New router capping at 2MB/s

[martixy]

I just got myself a new router - TP-Link TL-WR1043ND.
The old one was just some cheap model that the ISP gave me.
It worked pretty consistently with something like
11MB/s wired and 5MB/s wireless.

The new one, was supposed to be faster(being a gigabit/300Mbps one).
The wired part works fine(whizzing at a comfortable 70+ MB/s).

The wireless part however is slower than even the old router - at a measly 2MB/s.
What gives?

Can you guys help me?

All config is the same as before. Old router still works as fine as it did before(meaning faster than the new over wireless), so it's not like there are external factors(i.e. interference or the like).

Test methodology - share a drive and copy a file over, while monitoring with a metering app, that attaches directly to the NIC.

 

[kevnich2]

The wireless computer, what speed NIC do you have in it and what speed does it say you're connected to wireless at? If your wireless NIC is only G rated, you're not going to see much real world speed increase no matter what you go with.

 

[martixy]

b/g/n flavours all supported.

As mentioned, on the old router I got up to ~5MB/s.
If it was possible then, I see no reason that it should be lower on the new one.

P.S. In the connection status speed is listed as 54Mbps.

 

[JackMDS]

You do not have an ISP problem, or a Router problem.

You have "crappy" Wireless which is Not uncommon to the Wireless in the Device that you got.

Try to change the transmission channel, and see if another channel will work better.

 

[spidey07]

Yep, sounds like interference, change channels to 1, 6, 11 to see what works best.

 

[Cabletek]

I just got myself a new router - TP-Link TL-WR1043ND.
The old one was just some cheap model that the ISP gave me.
It worked pretty consistently with something like
11MB/s wired and 5MB/s wireless.

The new one, was supposed to be faster(being a gigabit/300Mbps one).
The wired part works fine(whizzing at a comfortable 70+ MB/s).

The wireless part however is slower than even the old router - at a measly 2MB/s.
What gives?

Can you guys help me?

All config is the same as before. Old router still works as fine as it did before(meaning faster than the new over wireless), so it's not like there are external factors(i.e. interference or the like).

Test methodology - share a drive and copy a file over, while monitoring with a metering app, that attaches directly to the NIC.

First make sure you are not confusing MB with Mb, they are NOT THE SAME. 2MB/s is roughly 16Mb/s

If you still have issues, check the wireless spectrum from the wireless computer with something like this http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/
You say its not like it can be interference but are you 100% positive you are using the same channel?

 

[Lemon law]

In terms of 802.11 speeds, B&G wireless standards have a speed limit of 54Mbits a second. Upgrade to wireless 802.11 N and you can get a larger 100 Mbits/sec speed limit.

As there has to be a huge factual disconnect here in wireless internet when our OP only gets 2Mbits/sec. Only 4% of B or G potential and only 2% of N potential.

Maybe JackMDS is correct here, which I very much doubt, that rejiggering wireless channels in existing wireless routers will cure the huge wireless speed hit compared to a hard wired connection. As for me, it somewhat screams out for a router that does not rely on wireless. Even if you have to punch holes in walls to hard wire your computers in other rooms.

After that I have another comment, I have found, that for most internet broadband issues, that even 0.7 Mbits/sec is fine for most internet uses. So a hybrid wireless and hardwired router might work well. Just don't expect some distant from modem computer relying on wireless to be able to deliver the speeds needed for high speed intensive applications. When that work can be farmed out to other computers on the network that are hardwired. So for example, some distant computer user connected wirelessly wants to say download a movie, they would be better off letting letting a closer hardwired computer do the job. Even if gasp, they have to get off their dead ass, go less than a hundred feet, transfer the downloaded movie to a pen drive, and then watch it at full speed on their only wireless connected computer. But if you want to on line game in your bed room via wireless internet, you may be still SOL.

 

[martixy]

First make sure you are not confusing MB with Mb, they are NOT THE SAME. 2MB/s is roughly 16Mb/s

Well, duh...
Still, you're probably right to point that out since I've given no background.

If you still have issues, check the wireless spectrum from the wireless computer with something like this http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/
You say its not like it can be interference but are you 100% positive you are using the same channel?

Nifty program.
Not much help, but still.
Anyway, I played with the settings. Using AES instead of TKIP and changing some channels I got it to a relatively satisfactory 6-7MB/s.
Still not 300Mbps.
Wireless is kinda becoming a big let-down for me.

I also tried dd-wrt, but that failed for some reason, unable to obtain an IP from my ISP, even when I clone the correct MAC.

Also - totally agree with Lemon

 

[spidey07]

You MUST use AES, otherwise encryption is done in software

6-7 MBYTES/sec is typical. You cannot use datarate as throughput. You may have a datarate of 150 or 300 Mbs but actual throughput will be about 30% of data rate just becuse it's wireless.

 

[martixy]

So what's the point of that number they designate the data rate with, if more than 70% of it is wasted?
(You probably don't have to answer that.)
Still, I was expecting real speeds at least in the vicinity of 100mbps.

 

[spidey07]

So what's the point of that number they designate the data rate with, if more than 70% of it is wasted?
(You probably don't have to answer that.)
Still, I was expecting real speeds at least in the vicinity of 100mbps.

Because its wireless, it's half duplex, and there are a ton of retransmissions at layer 1.

You're pretty close to 100 Mbs thru put as it is. You can't interchange bits for bytes in raw thru put in networking.

I have plenty of answers for that if you really want to dive deep.