300mb/s router- only 2.4mb/s actual??

[Tomrdiedrich]

I have a wireless router that is suppose to support up to 300mb/s. I have a home file sharing network setup on this router. How come I can only see max of 2.4 mb/s when tranfering files? It is not via internet. Just in house. What would the bottle neck be? PC A is hooked up wired to router. PC B is wireless with a wireless n wlan card. Both are running windows 7. What am I missing? I would think it should be way faster than this. Like 50mb/s or so?? Am I way off? Is this even possible? Any info would be much appreciated.

 

[fseal]

There are SO many variables with wireless...

Speed drops off with distance from router after about 6 feet.
Speed drops off dramatically with walls or other obstructions.
Speed drops off in the presense of other 2.4 GHz noise. Other routers, micro wave ovens etc.
And finally manufacturers, ahem, streach the truth. 300Mbps may be the peak theoretical but only if you have an N adapter and an N router within 10 feet of each other in a completely shielded RF cage If there is even ONE other wifi hotspot in your area speed will be dropped from 300 theoretical peak to 50 theoretical peak right there (by "law").

Download a wifi signal scanner program for your computer (or phone!) and first find out what other people are using in your area. Make sure that your router is not set to the same channel as 3 other people close to you.

If you only have a G adapter in your computer then 50 Mbps is the absolute max and typically expect to see half that under good conditions. Less if other routers in the area, less if going through walls, less if 100 feet away, less if bad antenna positions, etc...

If you have a smartphone with wifi, one of those Wifi analysis apps can be really great at setting up and testing signal strength and avoiding the neighbors wifi devices.

 

[Tomrdiedrich]

Ok. I understand all of that. But even at 3 ft from the router and one pc wired directly to it I still only see about 3 mb/s. Is ther settings i am missing. I do have two other networks near me but they are only one bar sometimes. other times I cannot even pick them up with the network sniffer. From what I have seen elsewhere I am way low on my speed. Especially with one directly connected via a cat5 cable!

 

[fseal]

Believe it or not 3 feet may be a little close

Move to atleast 6-8 feet foor best signal.

Another thing to try is wiring both to the back of the wifi router as a test, see what the wired speeds are for your test.

Also I want to make sure that we are using "b" and "B" correctly. The speed on the wifi router is given in "Mbps" or mega bits per second. When you say "3 Mbps" you meant bits right? Because if you meant bytes, 3 "MBps" would be 24 Mbps which would be about right for G wifi speeds...

 

[Tomrdiedrich]

OKay. That may be where this is all going!! Plz explain a little further on the last bit (pun intended lol) that you posted. This may all be due to my ignorance!

 

[fseal]

Well basically all networking speeds are listed in megabits or "Mbps". 100 Mb or 1Gb etc.

but whatever program you are using to display the speed of your transfers could likely be telling you megabytes per second. Whould be displayed like "2.7MBps" with a capital B. Since there are 8 bits in a byte, you would multiply an MBps value by 8 to get the Mbps value.

So it all depends on what your speed test is saying... sometimes they are in Mbps or Kbps and sometimes they can be in MBps or KBps.

 

[richyrichuk]

hi, have u actually tried a wireless sniffer yet?
like
inSSIDer | MetaGeek

also try channel 13, or even 14 (japanese)

the frequesncy is further away than most other common devices and can (keyword) improve the quality, but to be honest 2.4 - 3mbps sounds about rite, dont forget if u try this through ethernet u will find it will max at around 10 mbps

 

[Tomrdiedrich]

Everyone else is on channel 6 and mine is on channel 11. My router does not have the option to change it to 13 or 14! And to fseal I thought that that may be the case that I had the m or M confused on some end of the equation, but I don't. I will try the directly wired option and see where that puts me.

 

[Tomrdiedrich]

I tried the ethernet directly to router from both PCs and I got max 8.2 mb/s. So I guess it is not that far behind from what richyrichuk said. For some reason I thought it should be faster. but now that we are talking about it. I guess I was just dreaming! So when is the futuristic 20GB/s transfer speed going to be here?

 

[richyrichuk]

I tried the ethernet directly to router from both PCs and I got max 8.2 mb/s. So I guess it is not that far behind from what richyrichuk said. For some reason I thought it should be faster. but now that we are talking about it. I guess I was just dreaming! So when is the futuristic 20GB/s transfer speed going to be here?

if its only 8.2 most likely due to a 5400 RPM in your laptop

20GB/s (years) ur HDD is one of the slowest things in your machine, so its like virgin 50mbps/100mbps internet, u can utilise it, unless currently on several PC's

 

[Tomrdiedrich]

Ya I was to focused on the internet aspect of it. Didn't take the time to think it through from beginning to end! So it makes alot of sence why I am getting what I am. My laptop is a POS machine!! Only a 2.4ghz single core. And yes richyrichuk it is only 5200rpm. So that for sure is my bottleneck. I just dont need all that new power in my laptop. My main pc has all the power I need for what I do. Untill the 20GB/s of course!! LOL

 

[richyrichuk]

your router wont speed up your internet speed, either buying a £20 router or a £300 router, you wont have any if much diff. e.g. ADSL 2 + using a clean/free channel (12,13(mainly for UK)) you will get the same speed. only diff will be for having several shares across the network, u may get a diff if u stream to several wireless devices at once, but not a real diff.

 

[Tomrdiedrich]

I didn't think the router would speed up my internet. My internet wasn't the issue. It was the speed of file transfer on my home network. Had nothing to do with net speed.

 

[richyrichuk]

Ya I was to focused on the internet aspect of it.

sorry i have miss understood then.