Wifi in college killing me (I'm in tears, plz help)

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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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So...

Trying to just watch some Youtube videos. Nothing too long. If I put it on 144p (not 1440p- I mean 3-digit 144p... the lowest damn quality) I might get lucky and not buffer every five seconds. Any higher than 144p and I can't even watch for ten seconds without a five minute buffer.

I talked to the IT guys on campus and this is literally what they quoted me:
"The wifi is capped at 8 MBps to support (are they serious?) HD video streaming, but because wifi is a shared resource, 3-5 MBps is typical."

I go to a nationally recognized engineering university and the wifi is capped at 8 MBps? It's totally unreasonable. There's only 2500 kids.

And it's not that my laptop can't handle higher speeds....

MSI GE62 Apache Pro 2QF
GTX 970m - 3 GB GDDR5
i7-5700HQ @ 2.7 gHz
16 GB Mem
etc....

Meanwhile my roomie is literally rocking some piece of trash HP from 2001 and is watching 720p videos fine on Youtube. I just don't get it.

Ethernet cables don't work either. The ports in my dorm are spotty so I can't even connect most of the time. I just don't get it.

I have no extraneous plugins or otherwise weird security programs that may be affecting me. I simply have no clue what is happening. It's frustrating me to the point that I want to cry- because my top-tier laptop can't even handle a 144p video. And it seems that I'm the only one with the issue...

Please dear god someone help me.
 
Solution
B
That is interesting I did not know you could set it on the client end I though you had to set that option on the router end.

What that refers to is how much radio bandwidth it should use. Used to be all wireless used 20mhz. This is where the channels 1,6,11 comes from. The total radio bandwidth on 2.4g is only 60mhz. Using 20mhz those channels cause the 60mzh to be divided the most effectively.

Now almost all adapters/routers can run 40mhz. This pretty much doubles the speed but it also uses 2/3 of the 60mhz. In effect you use the part of the bandwidth represented by channels 1&6 or 6&11. It greatly increases you chance of interference.

Now the solution to this was suppose to be the 5g band. There is 170mhz of channels...
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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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Done it repeatedly. Get around 8 MBps, like the IT guys said. But when I open the stats on a youtube video I'm getting approximately 100-200 Kbps...... Kbps.....

---KBPS---

Am I a cave man?
 
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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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Nope. Rode around to every building in the campus and 8 MBps is the max.
 
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bill001g

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Go into steam and download some random free game. You want one that will take say 15 minutes to download so you get some data. Now steam will report rates in BYTES so you will likely get numbers in the high 900Kbytes if the network is limited to 8mbit.

What you are looking for is the graph that is produced not how long it actually takes to download even if you allow it to complete. You want to see if the rate is consistent. It can move up and down a little but you do not want to see long areas of no data transfer.

In general 8mbit should be more than enough for most video. Most 1080p video is in the 4-5mbit range.

If you get good ok results from steam then it is likely not a network issue. You could try another video site, twitch is free and most streamers transmit feeds at high rates. There is a option to display the rates you are actually getting.
 
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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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Thanks for an actually decent response, man.

Will do it tomorrow. Cramming for physics test tomorrow rn.
 
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COLGeek

COLGeek

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I should have been clearer. I was was referring to download/streaming performance, not bandwidth. Are there places where YT plays better than others, for example?
 
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MasterMace

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it's likely that your college has limited the bandwidth on the most common ports used by YouTube. I'd recommend opening up additional ports in Windows Firewall, as you know from your roomie that it is possible for youtube to play well. By default, iirc, YouTube uses port 80 and 1935, and that may be where the college has limited the bandwidth. It could also be that only 1 of them are limited, and your roomie is on the other.
 
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nigelivey

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What chance do you think he has of getting to the firewall when he clearly states its at college and his IT department has capped bandwidth per user??
 
