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

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.

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?

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

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...

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

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...

"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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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'.

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