computer sleeps. A different driver may include a different version of firmware, which is loaded at boot time by the driver. And the firmware *might* affect behavior. Much older Wifi, ones which didn't run when asleep, didn't need all of that crap. This is the cheapest one I could find. No bells and whistles. Sigh. And i thought Windows might have improved in the last 10 years... |
#21
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Really slow wifi
Chris wrote:
Paul wrote: Chris wrote: I know I'm not being very precise, but the performance is all over the place. Any suggestions for what else to try? With Windows, you'd look to see how many different versions of Wifi driver are available, for the Wifi in question, look for release notes, and try different versions until you find one that works. Really?! That sounds like a real PITA! This is just a generic Atheros based Wi-Fi hardware. Linux works flawlessly with it. Just because Windows has "in-box" drivers, doesn't mean they're good drivers. I've tried the manufacturer's drivers with no change. One version of Windows here, has a video driver that only turns on "half" of my video card. The second display channel isn't working. Getting the manufacturer driver (trip to the AMD site), fixed it. Same goes with sound. The sound driver may be generic. If I want control of my RealTek, I go get an actual RealTek driver, complete with the crazy looking control panel. If that driver includes a graphic equalizer, I can even fix the sound. Have a look around, to see what driver options are available. I know that companies don't like to list Win10 drivers, but... keep looking. Sometimes a trip to a Dell or HP site, for some third-party Wifi, will dig up a driver for it. Modern Wifi chips, actually have firmware for the MAC, that supports things like Wake On LAN and keepalive connections when a computer sleeps. A different driver may include a different version of firmware, which is loaded at boot time by the driver. And the firmware *might* affect behavior. Much older Wifi, ones which didn't run when asleep, didn't need all of that crap. This is the cheapest one I could find. No bells and whistles. Sigh. And i thought Windows might have improved in the last 10 years... If it's an Atheros, what OS would have been the last one for which a driver was issued ? Atheros as a company was gobbled up by Qualcomm. How much energy would Qualcomm have put into a Win10 Atheros driver ? The thing about Linux is, once they have an NDIS wrapper or extracted firmware or other component parts, if the kernel interface changes, they have the materials to correct the situation and continue supporting it. Until such time as someone makes an arbitrary decision to discontinue support (Xorg has that problem). Whereas with Windows, two things can happen. Actual proper driver support from the hardware company (unlikely for older parts, even if the changes are practically push-button). Or, a generic class driver is written by Microsoft, that happens to support them. And I don't know, at the register level, whether there is any semblance of a standard interface for Wifi. USB, Firewire, Storage, HID, Audio, have some generic class drivers. NIC and Wifi probably require a new version of NDIS (like 6 for Windows 10). And if you look at hardware advertisements, it's unlikely a Windows 10 logo appears on anything. You're likely to see an older OS logo on any hardware packages you might look at. Maybe there is a fee related to this issue. If I was searching Newegg for a solution (at around $15), I'd find a brand name device that claims Windows 10 support, then trace down what chip or chipset it uses to see whether Linux has a driver or not. Getting good chipset info is hard, because they can mix one mac with different radios, and have it be given a different chipset product name. Tracing down the Linux info is fine, as long as the driver has some "XX" to indicate support for multiple members in the same family. I know that in the past, that Atheros got a good name for Linux support. So you could, say, find a WinXP driver and a Linux driver, to go with some legacy Atheros device. But in modern times, you have to repeat the selection process, because the Windows side of things can go out of support. And you have to look up both of them to make sure you're covered. There's really no free lunch on hardware. And every time I forget one of the necessary vetting steps for hardware purchase, I'm reminded of that. (Like forgetting to check that my newest motherboard had a good enough heatsink on VCore. It doesn't.) Paul |
#22
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Really slow wifi
On 11/04/2018 10:01, Paul wrote:
