Broadcom 802.11n speed

Merlin5 · 2 May 2018 at 22:11

On my newer laptop, Dell Latitude E6530, it has a a Broadcom 802.11n network adapter. So it's only seeing my 2.4Ghz connection, whereas my phone sees both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz. So on my phone, speedtest just showed 164Mbps on my 150Mbps connection, but the laptop is only going to around 47Mbps. Even for 2.4Ghz isn't that a bit slow and can I do anything to increase it to around 80Mbps?

Merlin5 · 2 May 2018 at 22:37

bremen1874 said:
Have you checked if it was originally sold with a more capable wireless adapter as an option?

Well according to a review, it says "Even the entry-level model comes with Intel's Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 WLAN module. It has three antennas and can use both the 2.4 GHz and the 5 GHz wireless bandwidths."

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Latitude-E6530-Notebook.88073.0.html

Merlin5 · 7 May 2018 at 19:23

Just did a test on my phone by switching it from 5G to 2G and it hit 89Mbps, which is what I would expect as it's about half the speed of my 5G. So definitely something quite slow about my Broadcom network card or the way it works with Windows 10.

I'm thinking of buying a dual band USB Wi-fi adapter to take full advantage of my speed. Can someone kindly recommend me one that will work well and hopefully not be too pricey? Overclockers have a few but I don't know which one to buy. This one seems to be the cheapest, anyone know if it's good?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk...bps-wifi-dual-band-usb-adapter-nw-03b-ok.html

Merlin5 · 7 May 2018 at 20:30

neodude said:
Sounds like your laptop only supports single stream 802.11n.

Yeah it does, but when I switch to single stream on my phone it gives me 89Mbps, whereas I'm only getting around 45Mpbs on my laptop.
So since I have a 150Mb connection I might as well make full use of it.

Merlin5 · 8 May 2018 at 01:30

bremen1874 said:
We don't know:-

The model of wireless card the laptop has, just the make.

The make/model of phone you're comparing to.

The make/model of router you're connecting to (or how its wireless is configured).

If you can you want to upgrade the internal card as it'll be able to make use of the antennas.

I took my previous Dell laptop apart a couple of years ago and replaced a single band card with a dual N 7260 that Moogleys very kindly gifted me. At the moment, I'd rather just plug a small usb adapter in and see how that goes. My phone is an S7 Edge. Router is Superhub 2 (not the 2ac) and I can't find any other information about the model of wireless card in network settings, network adapter or device manager, it just says Broadcom 802.11n. I've got a superhub 3 arriving on Wednesday, I wonder if that would improve things.

Merlin5 · 8 May 2018 at 19:28

neodude said:
Think you are getting confused. The highest theoretical speed possible on single stream, 2.4GHz 802.11n is 72Mbps.

Well my phone has an 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-band adapter built in and when I switched it to 2G today which I assume uses the single stream 802.11n I got between 71Mbps and 75Mbps and I got 89Mbps the other day. So how come I'm getting over the speed you're quoting, and so much less than 72 on the laptop?

Orcvader said:
What about the hardware ID? It might help point to a specific model.

I'm guessing my model is a Broadcom BCM43142, only because I have the same driver version as someone in this thread. I'm just assuming he found out the model from the driver version? https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Noteb...11n-Network-Adapter-Support-5Ghz/td-p/5929296

Merlin5 · 8 May 2018 at 23:08

Yes, ASSumption

I think you're right, seems very plausible that it must be using more than a single stream.