Varying Connection Speeds Between Laptops

[Adam C.]

We have 400 mbps service internet service from Spectrum and have an ASUS RT-AC3200 wireless router for use at home. Generally speaking all works well, but I'm finding a wide range in connectivity speeds between laptops when used at home. My wife's and my work laptop both have download/upload speeds in the 400mbps / 25mbps range. Plenty fast, no worries. Our new Dell Inspiron laptop (model 3793, Intel Core i7) for general family use can't get more than 55mbps / 22mbps range. It's a brand new laptop. Is there a setting or something I can do to boost the speed? Any suggestions on troubleshooting? Thank you.

 

[L&LD]

Are you using discrete SSID's for both bands? Is the Dell connecting to the 2.4GHz network? Turn off Smart Connect, etc. to have the ability to tell your devices the band you want them on.

Is the laptop fully updated (Windows updates and any hardware updates Dell may offer)?

Does rebooting the laptop help? Does plugging it into an AC power plug help while also using the 'Performance' mode in the power options (click the battery icon to see available options)?

Is it used in the same area as your other laptops to do the testing with?

Are all laptops using the same test server when doing a speed test?

Are you testing all laptops simultaneously when doing the speed test?

 

[Razor512]

From the speeds you are getting with the dell laptop, it would seem like it is connecting to the 2.4GHz band. (assuming you are testing close to the router)

So far, I can't find any info on which WiFi adapter model it is using (you would have to go into task manager > performance tab> and then select the WiFi adapter to see the model. You can also right click on the graph for the WiFi adapter and then click on "View network details" That will allow you to see the PHY rate of the WiFi connection, which will give a better idea of which band is being used as well as the PHY rate.
Dell lists their network options as either the Intel 9462NGW, or the Intel 9560NGW, thus you can have either a single or dual stream WiFi adapter.

If it is a single stream WiFi adapter, then you may see a PHY rate of 150Mbps on the 2.4GHz band (less if you are not using 40MHz channels on the 2.4GHz band), and a PHY rate of 433Mbps for the 5GHz band, which will give you a real world speed of around 250Mbps.

If you are not getting at least those speeds, then you may need to check the device manager for more WiFi adapter settings to make sure they didn't arbitrarily limit the channel width (I have not seen it with dell, but I have seen it with HP and Lenovo where some of their entry level stuff may have the WiFI adapter device manager settings dset to "20MHz Only, instead of "Auto" thus causing horrible throughput.

 

[Adam C.]

Are you using discrete SSID's for both bands? Is the Dell connecting to the 2.4GHz network? Turn off Smart Connect, etc. to have the ability to tell your devices the band you want them on.

Is the laptop fully updated (Windows updates and any hardware updates Dell may offer)?

Does rebooting the laptop help? Does plugging it into an AC power plug help while also using the 'Performance' mode in the power options (click the battery icon to see available options)?

Is it used in the same area as your other laptops to do the testing with?

Are all laptops using the same test server when doing a speed test?

Are you testing all laptops simultaneously when doing the speed test?

Yep...it was the router band I selected on the laptop. Switched to the 5GHz band and it did the trick. Zoomy fast. Thank you!

 

[sfx2000]

From the speeds you are getting with the dell laptop, it would seem like it is connecting to the 2.4GHz band. (assuming you are testing close to the router)

Interesting to note, and I've seen this with different adapters, windows defaults for preferred band tends to favor 2.4GHz over 5 - going to device manager and look at properties, one can set 5GHz as the primary, and the driver will fall back to 2.4GHz in common SSID environments...

I've seen this with Intel, QCA, and Realtek - which cover most recent laptops these days...