Chris wrote: Paul wrote: Chris wrote: I know I'm not being very precise, but the performance is all over the place. Any suggestions for what else to try? With Windows, you'd look to see how many different versions of Wifi driver are available, for the Wifi in question, look for release notes, and try different versions until you find one that works. Really?! That sounds like a real PITA! This is just a generic Atheros based Wi-Fi hardware. Linux works flawlessly with it. Just because Windows has "in-box" drivers, doesn't mean they're good drivers. I've tried the manufacturer's drivers with no change. One version of Windows here, has a video driver that only turns on "half" of my video card. The second display channel isn't working. Getting the manufacturer driver (trip to the AMD site), fixed it. Same goes with sound. The sound driver may be generic. If I want control of my RealTek, I go get an actual RealTek driver, complete with the crazy looking control panel. If that driver includes a graphic equalizer, I can even fix the sound. Have a look around, to see what driver options are available. I know that companies don't like to list Win10 drivers, but... keep looking. Sometimes a trip to a Dell or HP site, for some third-party Wifi, will dig up a driver for it. Modern Wifi chips, actually have firmware for the MAC, that supports things like Wake On LAN and keepalive connections when a computer sleeps. A different driver may include a different version of firmware, which is loaded at boot time by the driver. And the firmware *might* affect behavior. Much older Wifi, ones which didn't run when asleep, didn't need all of that crap. This is the cheapest one I could find. No bells and whistles. Sigh. And i thought Windows might have improved in the last 10 years... If it's an Atheros, what OS would have been the last one for which a driver was issued ? Atheros as a company was gobbled up by Qualcomm. How much energy would Qualcomm have put into a Win10 Atheros driver ? The box says 8.0/8.1 is supported and online there is a win10 driver available for download from ASUS (the manufacturer). BTW I bought this new two weeks ago. The thing about Linux is, once they have an NDIS wrapper or extracted firmware or other component parts, if the kernel interface changes, they have the materials to correct the situation and continue supporting it. Yup. That's the beauty of it. Until such time as someone makes an arbitrary decision to discontinue support (Xorg has that problem). True, although, rarer than commercial companies dropping support for newer OSes in existing products. And if you look at hardware advertisements, it's unlikely a Windows 10 logo appears on anything. You're likely to see an older OS logo on any hardware packages you might look at. Maybe there is a fee related to this issue. Yeah that certainly used to be the case. I'm sure it still is now... I know that in the past, that Atheros got a good name for Linux support. So you could, say, find a WinXP driver and a Linux driver, to go with some legacy Atheros device. But in modern times, you have to repeat the selection process, because the Windows side of things can go out of support. And you have to look up both of them to make sure you're covered. There's really no free lunch on hardware. And every time I forget one of the necessary vetting steps for hardware purchase, I'm reminded of that. (Like forgetting to check that my newest motherboard had a good enough heatsink on VCore. It doesn't.) Isn't the USP of Windows it's ubiquity? - there's no need to check specifics as everything comes with Windows drivers. I'm familiar with checking hardware for linux compatibility, but am surprised this is also needed with windows now. However, saying all that I don't think my problem is a compatibility issue. The hardware is recongnised, has drivers and connects to my router fine. It also shows decent speed with a broadband speed tester. It feels to me like there's a config setting somewhere that is sub-optimal. Being new to the current windows ecosystem, I'm struggling to even start looking... |
#23
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Really slow wifi
"Chris" wrote in message
news However, saying all that I don't think my problem is a compatibility issue. The hardware is recongnised, has drivers and connects to my router fine. It also shows decent speed with a broadband speed tester. It feels to me like there's a config setting somewhere that is sub-optimal. Being new to the current windows ecosystem, I'm struggling to even start looking... I have this problem with a Samsung laptop (Windows 7 vintage, so a few years old). It is new enough to recognise 5 GHz as well as 2.4 GHz networks. I have a router that supposedly works at up to 400 Mbps. However in Task Manager | Networking, the link speed never gets above about 80 Mbps, and working flat-out copying a large 1 GB file from local hard drive to UNC shared drive (or vice versa) the utilisation rarely goes above 50%, so I'm getting at best about 40 Mbps data transfer. Sometimes the link speed drops to 5-7 Mbps. I've checked for interference from neighbouring wifi networks. There is nothing on the same channel or anywhere nearby. The same laptop, talking to the same desktop by the same UNC share, can achieve speeds of many hundred Mbps (link speed 1000 Mbps, utilisation 70-90%) over Ethernet, so the rate limiting step isn't either of the computers. Very often, if I have an absurdly low link speed on wifi, it is sufficient to disable and re-enable the wireless device, forcing a re-connection. Since I'm doing PC-to-PC transfers, the much lower WAN speed over ADSL or VDSL isn't an issue - it's not a slow broadband problem. |
