Newer Laptop slower than old? W10 tweaks?

[Agharta]

Download and run something like this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/wifi- ... verviewtab

Report back the following:
Frequency
Protocol
Channel

You need to make sure the WiFi adapter (it's not a modem) is configured for the best performance.

[james090]

Download and run something like this:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/p/wifi- ... verviewtab

Report back the following:
Frequency
Protocol
Channel.

Ok so downloaded and installed, and results as follows :

Frequency - 2.437Ghz
Protocol - 802.11n
Channel - 6

[Agharta]

Ok so downloaded and installed, and results as follows :

Frequency - 2.437Ghz
Protocol - 802.11n
Channel - 6

Ideally you want to be running 5GHz 802.11AC provided both your router and WiFi Adapter support it.
You'd need to give the make and model of both of those so it can be checked.

Go to the System Tray, locate the Internet icon, click on it, then click Properties, scroll to the bottom and note the Manufacturer, Description and Driver Version.
Report back with these details for the adapter.
For the Router you will need to look at it for details.

Another thing to look for is channel contention. If there are multiple local WiFi networks using the same channel that can be a problem.
Hopefully if you can move to using AC from N then your problems will be solved.
If not, you need to use the app you download to scan for local WiFi networks.
If there is contention you should login to the router and change the channel to one that is free of contention.

[james090]

Right, thank you for this help!

The Router is a TalkTalk one we were supplied as we moved up to Fibre Broadband, (but still not that impressed, but its not my account).

Router : Not sure of model but its a standard V-shape TalkTalk Router (Fibre)
https://www.talktalk.co.uk/shop/broadband/super-router (Super Router)

Laptop Wifi Adaptor : Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet
Driver : 15.6.1.3 updated 18/8/2015 (says im on the latest driver?)

Looking at Neighbours channels it looks like a lot of us seem to be on Ch6 (inc me)!
And some are Ch11 ?

i am not sure how to log into the router? is this done with a wired cable?

[Agharta]

Laptop Wifi Adaptor : Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet

That says Ethernet and doesn't give a Model name which doesn't help.

Try this:
Control Panel - System and security - System - Device Manager - Network Adapters.
Expand the list and look for a Wireless Adapter and note the name and model number.
Double click it and select the advanced tab.
Look for a property called something like 802.11n/ac Wireless mode and note the setting. See if you can change it to 802.11ac which would make it choose AC over N which is what you want.
Look also for a property called Preferred Band and set it to Prefer 5GHz.

After you've done this disable and re-enable WiFi and using the method used before check to see if you are now connecting with AC rather than N.
Even if you are stuck on N changing it to 5Ghz should help.
If it hasn't changed then reboot the laptop.

The router should easily be new enough to support AC.
No need to login at this point.
You can login using Ethernet or WiFi.
Instructions may be on the router itself including a password which is different to the WiFi password.

[James Perrett]

Ideally you want to be running 5GHz 802.11AC provided both your router and WiFi Adapter support it.
You'd need to give the make and model of both of those so it can be checked.

Both machines are using the same Wifi so it is unlikely to be a generic Wifi issue - it will be something peculiar to the i3 machine.

The only thing that I would check is that the speed test that you performed on the old machine was for a reasonably sustained time as it is possible that a short test could give an overly optimistic result. Better still - does your router allow you to plug in a USB disk? Can you check the data rate streaming a very large file from this disk?

[Agharta]

Ideally you want to be running 5GHz 802.11AC provided both your router and WiFi Adapter support it.
You'd need to give the make and model of both of those so it can be checked.

Both machines are using the same Wifi so it is unlikely to be a generic Wifi issue - it will be something peculiar to the i3 machine.

Which is why I'm focusing on the WiFi adapter first and not the router
If the router supports multi bands and protocols simultaneously then that might explain why one device is much slower than the other as they would be using different protocols.
Pete already suggested testing the WiFi speed whilst the laptop is next to the router so if that doesn't give you a decent throughput we can probably exclude it from being an antennae issue.

[james090]

Laptop Wifi Adaptor : Broadcom Netlink Gigabit Ethernet

That says Ethernet and doesn't give a Model name which doesn't help.

Try this:
Control Panel - System and security - System - Device Manager - Network Adapters.
Expand the list and look for a Wireless Adapter and note the name and model number.
Double click it and select the advanced tab.
Look for a property called something like 802.11n/ac Wireless mode and note the setting. See if you can change it to 802.11ac which would make it choose AC over N which is what you want.
Look also for a property called Preferred Band and set it to Prefer 5GHz.

After you've done this disable and re-enable WiFi and using the method used before check to see if you are now connecting with AC rather than N.
Even if you are stuck on N changing it to 5Ghz should help.
If it hasn't changed then reboot the laptop.

