Home Broad Laptops running at different speeds on two different laptops.

[Steven_Cleaver]

Hi

 

OK so the story.

 

Had a user query that they were getting poor performance on work laptop as regards Internet connection compared to home laptop is a user with pretty good technical knowledge, anyhow I thought fair enough probably Network card Drivers, various troubleshooting looked at router etc so updated these did various other troubleshooting and has improved slightly but when I run various speed tests on the two devices work one is between 50% slower so home laptop between 27mb to 35mbs where as work Laptop 12 to 17 the tests are run at virtually same time using https://www.speedtest.net and https://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk obviously run various tests from these and is always around 50% slower, user on Talk, Talk.

 

So thought try mine at home so work Laptop and Home Laptop I am on Virgin connection which is excellent but get similar except sort of other way round so work laptop is 50% higher than my home laptop, my home laptop is quite old but again drivers up to date etc. To be honest have never really noticed at home before as say my virgin connection is really good so doesn't make much difference.

 

Nothing really installed on devices that I can see would cause this and the fact that they are sort of other way round for both of us so Work laptop for me is quicker, home Laptop for user.

 

Can anyone thing of general things to check that I may have missed, or tests I can run that I may not of tried, updated Laptops and Drivers for Wireless cards ec.

 

Thanks for any help.

[Bedders]

You haven't mentioned (or if you have I'm sorry that I've missed it) whether these users are connected to the same frequency e.g. 5GHz or 2.4GHz? I've seen that make a massive difference.

 

You'd probably have to check on the router which one each client is connecting to.

[Steven_Cleaver]

Cheers I did wonder if this would make a difference and just checked mine at home and yes the two laptops and they are on different frequencies and device that is on 2.4GHhz is the poor performing one, how would you change this and do you know why they would select 2.4 Ghz ?

[Norphy]

I’ve found that with consumer routers, the only sure fire to make sure that a device uses a particular band is to create separate SSIDs for 2.4ghz and 5ghz networks. All of the dual band home routers I’ve seen have been just plain crap at band steering.

 

Failing that, sometimes the driver for the wireless nic can be set to prefer one band over another

[Steven_Cleaver]

Cheers just looking at both your proposed suggestions after bit of Googling thanks Norphy.

[Bedders]

Norphy's suggestion is exactly what I've done, as it's been my experience too that band steering on consumer-grade routers is awful.

Set up 2 SSID's - one just "NetworkName" and one "NetworkName-2.4". If all you can see is the 2.4 one, it's possible your laptop cannot connect to 5GHz bands because the wireless card is too old.

 

You could also look at the 2.4GHz b/g/n settings, as if you have a slower device on the network somewhere connecting to the 2.4GHz frequency it will slow all other devices on that frequency down.

[Ditto]

Interesting topic. I'll be very interested to hear if switch to 5GHz helps. I just checked which frequency my current laptop is on - it's on 2.4 GHz. In the past I had wondered about this. I have a Sky Hub 2 as far a as I can tell, which I believe is single band. We have 4 SONOS devices on top of about 6 other devices connected, so I've sometimes wondered if we have the optimum setup. As we are on ADSL and have a maximum speed of 10Mbps, I'm not sure upgrading the router can help in this scenario?

[Norphy]

Unless I’m sitting right next to the router, 2.4ghz networks are pretty much unusable here. There is far too much noise on that band, whether it be from other wireless networks, doorbells, DECT phones, baby monitors, microwaves or whatever. Using the 5ghz band might result in a more reliable connection as there’s less congestion on that band and there are more usable channels which, crucially, don’t overlap like they do on 2.4ghz.

 

However, it’s a trade off; the 5ghz band is less congested and has the potential for a higher bandwidth network but the range of it is considerably less and higher frequency networks aren’t as good at penetrating walls and other solid objects. If you have an old house with thick walls, you may find that you need more than one wireless access point to get the same coverage.

 

It all depends. If you live in a more remote location where you can’t see as many networks, switching to 5ghz might actually be worse for you

Edited May 2, 2020 by Norphy

[Steven_Cleaver]

I sort of get what you are saying but as you say I am sort of sitting next to my router and just trying to investigate why I get such a difference in speed on two devices as the user I am trying to sort out is getting, think you are on too something possibly with the difference in 5GHZ and 2.4Ghz have looked at devices connected at home on 5GHz and ran speed tests from these all way higher than my laptop on 2.4GHZ all the devices are in my living room virtually next to router.

 

Looks like the Wireless card in my old Laptop doesn't support 5GHZ so second SSID may not help although if I can switch the user onto 5GHz in some way may help I vaguely remember it showing as being on 2.4ghz on his router and if it was and both of us were having speed differences on devices that were connected on 2.4Ghz but much improved on 5Ghz may work, he has multiple SSID's configured but tried switching and this didn't make much difference but didn't notice if when we switched it was still showing on 2.4 Ghz or 5Ghz.

[Jobos]

When my broadband speed increased from 17Mbs to 72Mbs I thought the router was faulty as I couldn’t get faster than 24Mbs. Then I realised the laptop was only connected at 2.4Ghz. Replaced the WiFi card and speed shot up to 69Mbs.

[Steven_Cleaver]

Yes so it looks like is issue with being on 2.4 Ghz mine is the same so Laptop on 5Ghz is superfast upto 200mbs per second but on the 2.4Ghz device upto 60mbs, the user is experiencing the same issue so learn something new everyday. The users laptop is new but looks like the card only supports single band so 2.4ghz looking at Intel.