#24
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Really slow wifi
NY wrote:
"Chris" wrote in message news However, saying all that I don't think my problem is a compatibility issue. The hardware is recongnised, has drivers and connects to my router fine. It also shows decent speed with a broadband speed tester. It feels to me like there's a config setting somewhere that is sub-optimal. Being new to the current windows ecosystem, I'm struggling to even start looking... I have this problem with a Samsung laptop (Windows 7 vintage, so a few years old). It is new enough to recognise 5 GHz as well as 2.4 GHz networks. I have a router that supposedly works at up to 400 Mbps. However in Task Manager | Networking, the link speed never gets above about 80 Mbps, and working flat-out copying a large 1 GB file from local hard drive to UNC shared drive (or vice versa) the utilisation rarely goes above 50%, so I'm getting at best about 40 Mbps data transfer. Sometimes the link speed drops to 5-7 Mbps. I can believe that. Wi-Fi is half-duplex at best for each connection to/from the router. You're never going to get 50% utilisation. My connection is so slow that winSCP timesout trying to * connect* to other computers on my LAN. I'm lucky if I see 100kBytes/sec I've checked for interference from neighbouring wifi networks. There is nothing on the same channel or anywhere nearby. The same laptop, talking to the same desktop by the same UNC share, can achieve speeds of many hundred Mbps (link speed 1000 Mbps, utilisation 70-90%) over Ethernet, so the rate limiting step isn't either of the computers. Very often, if I have an absurdly low link speed on wifi, it is sufficient to disable and re-enable the wireless device, forcing a re-connection. Since I'm doing PC-to-PC transfers, the much lower WAN speed over ADSL or VDSL isn't an issue - it's not a slow broadband problem. Same here. |
#25
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Really slow wifi
On 04/11/2018 12:24 PM, Chris wrote:
[snip] I can believe that. Wi-Fi is half-duplex at best for each connection to/from the router. You're never going to get 50% utilisation. Half-duplex wouldn't mean "never more than 50% utilization", since the line can switch direction at any time, it could be upstream 98% and downstream 2%. [snip] -- Mark Lloyd http://notstupid.us/ "The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation." -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton |
#26
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Really slow wifi
Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 04/11/2018 12:24 PM, Chris wrote: [snip] I can believe that. Wi-Fi is half-duplex at best for each connection to/from the router. You're never going to get 50% utilisation. Half-duplex wouldn't mean "never more than 50% utilization", since the line can switch direction at any time, it could be upstream 98% and downstream 2%. Ah yeah. True. Overstated it a bit. Point is Wi-Fi is always going to be significantly worse than wired. |
#27
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Really slow wifi
Chris wrote:
Hi all, Am a longtime computer user, but new to win10 as I've just built a cheap gaming machine. My last extensive exposure to windows was win98, so please be gentle. My experience since then has been linux (mostly) and Macs. This is a home machine running Win10 Pro version 1709. Rest of the spec is an intel i3 8100 (coffee lake), 8GB RAM, nVidia 3GB GTX1060, a Samsung 820 64GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. I have an Asus PCE-N15 Wireless PCI-E card for the wifi. The problem is that the networking is crushingly slow on this machine (i.e. measured in low kilobits per sec). Every other device in the house incl. smart TVs, Mac laptops, linux desktops, phones, etc. have really good connectivity (measured in megabits per sec) - they are quite happy streaming Netflix etc. However, this PC stuggles to even refresh newsgroup headers or load googe.com in a browser. Where do I find where the wireless device drivers are so that I try and tweak them? Where else can I look to try and boost the networking on this machine? Or alternatively, what could be interferring with the internet speed? Given the location of the router relative to the PC ethernet is not an option, so please don't go down that road. Other devices (incl. the linux PC which this windows machine is replacing) have no problems using wireless in the same room as the PC. The PC seems throttled somehow and I'm not sure where... Any help/pointers happily received. Ok. I've gone through tried a whole bunch of things with no luck: Forced driver to use the manufacturer's one and not the windows one. Tried to install it in compatibility mode (win7 & 8). Used curl in PowerShell. At all points real downloads are in the 500-800kbps range yet online speed test is 10Mbps - this is confirmed under network in the task manager. Strangely YouTube streams can get up to 1-2 Mbps. Am now at my wits end and out of ideas. Can anytime recommend a pci Wi-Fi card that works flawlessly in win 10? I've scoured various sites and none explicitly mention win10 compatibility. |