The router should easily be new enough to support AC.
No need to login at this point.
You can login using Ethernet or WiFi.
Instructions may be on the router itself including a password which is different to the WiFi password.

Right that may have been my fault in giving the wrong info?

So have found Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter
Driver is latest and up to date, and thats from 02/06/2013 !

I can't see any setting or way to change it to 802.11ac?
I can't also see 'preferred band' but did see a setting : Bandwith Capability and changed this to 11b/g 20/40MHz ?

I will restart wifi now and see what happens. Internet seems to be the same speed on that test again.?

[james090]

I have logged into the router via wif-fi and noticed that 5Ghz is enabled.

i looked at Devices, and it says :

Wireless connections
Band 1 (2.4 GHz)

iPhone
Laptop (this one!)

Band 2 (5 GHz)
Now TV

so would this show that it is giving out 5Ghz, but only our Now TV box is using it?
and not my Laptop (or indeed the iPhone)?

[Agharta]

I have logged into the router via wif-fi and noticed that 5Ghz is enabled.

i looked at Devices, and it says :
Wireless connections
Band 1 (2.4 GHz)

iPhone
Laptop (this one!)

Band 2 (5 GHz)
Now TV

so would this show that it is giving out 5Ghz, but only our Now TV box is using it?
and not my Laptop (or indeed the iPhone)?

Based on the info you gave the i3 laptop only supports WiFi-N.
The two options now are to see if it supports 5GHz and if not we will look to change the channel away from the one that it's on which is busy.

[james090]

Right, logging into the Router, it clearly shows two columns for Wi-fi 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

it looks like Now TV connects (and is the only thing) connected to 5Ghz.

And under 2.4Ghz (which i assume is slower), is 2 iPhones, 2 relatively new iPads, this Laptop etc

Are they all connecting wrongly to the slower speed then?

[Agharta]

What speed do you get from the laptop using WiFi when it's located right be the router?

[james090]

What speed do you get from the laptop using WiFi when it's located right be the router?

Ok so sat right next to the Router (Super Router! lol) its still only 11mbps, when it should be around 40mbps which is mentioned when logging into the Router page!

[Agharta]

Try running Speedtest on one or more of the iOS devices when near the router.
Either from within a web browser or with the app:
https://www.speedtest.net/apps/ios

It's possible that the iOS devices might also get a boost if changing their settings but test them first.

[james090]

Try running Speedtest on one or more of the iOS devices when near the router.
Either from within a web browser or with the app:
https://www.speedtest.net/apps/ios

It's possible that the iOS devices might also get a boost if changing their settings but test them first.

I shall try this thanks.. However do you think its down to my internal wi-fi can only see 2.4Ghz? There 'maybe' a setting to change it to 5Ghz but can't see it at the moment? its an Acer Aspire 5742.

Also i can't see how an older Dell e5500 C2D is connecting to 5GHz? but i shall test them all tomorrow to see whats going on.

Does this mean that i need to get a usb wireless adaptor for an internet speed bump?
i know they are very cheap on eBay, but I am short of USB ports as it is, so this isn't helping

[Agharta]

I will get back to you on other details later.

[CS70]

Right, logging into the Router, it clearly shows two columns for Wi-fi 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

it looks like Now TV connects (and is the only thing) connected to 5Ghz.

And under 2.4Ghz (which i assume is slower), is 2 iPhones, 2 relatively new iPads, this Laptop etc

Are they all connecting wrongly to the slower speed then?

It's a very reasonable guess- Old laptops have old wireless card which may often not support 5GHz protocols. You can simply try to turn off the 2.4Ghz network on the router (most routers allow separte control) and if your laptop simply doesn't find any wireless network (at least, none of yours) then it means it's not able to connect.

If that's the case., it can be usually easily remedied disabling the internal wireless device and buying a 5Ghz USB dongle.

For ipad and iphone, they should support 5Ghz, but since they tend to remember which network they connect to, you may simply have selected the 2.4Ghz the first time and that's where they connect. Also channels over 11 sometimes give network interfaces some issues, so you might try to set the router to a lower number channel.

[CS70]

Also i can't see how an older Dell e5500 C2D is connecting to 5GHz?

You're right, it doesn't. According to the specs, it supports 802.11g at most, which has 54Mbit/sec max transfer rate on the 2.4Ghz band.

For the Acer, what model is it? (if you said it already I didnt catch it)

[Agharta]

USB WiFi dongles aren't exactly user friendly so you may well be able to upgrade the internal WiFi chip to something that supports WiFi-AC for a small amount: £5 - £15.

