Wireless and ethernet speeds are the same pls help

[paully]

hi i just bought a new laptop with windows 7 os. i dont know why but my ethernet (MARVELL YUKON 88E8055 PCI-E GIGABIT ETHERNET CONTROLLER) connection speed is just about the same as my wireless (INTEL WIFI LINK 5100 AGN) i am so confused why my ethernet connection is so slow. With my older computers, ethernet was at least 2x faster...

 

[FuturDreamz]

I'm afraid i don't know anythinge else about your setup.
Is the wireless router connected directly to the Ethernet router? are they combined? what are the brand and product names?
is this DSL, Cable, or Optical Fiber internet?

also, could it be that the other two computers were limited wirelessly to the speed of a WIfI G network, while both the router and the new computer are WiFi n compatible?

 

[Digerati]

Also, understand that once you hit your gateway device (typically the cable or DSL modem) your speeds are determined by that device and your ISP connection, not how you connect to your local network (everything on your side of the gateway device). So while you may have a Gb Ethernet LAN connection locally, all that means is you can communicate LOCALLY at that speed with the other computers on your network (assuming they have Gb connections too). Once you hit the Internet, everybody slows down to Internet speeds as provided by their ISP. This is why most people don't notice any Internet performance difference between 10/100Mb Ethernet and 1Gb Ethernet connections when surfing the Internet - their provider is only providing around 10Mb.

 

[FuturDreamz]

unless he has Verizon FiOS or something where it does go that fast.

 

[Digerati]

No, that's not true. Regardless your local network speeds, you are not going faster than your provider allows. While FiOS is certainly faster than cable or DSL, as seen in this Verizon FiOS Internet comparison, the best download speed you can get (and certainly these are ideal "marketing figures" for their most expensive package) is 125Mb and the best upload is 500Mb - that's 87.5% and 50% slower (AKA, a bottleneck) than a 1Gb network.

So yeah, if you have a 1Gb local network, you MIGHT see some improvement over the typical 100Mb network for downloads. And let's be realistic here, fast upload speeds only affect a few users out there.

The technology is there - fiber has the capability, but the ISPs have yet to tap its potentials.

 

[FuturDreamz]

Ah.

then perhaps the bottleneck is in the WiFi?

i dont know why but my ethernet (MARVELL YUKON 88E8055 PCI-E GIGABIT ETHERNET CONTROLLER) connection speed is just about the same as my wireless (INTEL WIFI LINK 5100 AGN) i am so confused why my ethernet connection is so slow.

assuming that paully just did a direct comparison:
if he had FiOS or something and assuming his other computerers are not capable of WiFi n the 54Mb max speed of WiFi g would act as a bottleneck. his new computer is a WiFi n device and if his router is capable of WiFi n, the 54mb bottleneck would not be present.

in reality i'm just grasping at straws here.

 

[FuturDreamz]

paully, go to speedtest.net on the new computer and one or both of the old computers, and post here what the speed is on wireless and on ehternet. thanks.