Help Reaching 300Mbps

[NizmoZ]

I need some help with the settings needed to reach 300Mbps.

I have a Linksys E3000 Router (latest firmware) and an Intel 5300 N card (latest drivers) on my Dell 1501 with windows 7 x64. The Intel card has 3 antennas, 2 running up into the LCD and 1 running under the keyboard.

Currently, I am getting around 130Mbps (with drops to 70s) and occasionally 144Mbps on the 2.4GHz band. The laptop sees the 5GHz band network, but I cannot join it for some reason. I know the 5GHz band works, because my xbox can join this network. How can I get the laptop/Intel 5300 to join the 5GHz band? I would guess this may be the reason I am not getting 300Mbps.

Also, what settings on the router do I need to get 300Mbps? (Channels, Width etc) There are also settings in device manager for the network card as well.

Thanks for the help!.....

 

[overdrive31]

Don't run 2.4GHz in 40MHz mode(270/300Mbps), it's probably default on 20MHz(130/150Mbps) so just leave it or the drops will be worse, not to mention also being destructive(noisy/crowding the spectrum) for any nearby(neighbors) networks. Try only using 5GHz with 40MHz sacrificing only range like less than 30 ft. Wireless N link rate doesn't have to be full-bore to be effective, a stable wifi relationship is very effective. Most likely you're never going to saturate the bandwidth anyway.

Can't say for sure why you may not be able to connect to the 5GHz SSID, Intel's drivers and management software have always been a lil' wonky, try checking the wireless driver properties for a feature setting called Wireless Mode and make sure 802.11a is set to be used. May need to try using wireless zero config instead of using Intel's PROset Wireless manager, the Intel manager's default settings filter out common SSID's(lol, why?) so either use wireless zero config(windows wireless manager), disable the Intel manager's SSID filtering security settings which could also be why it won't connect to 5GHz, or change the SSID via the router.

 

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[stevech]

Intel 5300 N card
Yech!

 

[NizmoZ]

What about it?

 

[thiggins]

Let me try to provide some perhaps more useful responses:

- The Intel 5300 is perfectly fine. I use it as the standard client for all wireless router testing.

- The settings on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands are independent. Your inability to connect at 300 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band has nothing to do with the inability to connect on the 5 GHz band.

- The Intel driver defaults to disabling 40 MHz bandwidth mode in 2.4 GHz, which will limit you to 130 Mbps maximum link rate. Check the 5300 card driver's Advanced network properties and make sure that 802.11n Channel Width for band 2.4 is set to Auto.

- The E3000 will also default to 20MHz bandwidth mode for the 2.4 GHz band. Set the Channel Width setting in the Basic Wireless Settings screen to Auto.

- If the laptop is seeing the 5 GHz radio on the router, the 5300 card has 5 GHz band operation enabled. Overdrive31's suggestion of using Windows built-in client instead of the Intel client is good.

Also try deleting the 5 Ghz network from Windows if Windows has memorized it and then rescan and try rejoining the 5 GHz band. Try also with no encryption first to rule out problems there.

- Any details on what happens when the laptop tries to associate with the 5 GHz radio will be helpful. What messages do you see during the association process?

 

[NizmoZ]

Let me try to provide some perhaps more useful responses:

- The Intel 5300 is perfectly fine. I use it as the standard client for all wireless router testing.

- The settings on the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands are independent. Your inability to connect at 300 Mbps on the 2.4 GHz band has nothing to do with the inability to connect on the 5 GHz band.

- The Intel driver defaults to disabling 40 MHz bandwidth mode in 2.4 GHz, which will limit you to 130 Mbps maximum link rate. Check the 5300 card driver's Advanced network properties and make sure that 802.11n Channel Width for band 2.4 is set to Auto.

- The E3000 will also default to 20MHz bandwidth mode for the 2.4 GHz band. Set the Channel Width setting in the Basic Wireless Settings screen to Auto.

- If the laptop is seeing the 5 GHz radio on the router, the 5300 card has 5 GHz band operation enabled. Overdrive31's suggestion of using Windows built-in client instead of the Intel client is good.

Also try deleting the 5 Ghz network from Windows if Windows has memorized it and then rescan and try rejoining the 5 GHz band. Try also with no encryption first to rule out problems there.

- Any details on what happens when the laptop tries to associate with the 5 GHz radio will be helpful. What messages do you see during the association process?

I switched to WPA2/WPA Mixed security(from WPA2 Personal), and it connected to the 5GHz band. It only did 54Mbps though... None of those settings produced anything faster.



