Onboard wireless N speeds Faster then USB wireless N Adapter (same Laptop) 5Ghz freq

Gville85

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Mar 13, 2014
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I have a dell E5440 That is pulling about 100-120mb download speeds from my all in one modem/router. Just for giggles i put in a Dlink Wireless adapter and disabled the onboard wireless and my download speeds were cut in half (50mb).. These test were done in the same location a bunch of times. The same thing happened when i put in a Linksys Usb adapter..

I am running a Dualband Router and all cards (onboard,Dlink,Linksys) are dualband and are running on the 5Ghz mode.

When running the Dlink and Linksys adapters on an XP machine in the same location i was pulling about 100 down.
Can anyone explain this please ?
 
Variation in quality, particularly of the antenna(s), could be the cause. Dell may cut corners in some areas, but I do not believe they sell junk, or they would not be as successful as they are.
You might try a higher-quality PCIe dual-band adapter and see how that does, if you're interested in the experiment. Otherwise, I'd just go back to the Dell and call it a day.