#28
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Really slow wifi
Chris wrote:
Chris wrote: Hi all, Am a longtime computer user, but new to win10 as I've just built a cheap gaming machine. My last extensive exposure to windows was win98, so please be gentle. My experience since then has been linux (mostly) and Macs. This is a home machine running Win10 Pro version 1709. Rest of the spec is an intel i3 8100 (coffee lake), 8GB RAM, nVidia 3GB GTX1060, a Samsung 820 64GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. I have an Asus PCE-N15 Wireless PCI-E card for the wifi. The problem is that the networking is crushingly slow on this machine (i.e. measured in low kilobits per sec). Every other device in the house incl. smart TVs, Mac laptops, linux desktops, phones, etc. have really good connectivity (measured in megabits per sec) - they are quite happy streaming Netflix etc. However, this PC stuggles to even refresh newsgroup headers or load googe.com in a browser. Where do I find where the wireless device drivers are so that I try and tweak them? Where else can I look to try and boost the networking on this machine? Or alternatively, what could be interferring with the internet speed? Given the location of the router relative to the PC ethernet is not an option, so please don't go down that road. Other devices (incl. the linux PC which this windows machine is replacing) have no problems using wireless in the same room as the PC. The PC seems throttled somehow and I'm not sure where... Any help/pointers happily received. Ok. I've gone through tried a whole bunch of things with no luck: Forced driver to use the manufacturer's one and not the windows one. Tried to install it in compatibility mode (win7 & 8). Used curl in PowerShell. At all points real downloads are in the 500-800kbps range yet online speed test is 10Mbps - this is confirmed under network in the task manager. Strangely YouTube streams can get up to 1-2 Mbps. Am now at my wits end and out of ideas. Can anytime recommend a pci Wi-Fi card that works flawlessly in win 10? I've scoured various sites and none explicitly mention win10 compatibility. Do you have any USB3 cabling near the affected equipment ? The emissions from a "running" USB3 cable, peak at 2.5GHz and affect 2.4GHz RF systems. Typically a bluetooth mouse/keyboard might be affected. Try disconnecting any USB3 external disks you leave running normally, and re-test. ******* And for the card, are you looking for PCI, or for PCI Express x1 ? As an example of the absurd, a 4x4 MIMO dual band, with four dual-band antennas. And a cute heatsink on the PCI-E card. https://www.amazon.ca/ASUS-802-11AC-.../dp/B01H9QMOMY When reading the reviews, be careful to verify the review is actually for the AC88, as, like Newegg, they throw a bunch of reviews together from different SKUs. To make your life miserable. https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Networking/PCE-AC88/ They're selling that for $150. But it offers the best performance, if you have a router similarly equipped. If your router has two antennas and runs 802.11N, then don't expect any additional performance as such. Maybe it gets a bit closer to the 802.11N limit for 2x2, but it cannot do things that the other end doesn't support. So that's a PCI Express. If it actually delivered "3100", that would be close to 400MB/sec. Which you could not get from a 32bit 33MHz PCI slot (typically good for 110MB/sec or so). To hit that speed on PCI Express, you'd need a Rev.2 x1 slot (500MB/sec) or a Rev.3 x1 slot (985MB/sec). Paul |
#29
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Really slow wifi
On 13/04/2018 09:47, Paul wrote:
Chris wrote: Chris wrote: Hi all, Am a longtime computer user, but new to win10 as I've just built a cheap gaming machine. My last extensive exposure to windows was win98, so please be gentle. My experience since then has been linux (mostly) and Macs. This is a home machine running Win10 Pro version 1709. Rest of the spec is an intel i3 8100 (coffee lake), 8GB RAM, nVidia 3GB GTX1060, a Samsung 820 64GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. I have an Asus PCE-N15 Wireless PCI-E card for the wifi. The problem is that the networking is crushingly slow on this machine (i.e. measured in low kilobits per sec). Every other device in the house incl. smart TVs, Mac laptops, linux desktops, phones, etc. have really good connectivity (measured in megabits per sec) - they are quite happy streaming Netflix etc. However, this PC stuggles to even refresh newsgroup headers or load googe.com in a browser. Where do I find where the wireless device drivers are so that I try and tweak them? Where else can I look to try and boost the networking on this machine? Or alternatively, what could be interferring with the internet speed? Given the location of the router relative to the PC ethernet is not an option, so please don't go down that road. Other devices (incl. the linux PC which this windows machine is replacing) have no problems using wireless in the same room as the PC. The PC seems throttled somehow and I'm not sure where... Any help/pointers happily received. Ok. I've gone through tried a whole bunch of things with no luck: Forced driver to use the manufacturer's one and not the windows one. Tried to install it in compatibility mode (win7 & 8). Used curl in PowerShell. At all points real downloads are in the 500-800kbps range yet online speed test is 10Mbps - this is confirmed under network in the task manager. Strangely YouTube streams can get up to 1-2 Mbps. Am now at my wits end and out of ideas. Can anytime recommend a pci Wi-Fi card that works flawlessly in win 10? I've scoured various sites and none explicitly mention win10 compatibility. Do you have any USB3 cabling near the affected equipment ? The emissions from a "running" USB3 cable, peak at 2.5GHz and affect 2.4GHz RF systems. Typically a bluetooth mouse/keyboard might be affected. Try disconnecting any USB3 external disks you leave running normally, and re-test. Nope. No USB3 cables in use nor bluetooth. Keyboard/mouse are ps/2 connected via usb dongle. Other than that (and the monitor) nothing's connected to the PC. ******* And for the card, are you looking for PCI, or for PCI Express x1 ? PCIe As an example of the absurd, a 4x4 MIMO dual band, with four dual-band antennas. And a cute heatsink on the PCI-E card. https://www.amazon.ca/ASUS-802-11AC-.../dp/B01H9QMOMY When reading the reviews, be careful to verify the review is actually for the AC88, as, like Newegg, they throw a bunch of reviews together from different SKUs. To make your life miserable. https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Networking/PCE-AC88/ They're selling that for $150. That's about 10% the price of my whole build! I'm not prepared to spend that much. Anything nearer £30GBP? I just need a win10-compatible replacement (remember the hardware works fine in linux), not a massive upgrade. But it offers the best performance, if you have a router similarly equipped. I don't. It tops out at '11n'. |
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Really slow wifi
Chris wrote:
On 13/04/2018 09:47, Paul wrote: Chris wrote: Chris wrote: Hi all, Am a longtime computer user, but new to win10 as I've just built a cheap gaming machine. My last extensive exposure to windows was win98, so please be gentle. My experience since then has been linux (mostly) and Macs. This is a home machine running Win10 Pro version 1709. Rest of the spec is an intel i3 8100 (coffee lake), 8GB RAM, nVidia 3GB GTX1060, a Samsung 820 64GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. I have an Asus PCE-N15 Wireless PCI-E card for the wifi. The problem is that the networking is crushingly slow on this machine (i.e. measured in low kilobits per sec). Every other device in the house incl. smart TVs, Mac laptops, linux desktops, phones, etc. have really good connectivity (measured in megabits per sec) - they are quite happy streaming Netflix etc. However, this PC stuggles to even refresh newsgroup headers or load googe.com in a browser. Where do I find where the wireless device drivers are so that I try and tweak them? Where else can I look to try and boost the networking on this machine? Or alternatively, what could be interferring with the internet speed? Given the location of the router relative to the PC ethernet is not an option, so please don't go down that road. Other devices (incl. the linux PC which this windows machine is replacing) have no problems using wireless in the same room as the PC. The PC seems throttled somehow and I'm not sure where... Any help/pointers happily received. Ok. I've gone through tried a whole bunch of things with no luck: Forced driver to use the manufacturer's one and not the windows one. Tried to install it in compatibility mode (win7 & 8). Used curl in PowerShell. At all points real downloads are in the 500-800kbps range yet online speed test is 10Mbps - this is confirmed under network in the task manager. Strangely YouTube streams can get up to 1-2 Mbps. Am now at my wits end and out of ideas. Can anytime recommend a pci Wi-Fi card that works flawlessly in win 10? I've scoured various sites and none explicitly mention win10 compatibility. Do you have any USB3 cabling near the affected equipment ? The emissions