Wireless N adapter at 65 Mbps with netgear 3700 - - why?

[skaz]

Hello,

I have a netgear 3700 version 1 wireless router, and connecting to it with an Asus PCE-N13 wireless adapter. Both are rated for speeds up to 300 Mbps on the 2.4 frequency. When I check the status of my Asus PCE-N13 in the "Network and sharing center" I notice the speed is at 65 Mbps. I know that wireless N can theoretically go up to 300 Mbps but realistically it's much less. But 65 Mbps seems to low.

So I decided to fiddle with my router and found a setting with in the netgear 3700 for the wireless N 2.4 frequency that had the speed capped at 130 Mbps. So I changed it to the 300 Mbps option. Reset and my adapter was then showing a speed up around 125 Mbps. Now but a quick glance you see the number is almost exactly half in both cases. 65 when set to 130 and 125 when set to 300. Why is that?

Next I booted up battlefield bad company 2 for a quick match. My ping was in the hundreds and when in game I was getting major random Lag spikes. Went back into the router and set the speed back to 130 Mbps and my BBC2 game was back to normal.

So I'm wondering why do the speeds of the adapter change to about half of what I set it to in the router, and why did my connection seem to become unstable when upping the speed to 300 Mbps in the router settings?

Running on windows 7 64 bit.

 

[hang-the-9]

Missing some info here for an answer. How far away from the router is the client, what type of stuff is in the way? How many other devices are on the wireless conection? How many other access points are in your area, have you tried moving wirreless radio channels around?

 

[skaz]

The router is on the same floor as the client. About 35 feet away, between 2 walls. It is the only device connected to the router at the moment. Only two other APs in the area. And they only show up some times. When they do the signal is extremely low. I have not tried moving the radio channels around because of the lack of other APs in the area. Its currently set to auto in the router. I can change that to see if that helps.

 

[hang-the-9]

2 walls may be enough to knock the speed down to half. Actually after all the overhead, error correcting, etc.. at best you should get about 80% of the rated maximum with no obstructions. If you can, move the AP line of sight to the computer and see what you get.

 

[skaz]

Moved to line of sight and still not stable. Tested area and found my AP was on channel 1 (while on auto) no other AP were on that channel. I manually set channel to 1 and speed to 300 Mbps and tested. Ping was still extremely high. Waited a little bit and the ping did drop a little bit but there was still noticeable lag in battlefield. Reset back to 130 Mbps and auto for channel. stable again.

Edit: Although stable I still cant figure out why the adapter stops at 65 Mbps. It seems to be a capped at that. Maybe has something to do with QoS function on the router? Or maybe its an issue with the adapter its self. hmmm.

 

[skaz]

To add some info - I was on my laptop on the second floor (right above the room with my computer using the Asus adapter). My laptop has an intel wireless adapter. My laptops wireless adapter was fluctuating speeds between 78 and hitting 130 Mbps.

So now I'm defiantly leaning more towards the Asus adapter being the culprit.

 

[seast91]

I'd hazzard an educated guess that your laptop is not running Windows 7?

In my experience Windows 7 always reports 65mbps on single channel and 130mbps on dual channel.

I have yet to determine if it caps the speed or just reports it incorrectly.

 

[wigglerthefish]

Hello,

I have a netgear 3700 version 1 wireless router, and connecting to it with an Asus PCE-N13 wireless adapter. Both are rated for speeds up to 300 Mbps on the 2.4 frequency. When I check the status of my Asus PCE-N13 in the "Network and sharing center" I notice the speed is at 65 Mbps. I know that wireless N can theoretically go up to 300 Mbps but realistically it's much less. But 65 Mbps seems to low.

So I decided to fiddle with my router and found a setting with in the netgear 3700 for the wireless N 2.4 frequency that had the speed capped at 130 Mbps. So I changed it to the 300 Mbps option. Reset and my adapter was then showing a speed up around 125 Mbps. Now but a quick glance you see the number is almost exactly half in both cases. 65 when set to 130 and 125 when set to 300. Why is that?

Next I booted up battlefield bad company 2 for a quick match. My ping was in the hundreds and when in game I was getting major random Lag spikes. Went back into the router and set the speed back to 130 Mbps and my BBC2 game was back to normal.

So I'm wondering why do the speeds of the adapter change to about half of what I set it to in the router, and why did my connection seem to become unstable when upping the speed to 300 Mbps in the router settings?

Running on windows 7 64 bit.

Um, you need to set the bandwidth to 40MHz, not 20. I had this problem whilst setting up my new router.