Reason for Slow Speeds over Wi-Fi and Not Wired

Amaris on 29/06/2020 - 21:15

Hi
I'm not an IT person but have some understanding.
I noted that a transfer of a 4GB file from my Synology NAS was quite slow and tried to troubleshoot.
When the laptop (MBP) is connected via ethernet from the Synology router, I get transfer speeds of 110 MBps. However, when the computer is 3m away but only connected via WiFi the transfer speeds drop to 20-25MBps. My network speed monitor app shows I'm connected to the router on 5Ghz at 1170Mbps.
Can't figure out why there's such a big difference with a supposedly good WiFi connection.
Any explanation/ suggestions to resolve the issue is much appreciated.

Thank you

PS: also posted on WP

Computing

Comments

  • chasis on 29/06/2020 - 21:41
    +5

    WiFi is always a lot lower than Ethernet. At the bottom of this post is a table of speeds people have found using the different WiFi standards. Remember it will use the lowest standard (ie if you have a router that does 802.11g but a laptop NIC that is 802.11b, it will use the b).

    Things to check:
    * Channel congestion. If other routers nearby are using the same channel their will be more interference and you will see lower speeds. You can use an app such as WiFi Analyzer for checkings.

    • Line of sight to the router. 5Ghz will be a better signal if you have line of sight, but it does not have much penetrating power. If there is a wall between router and your devices, change to 2.4Ghz.

    • Try and establish if you are getting much packet loss. This will let you know if you are having interference issues of if your bandwidth is saturated.

    Standard Theoretical Actual
    802.11b 11 Mbps 5.5 Mbps
    802.11a 54 Mbps 20 Mbps
    802.11g 54 Mbps 20 Mbps
    802.11n 600 Mbps 100 Mbps
    802.11ac 1,300 Mbps 200 Mbps
    802.11ax 10 Gbps 2 Gpbs
    Table from: https://www.lifewire.com/how-fast-is-a-wifi-network-816543

  • amansandhu2003 on 29/06/2020 - 21:56

    I used to get 25 mbps when 5m away. I change my computer's wifi receiver card and now I get 60 mbps.

  • Jugganautx on 29/06/2020 - 23:33
    +2

    Make sure you aren't using 2.4bandwidth
    5ghz is you're best bet for utilising your whole nbn

    Sometimes upwards of 20-30% Faster in my experience but YMMV.

    I have 3 walls inbetween my router and PC and 5ghz still performs close to ethernet

    • chasis on 30/06/2020 - 10:25

      If your getting WiFi close to ethernet, then there is something wrong with your ethernet.

      He's using Synology NAS. Any recent one should have a 1Gb/s interface. Realistically you can utilise ~85%. High end consumer routers (best case) realisitcally give you ~250Mb/s.

      • Amaris on 30/06/2020 - 11:06
        +1

        I have a DS918+ which has a 1Gbe interface.
        I knew Wi-Fi is slower but was surprised to see a link speed between my computer and the router of 1170Mbps but only transferring at about 25x8Mbps!

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