Windows 7 Sony VAIO VGN-FW520F Slow Downloads

parasitemite · 14 Dec 2009

I am currently experiencing slow and stalled downloads on a Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit Sony VAIO VGN-FW520F Laptop. I have tried just about every trick in the book from reseting the router, changing security settings, updating my wireless adapter driver, disabling Ipv6 and none of these improve my download speeds. Upload speeds are fine... at about 3.07Mbs, but the download chugs along at 1.04Mbs (as opposed to 18Mbs on my other Windows Vista 64 laptop).

My wireless adapter is the Intel Wifi Link 5100 AGN with the updated drivers (version 13.0.0.107) and my Wireless Router is the Linksys WRT150N firemware version v1.01.9)

UPDATE: Issue resolved by disabling 802.11n Mode: Steps below:

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click on "Hardware and Sound"
3. Click on "Device Manager" under "Devices and Printers"
4. Expand "Network adapters"
5. Double click on "Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN"
6. Select the "Advanced" tab
7. Click on "802.11n Mode"
8. Select Value of "Disabled"
9. Click OK

chev65 · 14 Dec 2009

All I could find on this problem was this.

Re: Wireless Problem in windows 7 intel wifi link 5100agn
12-07-2009 10:44 PM
RESOLVED MY ISSUE!!!! In device manager, I opened up the Advanced tab in the properties of the Intel network adapter and disabled the 802.11n Mode, and that did the trick! Seems odd, though, since my router is supposed to use 802.11n, but maybe I have something wrong on that. In any event, I'm a happy camper now. See if perhaps this might work for you as well. Here's the step-by-step.

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click on "Hardware and Sound"
3. Click on "Device Manager" under "Devices and Printers"
4. Expand "Network adapters"
5. Double click on "Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN"
6. Select the "Advanced" tab
7. Click on "802.11n Mode"
8. Select Value of "Disabled"
9. Click OK
Done

Possibly even try this...
Intel! They make processors and a variety of motherboard hardware, but they seem to have a devil of a time making decent drivers. Particularly with their wireless NICs. Lately I’ve noticed a number of errors springing from the Intel WiFi Link 5100/5300 AGN family of wireless adapters. They seem to cause random bluescreen errors on Windows Vista systems. Fortnuately, there is a viable workaround:
-Right click on Computer and select Manage.
-After Computer Management opens up, go to Device Manager.
-In Device Manager, expand the Network Adapters category.
-Right-click on “Intel (R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN” and select Properties.
-In Properties, go to the Power Management tab.
-Under the Power Management tab, make sure that “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power” is unchecked.
Apparently, the driver for the WiFi Link 5100 can’t properly handle the device going to sleep, and pulls down the whole system. Hopefully Intel will fix this in future driver updates. Until then, this workaround will have to do.

For router settings use this...>>WPA2-Personal enabled as the security on your wireless network.

parasitemite · 14 Dec 2009

Thanks! Just disabled Wireless N on the adapter and I am getting 15 Mb/s, a little better! Don't know why it won't let me connect at Wireless N speeds, kind of a pain...

chev65 · 14 Dec 2009

I think it's just a driver problem and lots of people are having it with that same wifi adaptor for some reason. From 1.04 Mb/s to 15 Mb/s is quite an improvement for sure.

It seems like that driver is choking on wireless N for the time being so wireless G will have to do until the driver is updated again. I searched for about 20 minutes and that was the only fix I could find for the problem.

Seems like this problem is solved for the time being or at least until the drivers are updated again to work with wireless N. Can you mark it as solved so that others might benifit from this thread.