Speedtest results for Wifi vs Wired confusing

Having just upgraded to fiber, am now very confused by Speedtest results specifically from my so called high speed 802.11N Wifi which claims I should have 300 to 450Mbps Connection Rates (N settings on Router and Laptop are set to their defaults)

Laptop and Desktop both W7Pro 64b SP1 connected at 1Gbps Wired via CAT5e to (Fiber Connected Router) SpeedTest results: 250Mbps Dn & Up which is close to the 275Mbps Dn & Up speedtest result from the Fiber Modem (difference may be due to proprietary server being used for ISP's speedtest)

Switching Laptop to Wifi 802.11N connection 300 to 450Mbps (location 4ft from Router) and Speedtest results drop to 100Mbps Dn 94Mbps Up ... 1/3 to 1/4 the Wifi Connection Rate

Wireless can certainly experience more overhead and or re-transmissions vs a nailed up/Wired connection ... BUT ... a 2/3 to 3/4 loss seems awfully high ... the router is located in a rural setting where distances between buildings > 50 feet and all services are in ground. The 5GHz noise floor (read interfering signals) should therefore be low (unfortunately I don't have an instrument that can confirm the actual levels)

Type 4500N router is running with the latest Firmware ... the Laptop's 802.11N firmware/driver was out of date but when updated didn't change the results.

When connected using 802.11g there is a 56% 30/54 SpeedTest result of 30Mbps Dn 29Mbps Up

Are my expectations out to lunch for Wifi or is there some Win7 or Wifi setting I am possibly missing

These results are all independent of Browser and or Anti-Virus software

bxdobs said:

Having just upgraded to fiber, am now very confused by Speedtest results specifically from my so called high speed 802.11N Wifi which claims I should have 300 to 450Mbps Connection Rates (N settings on Router and Laptop are set to their defaults)

Laptop and Desktop both W7Pro 64b SP1 connected at 1Gbps Wired via CAT5e to (Fiber Connected Router) SpeedTest results: 250Mbps Dn & Up which is close to the 275Mbps Dn & Up speedtest result from the Fiber Modem (difference may be due to proprietary server being used for ISP's speedtest)

Switching Laptop to Wifi 802.11N connection 300 to 450Mbps (location 4ft from Router) and Speedtest results drop to 100Mbps Dn 94Mbps Up ... 1/3 to 1/4 the Wifi Connection Rate

Wireless can certainly experience more overhead and or re-transmissions vs a nailed up/Wired connection ... BUT ... a 2/3 to 3/4 loss seems awfully high ... the router is located in a rural setting where distances between buildings > 50 feet and all services are in ground. The 5GHz noise floor (read interfering signals) should therefore be low (unfortunately I don't have an instrument that can confirm the actual levels)

Type 4500N router is running with the latest Firmware ... the Laptop's 802.11N firmware/driver was out of date but when updated didn't change the results.

When connected using 802.11g there is a 56% 30/54 SpeedTest result of 30Mbps Dn 29Mbps Up

Are my expectations out to lunch for Wifi or is there some Win7 or Wifi setting I am possibly missing

These results are all independent of Browser and or Anti-Virus software

Hello :)
A fast question.. what is the full name of the router?
I googled 4500N but there is Linkys, Cisco Netgear and all of them has something more AE4500 or WNDR.

Router: Netgear WNDR4500
F/W 1.0.1.46_1.0.76
Laptop: Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 AGN
Revisions Tested:
Lenovo 13.2.0.30, 14.3.0.6
Intel 15.5.0.0

IPAD Mini is getting 135 Dn 132 Up connected to the same node (not sure what rate its connected at)

I read this test, and it sounds like the router is a bit sensitive to distance and if there are walls.
NETGEAR WNDR4500 N900 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router Reviewed - SmallNetBuilder

have you tried to change the channel in the router for the wireless?
There may be something else that interferes with the radio frequency. Radio interference can affect the speed extremely. Even if the router is only 2 feet away

The Laptop is in the same room as the router (no wall involved) ... the router 5G Channel options are Auto, 36, 40, 44, 48, 149, 153, 157, 161 ... as implied, the nearest potential source of other Wifi signals is more then 50 feet away in neighboring homes ... I do have a 5.8 G Radio phone base set close to the router ... I will run some tests tomorrow with some variations

Hello again :)

Today I took the time to read your routers manual.
When you test a few different things today, first try to lower the MTU size down to 1460. and see if it can increase the speed.
Then you can test if the router's firewall maybe is the bottleneck.
Make sure you have the firewall enabled in windows and then disable the router's firewall for a little while and do a speed test.

I only use wired network to my computers, because I want maximum network performance. But i do have a wireless access point behind my hardware firewall for my smartphone and tablet, but my access point is isolated inside my lan if someone succeeds in hacking my wpa2.
To get high speed wireless network with firewall enabled, unfortunately that requires a little higher quality on the hardware.