from a "running" USB3 cable, peak at 2.5GHz and affect 2.4GHz RF systems. Typically a bluetooth mouse/keyboard might be affected. Try disconnecting any USB3 external disks you leave running normally, and re-test. Nope. No USB3 cables in use nor bluetooth. Keyboard/mouse are ps/2 connected via usb dongle. Other than that (and the monitor) nothing's connected to the PC. ******* And for the card, are you looking for PCI, or for PCI Express x1 ? PCIe As an example of the absurd, a 4x4 MIMO dual band, with four dual-band antennas. And a cute heatsink on the PCI-E card. https://www.amazon.ca/ASUS-802-11AC-.../dp/B01H9QMOMY When reading the reviews, be careful to verify the review is actually for the AC88, as, like Newegg, they throw a bunch of reviews together from different SKUs. To make your life miserable. https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Networking/PCE-AC88/ They're selling that for $150. That's about 10% the price of my whole build! I'm not prepared to spend that much. Anything nearer £30GBP? I just need a win10-compatible replacement (remember the hardware works fine in linux), not a massive upgrade. But it offers the best performance, if you have a router similarly equipped. I don't. It tops out at '11n'. OK, I tried to find something with a bit more MIMO if I could. Which might help a bit with multipath (multiple antennas, each twisted to a different angle, so at least one antenna gets something). TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Dual Band Wireless N900 PCI Express Adapter, 2.4GHz 450 Mbps / 5GHz 450 Mbps, IEEE 802.1a/b/g/n, WEP / WPA / WPA2, Plug & Play in Windows 8 $42 https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16833704133 On your side of the pond, around £25. https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-.../dp/B007GMPZ0A Drivers - change ca to uk perhaps... Can't be sure about geolocation issues... Hmmm. Driver is from the year 2014. https://www.tp-link.com/ca/download/TL-WDN4800.html It's actually an Atheros! ; TPLINK %ATHR.DeviceDesc.938x% = ATHR_DEV_OS61_938x.ndi, PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_0030&SUBSYS_3112168C You can't really go by VEN and DEV, because of how they mess with the designs. Anyway... for contrast. https://wikidevi.com/wiki/Atheros_AR5BHB112 AR9380 Mini PCIe (half-size) reference design Probable Linux driver - ath9k (in backports) https://www.ath-drivers.eu/atheros-w...s-drivers.html https://www.ath-drivers.eu/download-...s10-64bit.html Version 10.0.0.355 OS Windows 10 32/64bit Release 2017-08-07 [August '17] Status WHQL File win10-10.0.0.355-whql.zip Downloaded 177917 https://www.ath-drivers.eu/download-...Windows10.html 8.3MB download is actually here... https://www.ath-drivers.eu/qualcomm-...code-2239.html But it's still not really a Windows 10 driver. It's 6.2 (Win8.0) and NDIS5. 6.1=W7, 6.2=w8 6.3=W8.1 10.0=W10 Microsoft seems to think that kind of driver is "good enough". Clicking the date column shows a 10.0.3.456 driver. When I look inside that, it still contains a 6.2 label. But it sure seems to have a Microsoft blessing, https://www.catalog.update.microsoft...68C%26DEV_0030 http://download.windowsupdate.com/c/...1ce75 53c.cab Now, if I had to go through a hundred PCIe cards, in that level of detail, I could be old, gray, and... :-) Lots of hardware selection exercises are like being sent to the stable with a shovel. One thing I try to avoid, when selecting Wifi gear, is stuff with "CMOS radios". A good Wifi has a Bipolar Microwave chip separate from the MAC. The benefit of that design, is the Bipolar radio doesn't "age" like the CMOS ones can. You can sometimes detect this in reviews, when half the customers think a product is "top notch" and the other half report "no signal". Even when CMOS radios come from the factory, they may already have a significant performance spread from best device to worst device. Then after the stupid thing "cooks" in a USB plastic enclosure for three months, all of a sudden the "good one" no longer works! Since the companies have gone to double packaging (EMI filter underneath, "decorative heatsink" on top), it's pretty hard for my Xray vision to spot a "good one" with a decent radio solution. I have to see these things completely disassembled to spot details like that. A 2.4GHz radio, I think you can easily do that in CMOS. I'm not sure how easy it is to do 5GHz radios in CMOS. Let's hope it isn't too easy, so they have to put a decent radio chip on that band. ******* This Rosewill is likely to be coming from the same PCB plant. It even mechanically didn't fit well, like the other one. This will give you some idea what kind of rates to expect. https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16833166076 "For a wired speedtest.net, I usually get 220M/22M. On the 2.4GHz band, I was getting around 40-50Mbps down and 20up On the 5GHz band, I got roughly 75Mbps down and 20M up. " Paul |
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