One laptop running very slow after replacing wireless router

[choochoo27]

I recently purchased and set-up a new TP-Link dual-band wireless router. I have 3 laptops and two cellphones in the house. Currently I have one laptop (Mac) connected to the 5mhz band running great. My other two laptops and cellphones are all running on the 2.4mhz band. The laptop having issues is running extremely slow on the internet and when I run speed tests I am only getting around 6mbps compared to the mac on the 5mhz pulling in around 27mbps. The laptop having the problem does not have a wireless card that supports a 5mhz (my fault for not checking this) but my previous router I replaced was a Linksys which is over 7 years old. Any insight or thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[doctore]

If your laptop's wireless NIC doesn't have 5.0Ghz, most likely it runs on 802.11b, which has maximum speed of only 11Mbps (in super ideal conditions). Best option is to buy a USB wireless adapter supporting 802.11n

 

[choochoo27]

Thanks for the response but before I switched routers we were frequently getting 10+ mbps download speeds and never had an issue loading simple websites. Now it feels like websites in Chrome take 1-2 minutes to load, i.e. google. Any additional thoughts or tests I can try? Maybe I just got a bad router and need to go back to Linksys again.

 

[doctore]

I'm sorry it was late You could have 802.11g adapter, which has max speed of 54Mbps. Please, check the spec sheet for your laptop (online, if you don't have it) and it will tell you.

The 2.4Ghz band is much more crowded than the 5.0Ghz, so interference is very likely. Did you put the new router at a different spot than the old one? Is there a micorwave or cordless phone nearby, Bluetooth? All of these (and more) can affect the signal.

That said, 6Mbps is a rather fast internet connection, certainly should not take 1-2 minutes for websites to load. You said you have another laptop connected to the 2.4Ghz band, can you check its wireless adapter and see which 802.11x standards it supports?

Also, please open the Command Prompt on the problematic laptop and type the following and post the results:

ping -n 50 yahoo.com

 

[choochoo27]

Thanks for the response. So I ran some additional speed tests and I was clocking even lower for download speeds, around 2-3mbps. I did the same tests on both of the cellphones on the same 2.4mhz network and those were clocking around 13-16mbps. The laptop with the issue will work and then it will stop working but still showing connected while I am using my other computer without any drop in signal or service. What I decided to try was hooking up my old wireless router directly into my new wireless router to see what might happen. When I switched networks to the other router (the Linksys I was replacing, 2.4mhz) I ran the speed tests and was getting between 13-15 mbps so something must not be communicating correctly with the new router and the computer with the issue. At this point I am debating about buying a new network card (dual band) for my Lenovo and replacing that which should allow me to connect to the 5mhz signal and hopefully have no issues. Below is the ping results for your post above which would appear that everything is normal. Thanks for any insight and help, much appreciated.

Pinging yahoo.com [98.138.253.109] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=121ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=91ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=106ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=81ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=65ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=194ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=98ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=136ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=158ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=180ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=153ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=146ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=168ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=150ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=67ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=129ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=144ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=172ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=80ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=87ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=70ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=151ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=81ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=93ms TTL=48
Request timed out.
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=222ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=100ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=68ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=139ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=169ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=79ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=294ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=127ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=92ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=161ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=563ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=62ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=589ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=140ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=134ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=180ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=104ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=120ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=271ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=167ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=69ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=104ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=123ms TTL=48
Reply from 98.138.253.109: bytes=32 time=161ms TTL=48

Ping statistics for 98.138.253.109:
Packets: Sent = 50, Received = 49, Lost = 1 (2% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 62ms, Maximum = 589ms, Average = 148ms

 

[dsperber]

Can you please provide the model of your Lenovo laptop. Your specs show nothing more than that.

Also, what was the model of the Linksys router you replaced, and what is the model of the TP-Link router you're now using?

 

[choochoo27]

Sorry for the delayed response, I was home all day with a sick kid. As to the questions you asked see below:

• 4th Generation Intel Core i5-4200U Processor( 1.60GHz 1600MHz 3MB)
• Windows 8.1 Pro 64 downgrade Windows 7 Professional 64
• 14.0" HD+ 1600x900
• Intel HD 4400
• 4.0GB PC3-12800 DDR3L 1600 MHz
• 128GB SSD
• Intel 7260 b/g/n Wireless (2x2 BGN)

Routers:

Linksys WRT54GL Wi-Fi Wireless-G Broadband Router

TP-Link N600 Wirelss Dual Band Router
Model No: TL-WDR3500


Obviously I would prefer to fix the solution with the new router I have since the Linksys was extremely old and has been dropping service off and on for the past 6 months. I am debating about buying the network card listed below but I am not sure if Lenovo has this whitelisted and then I would be spending my money for no good reason. Thanks to everyone for the input.

7260NGW Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 802.11ac, Dual Band, 2x2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0 (this is the network card that comes with the better X1 2nd Generation laptops with an I-7 processor).

 

[dsperber]

What is the Lenovo Thinkpad model?

 

[choochoo27]

It is a Thinkpad X1 2nd Generation (sorry this was included but I think I copied over it when including the specs). This was purchased approximately 2 months ago.