There are many different flavours of WiFi-AC, so first you need to ascertain what your router supports and what flavour you need to support the maximum throughput that your router offers.
Then you need to work out the best that your laptop supports which relates to the following:

How many antennae does the laptop have?
What is the maximum that these antennae support?
What physical format of WiFi chip is supported?
Does your laptop manufacturer use a white-list or blacklist for WiFi chips?

It's not as bad as it sounds but I'd need to do some research after we have have looked further at maximising what you can get from your current set-up.

[james090]

Ok so some more testing on this with results below :

i5 Apple iMac : Connects under 5Ghz Router setting. Test is 31.3 mbps down / 8.74 up

Dell E5500 : Connects under 5Ghz Router setting!!? Test is 25.8 mbps down / 9.17 up

Acer Aspire 5742 : Connects under 2.4Ghz Router setting. Test is 21.5 mbps down / 8.64 up

iPad Air 2 : Connects under 2.4Ghz Router setting. Test is 36.1 mbps down / 9.81 up
========

Looking at the 2 x Windows laptops settings I see :

Dell E5500 :
Protocol : 802.11g
Security : WPA2-Personal
Network Band : 5Ghz
Network Channel : 36

Acer Aspire 5742 :
Protocol : 802.11n
Security : WPA2-Personal
Network Band : 2.4Ghz
Network Channel : 6

So there are my results.
The strange thing is that my Dell E5500 seems to connect under 5Ghz! and its old, but wondered why this 'seemed' faster?! The Acer Aspire laptop only connects under 2.4Ghz?
As does also the Apple iPad Air 2 at 2.4Ghz?

Is there a way that i can get everything to connect all the time, to the 5GHZ setting, as this is a pretty mixed bag at the moment, and it looks like the Acer is the slowest??

[ef37a]

Last night, after reading this thread I did some tests on my rather old living room PC.
AMD Ath' 2core 3G Asus MOBO* 4Gram and a 240G SSD with 75% spare.

Ethernet from TTlk router via 2mtrs of CAT5e Network card is Nvidia 10/100/1000 mbps.

Ookla gives: 33.7/29.3 dn...9.24/8.92 up ping 19/13mS (two goes)

Watchdog: 38.0/37.8dn 9.9/9.1 up ping 11.9/12.1

Broad Band Speed checker: 30.43 dn 8.13 up ping 137mS !!! Why?

M-Lab: 34.5 dn 7.5 up ping 10mS

So, who is telling the Gospel? My HP i3 laptop tops out at 24/25 down but always hit 9+ upload with Ookla. Router is a mtr away.

I am on Fibre to Cabinet BTW and the cabinet is about 50mtrs down the street.

*Speccy won't tell me about it now. Just says "Bad Allocation" whatever TF that means?

Dave.

[Pete Kaine]

Ookla gives: 33.7/29.3 dn...9.24/8.92 up ping 19/13mS (two goes)

Watchdog: 38.0/37.8dn 9.9/9.1 up ping 11.9/12.1

Broad Band Speed checker: 30.43 dn 8.13 up ping 137mS !!! Why?

M-Lab: 34.5 dn 7.5 up ping 10mS

Whichever is fastest in this instance, it's all relative to the networks that it's coming from/over/too.

Everything your testing with is outside of your network, so if one of them is a multitude slower than the rest, then it's lag between you and it.

[james090]

Sorry for the late reply on this, but thanks for all your posts and contributions.

So to sum up quickly, is there a 5GHZ or faster small usb dongle that i can plug into my laptop as a small thumb drive that would give me the much faster internet? so i can cure this and the speed/internet issues?

I'd rather keep the 8GB i3 64-bit Windows 10 laptop (with a faster connection on usb wifi dongle), over the 4GB 32-bit C2D laptop which is about to die!

Any particular model usb internet dongle i should look at on say eBay or Amazon?

Thank you again for your help.

[currentsound]

You can't compare laptop specs because laptops often don't have adequate cooling and throttle which means they run slower than their max spec'ed speed. So you also need to buy laptops with adequate cooling.

[ef37a]

Sorry for the late reply on this, but thanks for all your posts and contributions.

So to sum up quickly, is there a 5GHZ or faster small usb dongle that i can plug into my laptop as a small thumb drive that would give me the much faster internet? so i can cure this and the speed/internet issues?

I'd rather keep the 8GB i3 64-bit Windows 10 laptop (with a faster connection on usb wifi dongle), over the 4GB 32-bit C2D laptop which is about to die!

Any particular model usb internet dongle i should look at on say eBay or Amazon?

Thank you again for your help.

Bump: I would like a similar dongle for wife's eMachine grotbox.

Dave.