Why did I have to switch from WPA2 to WPA2/WPA Mixed mode to get a connection? On 2.4GHz, the WPA2 only setting worked and connected at 144Mbps.



Also, I had to switch the windows network properties to TKIP to connect. AES would not work. However, AES works on 2.4GHz no problem with 144Mbps.



What can I do to correct this and get 300Mbps?

 

[thiggins]

The only settings that will allow link speeds higher than 54 Mbps (802.11g maximum) are no encryption and WPA2/ AES. This is per 802.11n spec.

There could be a driver conflict or problem. Is there another wireless adapter in the system? If so, is it disabled?

Did you try downloading the latest Intel firmware and utility? They update it quite often.

I suggest resetting the router to factory defaults and then try connecting on both bands. Once you get it working without encryption, then enable WPA2/AES. You can also set the Mode for the 2.4 GHz radio to Auto. But I recommend leaving it on 20 MHz. You don't really gain much performance with Auto. And it actually reduces range.

 

[obender]

I'd like to get an advice here too.
My setup is pretty simple in an attempt to get 300mbps at least show in the status of the connection.

The AP is DAP-2553.
The band is 5.0 GHz
The encryption is WAP2/AES
The ranger is 10ft
The channel is clear from all neighboring APs
The channel width is 20/40 Auto.

The laptop adapter is: Intell WiFi Link 5100 AGN with latest (13.3.0.24) driver.

With all that it shows 130/65 mbps (it constantly changes between two).

So my question what is going on?

 

[stevech]

20/40 Auto might mean (it's not in the IEEE standard) that the choice of 20/40 is based on "polite" rules. This is good. It means that the WiFi router declines to use the 40MHz mode (up to 300Mbps) if there are 802.11g SSIDs or clients in range - not using 40MHz mode.

They don't put a "40MHz rude" mode in the choices, but that's what it amounts to, since 40MHz is 2/3 of the entire band.

 

[obender]

Ok, so setting both the card's and AP band's width to Auto did the trick (sort of) the status for the adapter shows 300/250/160 (keep changing) the throughput increased insignificantly (about 10mbps) to about 30mbps, measured with NET Speed Test.

 

[stevech]

Ok, so setting both the card's and AP band's width to Auto did the trick (sort of) the status for the adapter shows 300/250/160 (keep changing) the throughput increased insignificantly (about 10mbps) to about 30mbps, measured with NET Speed Test.

with ye old 11g, you should get 25Mbps with a strong signal, and no constraints due to disk I/O in the test method.
Let's not get our bits and bytes units mixed up either: Mbps = bits; MBps = bytes

 

[obender]

Yes I know the difference so anyways with all the improvements I get 33Mbps throughput on N/5 GHz/Auto channel width

 

[NizmoZ]

Thanks for your replys guys. My problem is that with the 5GHz band, my network card will not join with AES. However, I can join 5GHz with TKIP. But this is limiting me to 54Mbps.
This doesn't make sense to me, because I am on the 2.4GHz band with AES, no problem.

 

[overdrive31]

Thanks for your replys guys. My problem is that with the 5GHz band, my network card will not join with AES. However, I can join 5GHz with TKIP. But this is limiting me to 54Mbps.
This doesn't make sense to me, because I am on the 2.4GHz band with AES, no problem.

Make sure you have set it to WPA2 and AES only and not WPA/WPA2 or AES/TKIP mixed modes which it could be set to for backwards compatibility with older wireless A devices without WPA2 support.

 

[NizmoZ]

Make sure you have set it to WPA2 and AES only and not WPA/WPA2 or AES/TKIP mixed modes which it could be set to for backwards compatibility with older wireless A devices without WPA2 support.

I tried that, cannot join 5GHz on WPA2/AES. But I can on 2.4. Strange for sure.

 

[overdrive31]

Switch it back to WPA2 Personal and try to avoid using WPS(or even Cisco Connect software) if you have been. If it still will not authenticate, odds are it is rejecting the key, try using a shorter or less complex passphrase.

My Intel card connects just fine using complex keys with WPS, Wireless Zero Config, and Intel PROset Wireless manager on both bands.

Are the SSID's the same for both bands? Are the keys used the same for both SSID's? Could be some issue with recycling keys/SSID's for both radios. Could it be the signal is so weak it will not authenticate at WPA2? Might be a good idea to delete all the wireless profiles used by the client utility. Start with trying to make a profile for the 5GHz band first that works before creating one for the 2.4GHz band.