Slow wireless file transfer rates.

[Fumz]

Hi guys,

I have a D-Link DGL-4500 connecting 3 machines: mine, my wife's, and the tv room, which is wireless using a Linksys WMP54G.

The problem is I can't seem to transfer large files wirelessly at an acceptable speed.

When I first boot up the tv room, the connection is good, 54Mbps, as is signal strength. Speed tests report the same internet bandwidth we get on the two wired machines. However, when I attempt to drag a file to the tv room machine, the connection speed drops to 24-38Mbps (which seems more than ample), but transfer rates are less than 1Mb, usually about 300-800 KB/s.

This means an 11GB file will take more than 4 hours! I can drag that same file to the wife's machine in just a few minutes. 4 hours, just for a friggen file, really?

Not sure what to do? I've tried wireless g only, wireless n & g, using 128-bit encryption, not using it, updating anything I could find... it's all the same in the end, crap transfer rates. I will admit this card came from Tiger and cost only $12.00. I guess I was not paying close enough attention because it's a refurb. It fits, and in all other respects it seems to work just fine, just not with its real only intended purpose.

Btw... the tv room is using 32-bit 7, fully updated as of this morning.

 

[dj99]

I think you need to upgrade your Linksys WMP54G (wireless G, max 54Mbps) with a wireless N adapter in your TV room, which is something like 6 times faster or 298 Mbps. You have a good router that is capable of wireless N, so why hobble yourself with wireless G clients? Wireless N is mega faster.

 

[Fumz]

My problem is that I think even if I did get an N card, whatever is holding me back currently, will also be holding back the new card. It would really make me angry to spend all that money and still have > 1Mbps.

I realize I'm not going to get the full 54Mbps, but even half or a quarter of that would be better than less than 1.

 

[dj99]

What is "holding you back" is that the wireless pci card in your TV room can only handle 54Mbps, and your setup is capable of 6 times that speed. ??? Your router is "N", and all your PC adapter cards should be too.

FYI, make sure your router is set to Wireless N speeds, as opposed to b/g or something like that.

 

[Fumz]

Perhaps I wasn't clear?

I know the card is only capable of 54Mbps. I know the router is capable of much more. The problem is that I'm not even getting remotely close to 54Mbps.

This 54Mbps card is doing less than 1Mbps. It should be doing more than 1Mbps. I would have expected somewhere in the 20Mbps-30Mbps range... Not 300-800 Kbps.

 

[dj99]

So you answered your own question?

 

[Fumz]

No. I want to know what factors would impede transfer rates so I can check if I'm suffering from one of them?

My brother in law suggested that the horrible transfer rates are due to weak signal strength, so I should move the router closer to the machine. Even when the machine is in the same room as the router, with a direct line of sight, transfer rates are still below 1Mbps. It's inexplicable.

Could it be the card itself? Perhaps, I don't know enough about this to know; more importantly, I don't know anything about the other variables which could be hindering performance.

Update: If I try and access the internet while one of these 4 hour >1Mbps transfers is going on, my connection is killed.

Seriously... what the hell?

 

[chev65]

I agree it shouldn't be that slow even with wireless G. Which ever A/V software or firewall you have installed may be causing this problem. Or one of the wireless network drivers isn't installed correctly or needs to be upgraded to a different one. You might also need to update the firmware on the router. Thats about all I can think of for now.

 

[dj99]

If your wife's machine is not a laptop, maybe you could try to swap her network adapter card into the TV room to eliminate placement as a source of your problem, and maybe vice versa. That could tell you a lot.

 

[Pleb5919]

I'm having the same problem with Windows 7. It's both frustrating, and pathetic. I'm using the same Wireless N NIC and router I was using on my two Windows XP machines.....they were transferring files between them within my network very quickly. I ran tests by zipping up a program into a 1 GB zip file, transferring from one to the other, and then measuring how quick it went.

On Windows XP, I was able to move 1 GB in 8 or 8.5 minutes, wirelessly.

I recently replaced my laptop and my desktop...both with Windows 7 machines. I'm using the same NIC (DWA-552) and router (WRT-610N), but now the files move very, very slowly. I'm getting speeds of 65 KB/s.....Windows is telling me that 1 GB test file (same one) will take *9 hours* to move.

I have a business partner I convinced to move to Windows 7 as well....he did, and file transfer speeds have plummeted for him....which is a problem when he's moving client files between servers.

I've tried disabling AVG Free on both machines and rebooting, and my speeds have jumped to about 212 KB/s.......better, but by no means sufficient.

Everything in my environment is wireless N. The router, the NIC on my desktop, the wireless card in my laptop, and a DAP-1522, which is set to bridge mode, but which rarely accesses the network as it's only used for visitors....who only occasionally need it.

