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I'm using a program called WiFi Info View for Windows to view some stats on routers in my area, and my router shows it is using 802.11G at a max speed of 54Mbps. Should not this router be showing me 802.11N at a faster max than that? Perhaps I am missing a simple setting somewhere?
Our SSID is "Bakery" in which I see just her connection on WiFI Info (I think). Netgear Genie map shows the (3) devices, (2) wired and (1) wireless as described above.
The reason I am looking into all this is because I am thinking of installing a wireless solution for my surround sound rear speakers. I was mostly interested in what channels the neighbor's were using so I could change mine after seeing where the speaker system lies in the spectrum, and then I noticed the above situation. I just want to make sure I'm getting the most "horsepower" out of what I have.
Then your wireless connection is your wife's HP notebook which shows it is -N capable. First thing you should do is find out the model of that
notebook's WiFi card. And for a testing move the notebook closer to the router like in the same room with the router, does it show -N connection connection then? Another thing to check your router is set up of the speed of your wireless. Configure it upto 300 or more?
Ok so I've found the card is a Realtec RTL8188EE, 802.11b/g/n and found a driver update for it and did that...no change. Moved it to about 6' line of sight with the N300, no change. And the N300 I have set up to 300Mbps speed before all this. Other things I did prior were to switch channel from "auto" to 6 since nearby routers are using 1, 2, and 11 and disabled the 20/40 coexistence, the help screen said I would get max speed at all times by doing that.
It's probably not that big of a deal, since my ISP plan is for 60Mbps max, and trying to get more water from a garden hose with a fire hose just doesn't work...I'm more curious than anything.
I see. You all figured it out then. I am not fond of HP laptops or desk tops. It is not easy to replace their WiFi card. Like Lenovo, they accept only their WiFi specific card and BIOS rejects generic cards. I always use MSI, Asus laptops for that reason. Any how for your curiosity run a speed test by Ookla to see how your down load/up load speed is. Have fun.
If you open the Network and Sharing Center Control Panel and click on the blue text for your Wi-Fi connection, this will bring up a Wi-Fi Status window. This window will display the speed of your Wi-Fi connection. Does this also say 54 Mbps?
If you are running Windows 10, you can click on the Wi-Fi icon in the notification area, then Network Options, then Advanced Options. At the bottom it will display the Wi-Fi protocol in use. Does it say 802.11g or 802.11n?
I looked for some information about the RTL8188EE and while it does support 802.11n, it appears to only support a single stream. As a result, the maximum link speed at 2.4 GHz will be 150 Mbps with a 40 MHz channel. But as you may or may not know, using a 40 MHz channel in the 2.4 GHz band is all but impossible in an environment where neighboring Wi-Fi networks are active. Disabling 20/40 coexistence can coax the router to use 40 MHz but the device must also agree. You may have to go into the advanced driver settings for the RTL8188EE and see if you can force it to use 40 MHz channels.
If the RTL8188EE drops down to 20 MHz channels, then the maximum link speed will drop to 72.2 Mbps. Actually, it may drop down to 65 Mbps when long preambles are used (the default). You can switch to short preambles in the Advanced Wireless settings on the router. The RTL8188EE driver should have a similar setting. Caution: Using short preambles may be counterproductive and lower the throughput of your Wi-Fi network when the signal is not strong.
If you need faster Wi-Fi, then you may want to consider buying a N300 class USB Wi-Fi adapter or better.
Yeah, like I said, a bigger pipe inside isn't gonna get me more water than the water coming into the house. I've run the Speedtest on many occasions and sometimes get a little more than advertised, so I have no complaints. Was mostly just curious as to why. Thanx for your help. Maybe when I'm bored someday I'll investigate it from the RealTek end of it.
Hi, thanks for looking into this as well. I've followed the steps you've outlined and can tell you this from Win10:
-The WiFi status speed also says 54Mbps
-The WiFi protocol says 802.11g
- I have disabled 20/40 coexistence on the router yesterday and see the same results. Now on the advanced properties of the NIC I have these choices:
"802.11n channel width for 2.4GHz" - can be either "auto" or "20MHz only"
"Bandwidth" - can be either "20-40" or "20MHz only"
"Preamble mode" - either "short & long" or "long only"
So, there is where I'm at. It's not critical that I get more speed on this machine...it's just that little things like this drive me NUTS as to WHY I'm not getting what I should! Thanks again, I'll await your reply as to what's next...
One thing to keep in mind with Wi-Fi is that the reported and actual speeds are very different. A 802.11g connection operating at 54 Mbps will usually only get actual speeds of 23 Mbps. I'll spare you the technical reasons. If your Internet service is really 60 Mbps, then your HP won't be able to take full advantage of it. Whether you need a full 60 Mbps to your laptop is a different question, but I did want to point out the difference.
As to getting the RTL8188EE to speak 802.11n, you may have to experiment with changing the advanced properties. I believe there is a setting called Wireless Mode. See if there is an option for 802.11n or 802.11b/g/n. Also, make sure that HT Mode is Enabled.
I also saw some reports suggesting that setting the channel width and bandwidth settings to 20 MHz may result in more stable operation. But focus on getting 802.11n working before touching either of these two settings.
[Edit: Here is a post on another forum (link) that suggests setting the wireless mode to 802.11b and setting the bandwidth to 20 MHz. As I mentioned, experiment with various settings.]
ok the HT mode is enabled, and here's the best part...wireless mode choices are b, g, or b&g....no n at all...I think we can just leave it be unless you have any other ideas...for what my wife uses it for it's fast enuf, I just got Speedtest of 17 ping, 6.52 up, 28.79 down and that is 10x faster than where we used to live...for the same price. My wired machine gets 16, 6.51, 60.56...we really don't need any more than that at this time.
Thanks for all your help, I'll keep this thread and play with it when I can, and post any beneficial results I get. One last thing, should I reenable 20/40 co (default) or leave it off? THX again!
I want to throw this into the mix....for the fun of it I decided to disconnect my wired machine (HP as well) and see what happens with a wireless connection. This uses a Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 802.11 b/g/n card. To my dismay, the results I see in ALL areas as you had me look at are exactly like my wife's HP w/ the Realtek card, including the 50% reduction in d/l speed on Speedtest. "Confused in South Carolina"
