How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

[Mark42]

I have a new Acer laptop (#AS5741-6814). All in all it performs really well, but I notice that it does not connect at as high a speed wirelessly as the other Acers (2) and two IBM/Lenovo laptops. In the exact same location in my family room all other laptops will be connected at 54Mbps, but my new Acer connects at 36-48 Mbps.

I replaced the antenna on the wireless router with a 9 I DB antenna, and it did make some improvement. Now the laptop connects at 54Mbps sometimes, and 48MBPS most of the time. I can't say I notice any loss of performance when the connection speed drops, but just knowing its not at the max is annoying.

Looked at all the settings for the Broadcom 802.11n adapter, but didn't find any settings that made a difference (such as setting RATE to 54. Then in would not connect).

My suspicion is the antenna in the Acer is not optimal, or the Broadcom adapter performs better w/wireless N.

Is there a way to modify or improve the internal antenna in the Acer?

I am running wireless G, but am thinking that switching to a wireless N router might help.

Any suggestions?

 

[BuzzStPoint]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

!st thing would be to update the wireless drivers and see if that helps.
Can you alter the antenna? Sometimes. but that requires you to open the LCD cover.
There should be a cover on the back where the card slots are. In there you should see two little wires (Usually black and white) that are clipped to the main board. Make sure one of those is not disconnected.

 

[CobiaXL]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

Swap broadband cards between lappys and see if problem still exists.Make sure power is off before your swap.Download and install correct drivers and see what ya got.Switching to "N" would help greatly all around the home.
Some routers have option for high power gain..And some lappys have setting in broadband card to set to highest connect speed.Check your system properties for that.

 

[reddogg]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

Might be your wireless router is just distributing the bandwith that way. We had to upgrade to a more powerful one when we went wireless. We had 2 comps hard wired and 3 comps wireless than add a few blackberries and i-pods. The old router couldn't cope with all of it and speed either slowed or someone got kicked off.

red

 

[jlinder]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

I notice you mention the speed in the living room, but have not mentioned that it connects at a higher speed if you move it to sit next to the router. if it does it appears to be antenna/signal. If not, it is drivers.

On the other hand I would be shocked if that difference means anything. If you are connecting to the internet you bandwidth is certainly less than 48Mb/s. If to the other computers time file transfers to find out if you can see any difference.

 

[PiratePast40]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

Use something like speakeasy http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ to find your real world connection speed to the internet. Your speed to the router may not make a difference at all.

 

[Mark42]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

I notice you mention the speed in the living room, but have not mentioned that it connects at a higher speed if you move it to sit next to the router. if it does it appears to be antenna/signal. If not, it is drivers.

On the other hand I would be shocked if that difference means anything. If you are connecting to the internet you bandwidth is certainly less than 48Mb/s. If to the other computers time file transfers to find out if you can see any difference.

Yes, the speed does increase the closer to the router the laptop is. Connection speed is critical for access to the server. Big video files in 1080p will not play smooth unless there is a full 54Mbps connection, and even then there are a few glitches. At lower speeds, the video is too poor to watch. 640x480 will play fine, even at lower connection speeds.

 

[stackz]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

your new laptop is configured for optimal performance with an N or N+ based router. you're using an older G based router. You answered your own question. also, its probably set as #3 inline network address wise so if anyone else is goofing around on the other laptops or especially downloading/streaming stuff...the new one's connection will suffer.

the ones at the head of the line get the steak at the buffet, you get the crumbs and cold fish.

 

[Mark42]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

your new laptop is configured for optimal performance with an N or N+ based router. you're using an older G based router. You answered your own question. also, its probably set as #3 inline network address wise so if anyone else is goofing around on the other laptops or especially downloading/streaming stuff...the new one's connection will suffer.

the ones at the head of the line get the steak at the buffet, you get the crumbs and cold fish.

That doesn't seem to matter. Whether I am the only wireless user, or one of four wireless users, it makes no difference.

Besides, that is not how a router works.

 

[nikon]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

Are you using proprietary acer connection manager? Or windows 7? Have you tried getting the newest broadcom drivers directly from broadcom website?

Try booting a live ubuntu disc. If your network speeds up then you have a driver/windows problem....if not you know it's a hardware limitation.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

Check to make sure you have all of the drivers up to date first. How is the signal quality? I was on the road this weekend and was having trouble at the hotels, due to low signal quality, although I was connected at 100, I was still getting slow response times. Don't use the acer program, use the windows 7 program to control the wireless card, the acer program is junk..

I would also upgrade your wireless card, which I have done in all of my acers.

 

[Mark42]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

Checked with Acer, and they don't have a driver for the Broadcom network interface. The Broadcom driver on the laptop (ver 5.100.249.2) seems to be the latest.

I plan to buy a Cisco wireless N router later this year. Guess I can wait until then to see if the N connects at a better speed or not.

 

[rogerwa]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

When you switch to the N router you will be in much better shape. You will get consistently better connections and higher speeds. I upgraded from the old Linksys 54g to a d-link n series router and I get consistenly 5 bars when before I was getting 3-4 and not the max speed. I even contemplated laying down a hacked distribution on the linksys that would let me crank up the transmit power.

If you want to wait to buy an N router until later and you are running a LS 54G router you could try the dd-wrt or tomato software. These will allow you to increase the transmit power. You might brick the router in the process but a lot of people have done it..

 

[Mark42]

Re: How to improve laptop wireless connection speed?

When you switch to the N router you will be in much better shape. You will get consistently better connections and higher speeds. I upgraded from the old Linksys 54g to a d-link n series router and I get consistenly 5 bars when before I was getting 3-4 and not the max speed. I even contemplated laying down a hacked distribution on the linksys that would let me crank up the transmit power.

If you want to wait to buy an N router until later and you are running a LS 54G router you could try the dd-wrt or tomato software. These will allow you to increase the transmit power. You might brick the router in the process but a lot of people have done it..

I need to keep this router, its a WRT54g3g router that takes a mobile broadband card, and that is my internet access (broadband cards antenna port is connected to a powerful amplifier that feeds a highly directional flat panel antenna in the attic that hits a cell tower a few miles away. Signal is boosted about 19-22 db depending on load. Typically get up to 1.1Mbps connection. Yeah, I am blasting the cell tower.) So when I do get a wireless n router, the WRT54G3G will have to be connected to the wireless n router to keep the internet (sans wireless).

Need a wireless-n, simultaneous dual band, gigabyte router, like the linksys E3200. The server and most of the PC's/laptops are all gigabyte, so it really speed up loading of edited video files to the server, and feeding the hard wired media player. And with wireless-n speed, the 1080p video files should play back smooth, even with other users taking a slice of the wi-fi pie. Right now, the 1080p video files only play 100% smooth over the hard wired media player (WD live plus).

I've pretty much got everything set up the way I want it, running really good. That's why the poor wireless on this Acer bothers me.