Batspiderman17
New Around Here
Proud to announce my first post! I'm relatively new to building networks and I was hoping to get a little guidance from the experienced users on this forum. Thank you in advance for your help. My setup is below:
Router:
I turned off all other devices using the router (android phones, other laptops).
When I run LanSpeedTest v3.4 on my laptop and connect to a shared folder on my external HDD connected to my desktop, my upload/download is ~35 Mbps for both on the 2.4 GHz band and ~45 Mbps upload and ~22 Mbps download on the 5 GHz band.
My initial reaction is that this seems low. After looking into bottlenecks, I believe my desktop's ethernet card/Router's is the weak link. While I'm not naive to expect 100 Mbps, I was expecting more than ~33% of the theoretical bandwidth.
My questions:
I know this is a lot but I really appreciate any help/advice. Thank you in advance!
Router:
- Belkin N600 DB (f9k1102 v1) (dual stream, dual band, with 100 Mbps ports)
- Security: WPA2 (AES)
- Wireless channel set to auto on both bands
- Extension channel set to 4 on 2.4 GHz band and set to 40 on 5 GHz band
- 20/40 MHz: set to Auto on both 2.4 and 5 GHz bands
- Stock firmware 1.00.10
- HP Media Center m7167c
- Windows XP Media Edition 2002 SP3
- 10/100 Ethernet wired to router
- 2 external USB 2.0 (High-speed) HDDs (permanently shared to network via mountvol)
- Norton Internet Security 2011
- Sony VAIO FW-490
- Windows Vista Home Premium SP2
- Intel Wifi Link 5100 AGN (dual band, 1x2 stream)
- With my laptop ~5 feet away from the router, Windows states that I have 5 bars and 150 Mbps connection.
- Norton Internet Security 2011
I turned off all other devices using the router (android phones, other laptops).
When I run LanSpeedTest v3.4 on my laptop and connect to a shared folder on my external HDD connected to my desktop, my upload/download is ~35 Mbps for both on the 2.4 GHz band and ~45 Mbps upload and ~22 Mbps download on the 5 GHz band.
My initial reaction is that this seems low. After looking into bottlenecks, I believe my desktop's ethernet card/Router's is the weak link. While I'm not naive to expect 100 Mbps, I was expecting more than ~33% of the theoretical bandwidth.
My questions:
- Is this expected behavior?
- How can I optimize any additional settings on my network?
- Router settings: Perhaps selecting a more appropriate channel and extension channel? (I've attached jpegs of inSSIDer's wifi analysis. I would appreciate any advice. My SSIDs are the Belkin_TL_N, Belkin_TL_G, and Belkin_TL_N.)
- Desktop/Laptop Settings: Perhaps configuring Norton better? (I assume it was since I was able to access the shared folders, but are there ports I should be opening?)
- If this is the maximum realistic thoroughput I can expect with a bottleneck of 100 Mbps from the desktop ethernet card, is it safe to assume that I can't improve on this bottleneck without getting a Gigabit PCI card AND also getting a new router that has Gigabit ports?
- That said, as my Wifi card is 1x2 stream, could I expect some improved thoroughput if I upgrade to an Intel Wifi Link 5300 which would enable me to fully utilize the dual streams of my router?
- Finally, am I supposed to see an appreciable improvement in thoroughput by disabling the Guest Wifi, thereby reducing interference???
I know this is a lot but I really appreciate any help/advice. Thank you in advance!