Pleb5919

 

[Fumz]

Update.

I'm able to achieve speeds of 2.5-3.1MB/s using my wife's XP laptop. Speed is the same whether the Windows firewall is enabled or disabled. A 12GB file took roughly an hour and my internet connection isn't killed while transferring files and surfing.

This is better, but not by much. Going by Pleb5919's transfer rates in XP, roughly 1GB per 8 minutes, my speeds are a bit above normal.

So, options?

 

[Fumz]

Update 2:

Ok, so my brother in law tested his wireless G connection, which has a similar setup to mine: 64-bit 7 to 32-bit 7 Media PC. Transfer rates were the same for him as mine were to my wife's XP machine: 2.5-3.0MB/s.

Can anyone do a large wireless G file transfer and report speeds? Also, if anyone has an N setup I'd be interested in knowing what sort of transfer rates I can expect to see? There's a card I might get if it'll boost speeds: Newegg.com - D-Link DWA-552 IEEE 802.11g, IEEE802.11n Draft 2.0 32-bit PCI Xtreme Desktop Adapter Up to 300Mbps Wireless Data Rates Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA, WPA2)

I haven't quite figured out yet why my media pc isn't getting at least 2.5MB/s, so in the interim, I've just ran some cat5 to the back room... but boy is it ugly!

 

[hacker22]

I have had the same problem... The Netgear wireless manager states I am connected at 284Mbs and can only transfer file at about 2.5MBs. The weird part about my situation is when I was using netgear powerline adapters (85Mbs) I would max out at about the same 2.5MBs; hence the wireless upgrade. So I would assume it is a setting I am overlooking. I hope someone can help us out. I will let you know if I find anything.

 

[Pleb5919]

For Wireless N, it should be possible to get much faster speeds. I'm not a best case for an example....even downloading from the Internet, I'm limited that I have a High Speed Lite package, which maxes out at about 2.5 Mbps anyways.....N is supposed to be able to handle faster than that, but you have to have faster Internet Access to start with.

I tried disabling Remote Differential Compression, but it didn't make a difference.

I've also read online about some other possible fixes..

#2 Log onto machine as administrator, go to command prompt. Run this command:

netsh interface tcp set global chimney=disabled

#3 Log onto machine as administrator, go to command prompt. Run this command:

netsh int tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled

NOTE: I have not done #2 or #3 yet.....I found those tips on a tech message board, but I don't know the source, and I'm not a programmer or net specialist, so I have no idea what those two commands even do, or how to reverse them if I need to.

Pleb5919

 

[Fumz]

Our issues aren't internet speed (which is just fine), it's transferring files from one machine to another using a gigabit switch; the process doesn't use the internet.

 

[Pleb5919]

Our issues aren't internet speed (which is just fine), it's transferring files from one machine to another using a gigabit switch; the process doesn't use the internet.

That's the problem I'm having.....my speed getting content off the Internet is fine.....but 60 KB/s (sometimes going up to 200 KB/s) to transfer files between two computers on the same wireless network.....that's unacceptable. That's where I'm having the difficulties.

Pleb5919

 

[Pleb5919]

A slight addition to the situation.....a few days ago, my Internet speed started becoming very inconsistent...ranging from 2 Mbps down to 0.6. I checked the ISP, and it wasn't them. My laptop was connecting to the router at full speed....so it was something with the desktop.

This led me to wonder about replacing the NIC. Maybe there was a driver problem? Or a hardware failure?

To make a long story short, I replaced the DWA-552 with a Linksys WMP600N. My signal strength *dropped* by 12%. However, the fluctuations in speed became a bit more regular......the ISP was able to increase the speed to 5 Mbps, and with the new card I'm getting anywhere from 3.6 to 4.4 Mbps.

Most importantly, I was reading some tips on other boards, and they suggest that slow speed can be the result of a few things.....including the Linksys software on the disk having a problem with the Windows Network Manager. So I uninstalled the Linksys management software, and just used the raw driver (most recent version). I ran another test, and my file transfer speed over wifi within my network has dramatically improved...it's gone from 200 KB/s to 14 Mbps. Files that were taking 3-4 hours before take about 8-12 minutes now.

So I'm not sure if the problems were with Windows 7's Network Manager conflicting with the Dlink network manager software, if the problem was the Dlink NIC itself, or something else.

Pleb5919

 

[chev65]

As I have said before, if your transfer speeds aren't up to par then upgrading the hardware to something more recent will usually take care of that for you. Some people just don't want to spend money on new hardware and I understand that but sometimes it's the only way. Maybe Fumz will see your post and make a change to his network.

And those so called network managers never seem to work right, I always recommend uninstalling them. Thanks for reporting back in Pleb5919.