Solved Slow Wireless Speeds - Laptop is fine, Desktop is SLOW

[boredJonathan]

Hello all,

First off, I have been searching these forums for several days and have seen a number of people reporting slow wireless connections in Windows 7. Which was comforting, knowing I was not alone - but unfortunately I've yet to find the answer in any of the older posts, so I am hoping that making one of my own will help resolve this. Sorry to add to the noise, but I'm kind of out of ideas. Now for the problem:

Initially my wireless speed in Windows 7 was comparable to what I got under XP - mainly 54mbps but occasionally dropping lower, but nothing out of the ordinary. However, I've recently noticed that I am never going about 18mpbs now on my wireless connection, and the actual speed seems to be bottlenecked even slower than that. Example, here is a speed test I just ran.

Here is the results of my ipconfig /all

Windows IP Configuration

   Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : Jon-PC
   Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . :
   Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
   IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
   DNS Suffix Search List. . . . . . : provenahealth.com

Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection 2:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Cisco AnyConnect VPN Virtual Miniport Ada
pter for Windows x64
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-05-9A-3C-7A-00
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::d5b0:3e81:da0d:400c%14(Preferred)
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . :
   DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 218105242
   DHCPv6 Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-15-8D-B5-AC-6C-F0-49-72-21-A5

   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : fec0:0:0:ffff::1%1
                                       fec0:0:0:ffff::2%1
                                       fec0:0:0:ffff::3%1
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Wireless LAN adapter Wireless Network Connection:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : hsd1.il.comcast.net.
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 802.11g Network Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-0F-66-6E-40-DA
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.106(Preferred)
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
   Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, October 04, 2011 7:23:56 PM
   Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, October 05, 2011 7:23:56 PM
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
   DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 8.8.8.8
                                       8.8.4.4
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled

Tunnel adapter isatap.hsd1.il.comcast.net.:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : hsd1.il.comcast.net.
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

Tunnel adapter Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface:

   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
   IPv6 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 2001:0:4137:9e76:ccf:1527:3f57:fe95(Prefe
rred)
   Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::ccf:1527:3f57:fe95%12(Preferred)
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : ::
   NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Disabled

Tunnel adapter isatap.{1D3CC08A-B0C6-48FE-AF82-CCE8652220B9}:

   Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
   Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . :
   Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Microsoft ISATAP Adapter #2
   Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-E0
   DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No
   Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

I have checked for the latest drivers on my Broadcom 802.11g Network Adapter through Windows, and even going so far as to try and find the reference drivers. (Which is turns out is "Broadcom Dell Wireless 1350 WLAN MiniPCI Card" but I've been unable to find anything worthwhile there.) The router is a WRT54G2 running the latest firmware version: 1.0.04.

Also, the issue seems to be on just this ONE machine. We have a Win7 Home Premium 64bit laptop that connects at 54mpbs and the speedtests done there are closer to 15-20mbps that I should be getting here. (Also, for giggles and grins I ran a speedtest on my iPhone connected to the same wireless network and received better speeds than on my desktop!)

I realize that was a lot of info to dump all at once, but I figured best to get the obvious questions out of the way up front. So, anyone have any suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[boredJonathan]

I almost don't believe it, because I could have sworn I had tried this in the past. I changed the broadcast channel from 10 to 1 after doing another WiFi channel search and seeing a new network broadcasting on 8. I was still getting good signal strength, but I figured it couldn't hurt. About 30 seconds later my wireless speed jumped back up to 54mbps and this is the speed test now.

Glad its fixed, but I almost don't trust that this will stay fixed. Going to leave this open for a day or two to see if anyone else has any suggestions that I might want to try.

 

[ekko28]

Hi John,

I have exactly the same experience with the desktop wireless being slow. Just like you, I've tried laptop and phone and they have good speed 15-20mbps but my desktop (Windows 7) gets 2-4mbps... are you still having the same problem? or did changing the channel fixed it. I'm pretty dumb when it comes to computers so if you have a solution then please reply with specific instructions. haha thank you.

 

[rld1727]

I too have a Broadcom 802.11g Network Adapter.

I used to play WOW but have stopped because of the terrible lag.

We also have other machines in the house and mine is the only one that is slow like this. My daughter's pc plays WOW just fine.

Over the last few days I've been having alot of problems. The speed is so slow I can't even get to the web to research, in case I could have a virus. I ran every scan I could on my pc and no viruses were found. I got frustrated and I tried disabling my 802.11g Network Adapter, to give it a kick start and it seemed to work. After a little while though, it got slow again. so I disabled and enabled again and got a few more hours of decent speed.

I'm only on this forum because I had to reset it again! Can the 802.11g Network Adapter go bad? I checked the drivers and it says its up to date.

Here is my speed test when the speed is at its best. Of course I can't test when it's really bad because I wouldn't be able to load the speedtest website!
http://www.speedtest.net/result/2032915052.png

 

[rld1727]

I found the answer for my problem at Randomly Losing Internet Connection - WAN-LAN - General-Networking