WNDR3700v1 wireless throughput half of DIR-825

Hi,

First, am I remembering correctly when I think there used to be a dedicated subforum for the 3700?  If it is here, I don't see it.  It's been years, though; I have had this router a long time, as I bought this v1 when that was all there was.

I am connecting to the 3700 with an equally old laptop, which has an Intel 4965agn wireless card.  My main PC (much more current) is attached via ethernet cable, and I have taken some spare parts and put together another PC to act as a NAS for the purposes of backing up the laptop and the main PC, also connected with an ethernet cable.

The sorta-NAS works very well with the wired connection, and wired throughput exceeds 100MB/sec copying a large file as reported by Windows, so no complaints there.  Unfortunately, though, I have run into issues with the laptop when connected wirelessly.  As both the laptop and the router are capable of operating in the A band, I use that exclusively to avoid interference with the ten or so APs my neighbors have in use in the G band.  I have the entire A band to myself!

When the laptop connects to the 3700, it reports 300 mbps as the connection speed (though it fluctuates a lot).  The router is about 12 feet from the laptop, with no walls in between, and signal strength is usually 5 of 5 bars, though it sometimes shows 4.  The actual speed copying a large file from the laptop to the sorta-NAS wirelessly ranges from 6 to 8 MBps.

While I was troubleshooting an intermittent connectivity issue with the laptop and its 4965agn to the 3700 (which seemed exactly like the "Sporadic Wireless Disconnects Caused by Data Reordering Issue" as reported by Intel with their wireless drivers [five years after the last driver for the 4965 was released, so I don't know if it really is the same issue, but the symptoms AND the workaround of turning off N mode both apply]), I read that the issue was happening for sure with Netgear routers/APs, but not some others. I know it's not all in the router, as when the disconnects come, rebooting the router won't bring the connection back, but rebooting the laptop will.

I dug out my old D-Link DIR-825 and tried it.

I was surprised to find that with the same reported connect speed of 300mbps (with the same fluctuations), I was getting actual file copy speeds of exactly double what I had gotten on the 3700-- 12 to 16 MBps.

Both routers use the same encryption (AES) and the same 64-bit string of hex characters as a key, so if anything, the much slower D-Link should be lagging behind, but it's not.  Not only that, but the wireless connectivity issue has not happened with the D-Link (it may at some point, as that is the nature of intermittent issues, but it has been a long time on the D-Link).

The 3700 is a much faster device, and all of the tests of the 3700 vs the DIR-825 (when both were new and in their first revisions) mention that the 3700 outperforms the D-Link by a large margin, but that is certainly not what I am seeing now. 

I am using the latest official firmware for the 3700 (1.0.16.98).

Any ideas on what I can do to get the 3700 up to speed?  I know there used to be a lot of messages about the poor quality of the firmware for the 3700v1... but like so many manufacturers, Netgear seems to have forgotten about older products that are still quite usable (and in this case, still being sold, even if they are in the fifth or higher revision).  Should I be investigating alternative firmwares?

Thanks!