Laptop internet significantly better than Desktop

[Xombifier]

I have a Linksys E3200 router and it seems to work fine with my laptop, but doesn't work well with the desktop at all. I can't run a cable from the router to the desktop because of distance, so that's out of the question.

On speedtest.net, my laptop gets around 45 Mbps download rate and 5 Mbps upload rate while my desktop would get about 1 Mbps download and 2 Mbps upload, while both computers are at the same exact location.

I have tried using two wireless LAN cards for my desktop in the past and they did not give me good internet at all. I am now using a NETGEAR WNDA3100v2 USB Adapter and it gives an extremely weak signal as well. I have tried configuring it and the router a number of times and nothing significantly changed the signal. Since all of these devices have failed to give me a good signal, I feel I have been doing something wrong.

If anybody who reads this is good with wireless networking, USB adapters, LAN cards and so-and-so please give me a good suggestion on where to go next. I appreciate it.

 

[g0rd0]

Any chance there is a steel desk or something similar between the router and the desktop?

What sort of router are you using and what were the cards? Odd that you would get better uploads than downloads, don't see that very often...

 

[Xombifier]

Any chance there is a steel desk or something similar between the router and the desktop?

What sort of router are you using and what were the cards? Odd that you would get better uploads than downloads, don't see that very often...

Nope, no steel desks, though a floor and some walls. It's about 50 feet away. It's a Linksys E3200 Router, that's really all the info I can gather about that, and one of the cards was a Rosewill RNX-N180PCe Wireless LAN card. The other was also a Rosewill, RNX-N150 or something maybe.

 

[eibgrad]

Try this. Run an ethernet cable between the laptop and your desktop. On the laptop, go to Network Connections (Start->Run, type "ncpa.cpl" (no quotes) and hit enter). Select both the wireless and wired connections, right-click, and select Bridge Connections. Now your laptop will act as a wireless ethernet bridge on behalf of the desktop.

Why am I suggesting this? I want to see if this performance problem is strictly a wireless problem, or perhaps something more general, something that affects wired too. But since you said you can't run wire from the desktop to the router (which would be easier of course), you should be able to use the laptop as a wireless ethernet bridge and accomplish the same thing. See what happens and report back.

 

[g0rd0]

Well, the good news is that 3/3 is a near impossible fail rate, and everything is 300 n, so the problem is somewhere in the OS or possibly the board. You could confirm this by using the USB in the laptop, but I think it would be an exercise in redundancy.

So take a tour of your network settings, "auto" can be a problem. Match the channel to the router, 2.4 ghz is probably better than 5 if there are floors and walls. If it's still troublesome a live cd is usually the best way to rule out OS problems.