Given all speed test results were using the same Test Software, Server, Router
and PC, where elements like the Router Firewall, Security Software, etc. are
common to both Wired or Wifi Tests, there is a high expectation that these
common elements should have little to no effect on the compared results.

Latest Testing:

Turned off all 5.8GHz phone equipment Results unchanged
Router set to Auto (migrates to ch149) Results unchanged
Router set to ch36 Results worse
Router set to ch161 Results worse
Router set to Auto and 1460 MTU Unstable connection with no Results
Router set to Auto and 1450 MTU Results worse

Based on my testing results and understanding from a high level, it looks like
this issue is due to vendors grossly misrepresenting Wifi connection rates ...
much like the on going game that everyone plays with things like Memory Sizes.
1K vs 1024

At a high Level, in terms of TCPIP thru-put (metrics for actual data rate are
not easy to measure, as there are numerous encapsulated protocols underneath
TCPIP (with acks) and or UDP (no acks) ... for the sake of simplicity, comparing
apples to apples, for SpeedTest, I will just speak in terms of TCPIP)

- Wired connections using TCPIP protocol to encapsulate data between devices

vs

- Wifi connections further encapsulate TCPIP (read by adding more overhead)

I find Netgear & Intel reporting 300-450Mbps Wifi connection rates in the same
context as Wired connection rates of 10, 100 or 1000Mbps very misleading

Based on the Speedtest results, my conclusion is that these Wifi connection
rates must be including the Wifi TCPIP encapsulation overhead. Which certainly
appears to indicate the Wifi Vendors are grossly overstating their connection
rates.

Sales pitches are always using download speeds relating to File Sizes
and Connection Rates ... if we are matching apples to apples, a 450M connection
would be expected to take half the time of a 1G connection to transfer a file.

With ISP services at 20Mbps or less there was no noticeable difference between
Wired or Wifi Connections ... with the ISP services now at 275Mbps the
differences are now very apparent and was the reason for starting this thread

Hello again
Sorry I didn't reply sooner, but I've been away for a few days.
When I got home last night I read your post and thought about a problem that often occurs between older OS and win7 .. so I googled a bit and found this.

First try to put MTU to 1499 (it often works in older wired lans)

Test this i found.
auto tuning feature can be the problem.
a) Click on Start, type cmd, right click and select Run as Administrator then hit Enter.
b) Type in the following commands and hit Enter.
netsh interface tcp show global
netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled
netsh interface tcp show global
c) Check if autotuning feature is disabled.
(copied from answers.microsoft)

Then i found if you don't use IPv6, remove it or disable it under network connection properties.
Keeping IPv6 may slow down network by trying to register IPv6 addresses, or trying to get IPv6 address, or trying to resolve IPv6.

And for last.
I found this program that can be useful to analyze if you may have network that interfere. There were also other interesting programs under the download tab. These cost money, but there is a trial key, so they may be interesting to test.
https://www.metageek.com/products/inssider/

And you are sure that your computer's wireless card is at least as fast as your router?
I have most knowledge of wired networks, so I think I have to read up on wifi and learn more about the wireless IoT, it is the future, even if i don't use it myself.

Thanx, I tried these changes and if anything the results were worse

The Router is a dual band 2.4G/5G capable of 450Mbps on either band ... the Intel card in the Laptop has the same metrics

When I connect via the 5G SSID, the Laptop reports (all processes; Intel, Windows and Lenovo) with a connection rate of between 300 and 450Mbps ... why this fluctuates so much is one curiosity, but regardless, my statement is that these processes are blatantly misleading ... even if the actual DATA rate was a stable 300Mbps then speedtest results would expected to be the full ISP rate of 275Mbps (because it is less then 300Mbps) ... given there is extra overhead encapsulating the TCP traffic over AIR (Wifi) one could reasonably expect some loss of bandwidth (Actual Data Rate) ... I suspect that the reported Data Rates are including the overhead ... at 300Mbps speedtest results are roughly 100Mbps or 1/3 ... I suspect the other 2/3 of the reported Rate is going to overhead ... my thoughts are that we be asking vendors to start reporting actual data rates instead of these bloated/meaningless rates.

Unfortunately, but yes.. they will do all things to get good numbers to show off for sales pitches :) This applies to everything from fuel-efficient cars to energy-efficient refrigerators.

I only do speed test with actual file downloads/transfers.. My lan max outs my disks performance(mechanical HDD's) My ISP is 100/100Mbit and i get 112Mbit down and 110Mbit up. My wifi is only 54Mbit on 2.4Ghz.. and i haven't test it.. I don't need speed over my wifi... yet .. is probably best to say. *hahaha*