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nigelivey

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"I go to a nationally recognized engineering university and the wifi is capped at 8 MBps? It's totally unreasonable. There's only 2500 kids." The reason this isn't unreasonable is in your quote, 2500 kids x 8MBps. If your "roomie" isn't having the same issue with the same bandwidth cap on his "piece of trash HP from 2001" the problem seems to be "MSI GE62 Apache Pro 2QF
GTX 970m - 3 GB GDDR5
i7-5700HQ @ 2.7 gHz
16 GB Mem
etc...."

That much is quite simple to deduce?
 
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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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Nope... same all over. My phone actually plays better....


 
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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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Yeah. It's totally my laptop. Because just two weeks ago I was chilling at 85 MBps at my house. So over the course of two weeks, my laptop has degraded so rapidly that it can only handle sub-8 MBps speeds. Sure.

Or are you saying that my laptop is not capable of operating on the bandwidth here?

 
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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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Graph is comparable to a kid on a pogostick. Hitting low speeds consistently, then dropping to nothing for bits.
 
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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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Did it. Seemed to slow down Youtube's connection speed to near nothing now. Barely holding 100 KBps... can't even watch 144p now.
 
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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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Also I compared the same video on Youtube and Vimeo concurrently and there is no difference, really. A tad faster and less buffering on Vimeo.

So, there we have it. No definitive solution, something just won't work with my laptop and this wifi.

So I need to go buy some plebian notebook. I can't even watch a damn Youtube video on my gaming laptop...

 
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COLGeek

COLGeek

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This could be a hardware issue with the particular wireless adapter in your system.

If you go to a local Starbucks (or similar free Wi-Fi place), how is your performance there? If you can connect somewhere with a reliable Ethernet connection, on campus, how is performance?

Also, please stop the implied f-bombs in responses. Thanks.
 
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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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The only thing it can be is the wireless adapter. It's not a standard Wifi adapter that you see in most mainstream laptops. It's Stone Peak by Intel... most laptops are the generic Intel adapter.

I need to get a good two-in-one anyways... we'll see.
 
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MasterMace

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OP's user bandwidth is capped, at a much higher rate than what they are using. The firewall I referred to was in Windows, so that YouTube would pull off a different port. Hence, "Windows Firewall". Literally right next to the word. Their phone works, their roomie's pc works, it's on their pc.
 
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Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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TO ALL:

I have solved the problem, at least for now. It seems quite steady.

Going into my Wifi adapter settings, and configuring the options, I noticed that it's 'value' was set to 'Auto' not '20 MHz.' Being as desperate as can be, I changed it to 20 MHz, and am now getting reasonably steady 1800-2800 Kbps speeds on Youtube. 720p is now achievable.

I think I fixed it? Now can someone give me an explanation on why this might have been the issue and what the 20 MHz really means? Just want to know, for future reference and so I'm not as ignorant leaving as coming in.

Thanks for all the help thus far, guys.
 
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bill001g

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That is interesting I did not know you could set it on the client end I though you had to set that option on the router end.

What that refers to is how much radio bandwidth it should use. Used to be all wireless used 20mhz. This is where the channels 1,6,11 comes from. The total radio bandwidth on 2.4g is only 60mhz. Using 20mhz those channels cause the 60mzh to be divided the most effectively.

Now almost all adapters/routers can run 40mhz. This pretty much doubles the speed but it also uses 2/3 of the 60mhz. In effect you use the part of the bandwidth represented by channels 1&6 or 6&11. It greatly increases you chance of interference.

Now the solution to this was suppose to be the 5g band. There is 170mhz of channels that can be assigned by end users in most countries. Problem is the bandwidth pigs came out with 802.11ac that uses 80mhz in addition they came out with the new triband routers That run 2 80mhz signals and of course 40mhz on the 2.4g.

Generally in a very high density area with lots of wireless radios you tend to get better quality signal by only running 20mhz. It of course will cut the maximum speed you can get but generally a quality 20mhz signal will outperform a crappy 40mhz signal.
 
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Solution
Psychobagger

Psychobagger

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May 16, 2016
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Thanks for the detailed response... I feel like I've learned a little. You rock, man.
 
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