My wireless network seems to be acting up

danlightbulb · 3 Dec 2016 at 23:54

I have this wifi card in my pc:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/tp-l...pci-express-adapter-tl-wn881nd-nw-054-tp.html

And recently it seems to be giving me trouble. It was only bought in June.

The internet and my home network will go slow for no reason, and Windows will then drop the connection for a minute or so, then reconnect.

My mobile phone, also connected to the same wireless router (a Virgin Superhub), works fine when the pc drops its connection so I know its not the availability of the network.

The pc works fine on a wired connection, and I wasn't experiencing this issue when I first bought the card.

Anyone any ideas what might be wrong? Is it windows or the card?

Thanks

freddie64 · 4 Dec 2016 at 18:15

I recently had the same problem with a superhub 2.

I seem to have solved by going into the superhub settings and changed channel from auto to 8 for 2.4ghz and 112+108 for 5ghz.

Not had a problem since, so may work for you as well.

I picked the channels at random and got lucky first time, so if they don't work just try another channel.

Good luck.

bremen1874 · 4 Dec 2016 at 18:39

Do you neighbours and yourself a favour and choose channel 1, 6 or 11 for the 2.4GHz.

Those three are the only ones that don't overlap and will be what your neighbours are almost certainly using.

There's some reasonable information about the issue here http://www.metageek.com/training/resources/why-channels-1-6-11.html

danlightbulb · 14 Dec 2016 at 22:40

Thanks for the tips. Its been a few days now since I changed to channel 1.

Whilst reliability seems to have improved (no drop outs at all since), the transfer speed has dropped quite a bit from about 4 MB/s to around 1.7 MB/s, which means I am not getting the most out of my Virgin 50 Mb/s broadband, and slower file transfers from my home NAS.

Previously, the superhub channel read 6+10, I selected channel 1 and so now it just reads 1.

I don't know why it was showing 2 channel numbers before, does it operate in dual channel mode? The superhub has a 5GHz mode but I cannot use this as my pc wireless card is only 2.4GHz.

bremen1874 · 15 Dec 2016 at 01:02

Two channels like that means it was in the higher bandwidth 2.4GHz 40MHz mode (using two 20MHz channels). 5GHz uses much higher channels numbers so they can't be confused.

It's rare to see it working on 2.4GHz as routers should automatically drop down to single channel mode if they detect any overlap with neighbouring radios. The 2.4GHz so common that's almost everywhere.

If you want to see what's going on install one of the wireless scanning apps that'll show you all of the networks in range and the channels they're using. With that information you can make a informed decision about what channel you should be using.

danlightbulb · 15 Dec 2016 at 08:07

Right this is coming back to me a bit more now since you've mentioned the higher bandwidth mode.

A while back I changed the settings on the superhub from 144 Mb/s to 300 Mb/s mode. This was because I was not getting very good speed. I'm guessing then that this changed the channels too and me changing it back to channel 1 now has undone the speed increase setting back to 144 Mb/s, which means I'm not getting the most out of my broadband.

On ethernet, I get close to the 50 Mb/s speed but on wifi I get about 30 Mb/s. But the biggest difference is for file transfer. On ethernet I can transfer a 4gb video file in seconds, but now it's taking 20 minutes over wifi. I remember now that changing to the 300 Mb/s mode did roughly halve this.

bledd · 15 Dec 2016 at 08:40

I would cry if I had 4MB/s to my NAS. You should run cables, you'll get 110MB/s to your NAS, zero disconnects.

BigT · 15 Dec 2016 at 11:09

Could you mixing up Mb and MB?

If you're getting 30MB/s (as might be reported by Windows) instead of the 30Mb/s you say then you're actually getting 240Mb/s which is close to the 300Mb/s of the superhub and your wifi card. Having said that a 4GB file should still only take a couple of minutes and not 20.

If you've got your bits and bytes right then I'd be more worried abut your ethernet performance which at 50Mb/s is half what it should be if you're running 100Mbit kit and one twentieth if you're Gbit equipped (and if you're not you should be so you get speeds more like Bledd). I assume the superhub, given the speeds that Virgin can provide on their internet, has Gbit ethernet ports?

Having said all that this doesn't explain the drop outs so I'm not helping much!

danlightbulb · 15 Dec 2016 at 14:41

Just to clarify (I do have the units correct).

My broadband speed is a nominal 50 Mb/s. I get close to this on ethernet but over wifi I only get 35 Mb/s Internet speed.

My home NAS file transfer speeds are clearly super quick on ethernet, but I'm only getting about 1.7 MB/s (windows file transfer figure) over wifi.

I could run a cable round the skirting and over 2 door frames to the superhub, but annoying as I bought the wifi card expecting better. It's in the same room!