Slow 5Ghz speed.

I have also posted this on plusnet's forum but so far nothing, hopefully I can get more help here



I got a nice shiny Hub One and everything is fine apart from transfers over the 5Ghz network.

I can't get anymore than around 14MB/s (120Mbps ish?) which is way below what it should be capable of.

I have confirmed it is using 5Ghz as I disabled 2.4Ghz just to be sure, I also made sure no other access points in the area, I checked its set at the highest rate (1300Mbps) and the card in the machine is capable of 867Mbps. (Network status on the machine shows it is actually connected at 867Mbps)

Copying from one machine to another seems to produce a slow rate, one machine is on the gigabit wired and confirmed to be running at gigabit as I get at least 100MB/s if I use wire to both machines.

The only thing I have noticed when I am copying is there is a very high pitched squeal coming from the router which goes after the transfer completes, is it broken and need replacing already ?

Router should be silent, so suggests something is getting hot and stressed and may be about to fail, so yes report as faulty and get swapped.

There have been a couple of reports on the Plusnet forum of noise from the Hub One and I believe it has also been raised on the BT forums (the Hub One basically being a 5a version of the BT Hub). The common factor being the router under load whilst using the 5Ghz band.

So would the power supply possibly cause the low performance in the 5Ghz network? or is it just a noise issue

Here's one thread on the Plusnet forum found by searching for noise!

https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/Hub-one-make...

Yes! that is exactly it

But would this cause the lack of speed on the 5Ghz ? as I can put up with the noise if its not related to the performance..

In reply to a post by Tylexon:

I can't get anymore than around 14MB/s (120Mbps ish?) which is way below what it should be capable of.

I have confirmed it is using 5Ghz as I disabled 2.4Ghz just to be sure, I also made sure no other access points in the area, I checked its set at the highest rate (1300Mbps) and the card in the machine is capable of 867Mbps. (Network status on the machine shows it is actually connected at 867Mbps)

how is the 'card' in the computer connected.
when I used 802.11ac, on a bt hub5/dongle its speed was limited by the usb2 speed of the dongle. (ok about twice what you get) - but it was reporting the full link speed.

The card is in a laptop so it's internal PCIe. actual model of card is a Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260

The hub does make sounds, all HH5As do if you have a lot of traffic passing through and listen up close.

Have you rebooted - I find mine slows down as the days pass and it is online.

Luckily I am with BT so switched over to the Smart Hub.

I have rebooted it a few times, the noise persists which I don't have a major problem with, the 5Ghz speed is what I have more problem with... even tried sitting in front of it to test the speed and no different...

Just an update to show I'm not totally crazy and the machines are capable of doing them speeds just not over this Router it seems?

I used iperf to test this.

First one is Wired gigabit

------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to server, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.0.123 port 35236 connected with 192.168.0.22 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 1.10 GBytes 941 Mbits/sec

Wireless via 5Ghz

------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to server, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.0 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[ 3] local 192.168.0.40 port 51450 connected with 192.168.0.22 port 5001
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth
[ 3] 0.0-10.0 sec 228 MBytes 191 Mbits/sec

Ok after doing a lot of research of real world tests about AC wireless it seems the rates I'm getting are not as bad as I first thought, they are on the low end yes, but it seems about right, maybe a better router would help but that will have to wait a long time..

source: http://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is-the-actual-rea...

802.11ac - 70-100+ Mbps typical, higher speeds (200+ Mbps) possible over short distances without many obstacles, with newer generation 802.11ac routers, and client adapters capable of multiple streams.

Last iperf test I ran about 10minutes ago gave me 240Mbps from the server and 306Mbps to the server... wish it was almost gigabit speeds... maybe time to run some cable..

In terms of doing what most people need, that is to get 38 or 76Mbps over WiFi, wireless AC does the job. It's not a replacement to using a wire for internal network transfer speeds.

That said I do get 420Mbps over wireless AC using the smart hub. That is in the same room as the router with all devices.

Might be worth checking for updated drivers for the wireless adaptor.

Not necessarily a new router. I used to get around 360Mbps on 5Ghz using a USB Wifi stick and thought I was doing quite well. However after suffering a lot of drop connections I decided to invest in a pci card with external aerial. The increase in sync speed was certainly well beyond what I expected given the PC hasn't moved. I now get well over 700Mbps.

So before condemning the router, look at other items in the link. For instance we have bamboo blinds. Surprising what difference they make to the signal - i.e. I can lose nearly 200Mbps just by having them down (the router sits on the window cill).

In reply to a post by Jaggies:

Might be worth checking for updated drivers for the wireless adaptor.

I used the driver update util from intels site and it seems to be the latest.

Well, at least that rules out a driver issue.

In reply to a post by 69bertie:

Not necessarily a new router. I used to get around 360Mbps on 5Ghz using a USB Wifi stick and thought I was doing quite well. However after suffering a lot of drop connections I decided to invest in a pci card with external aerial. The increase in sync speed was certainly well beyond what I expected given the PC hasn't moved. I now get well over 700Mbps.

So before condemning the router, look at other items in the link. For instance we have bamboo blinds. Surprising what difference they make to the signal - i.e. I can lose nearly 200Mbps just by having them down (the router sits on the window cill).

I sit no more than 1-2m away from the router at the moment and have line of sight with it, I will have a double check inside the laptop and check the antennas are connected correctly as it is something i had not thought about.

Don't think there is any other way to get a better antenna on a laptop?

@69Bertie

The OP is not talking about SYNC speed, indeed his devices are synch'ing at very high speeds (I've read his posts on Plusnet community)
His issue was sustained throughput and what that should be in a real world environment which turned out to be 30%+ of the sync speed.

What wireless card is being used?

What is the connection rate you are getting in windows?

Does your laptop have an SSD?

Have you split the SSIDs on the HH5 so you are connecting into the 5Ghz band only?

How are you measuring these speeds, copying from a NAS, some tool?

Wireless card is a: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 (internal PCI-e)

Rate in windows 866.7Mbps

Yes the machine has a SSD at least 500MB/s

I have tried split and combined SSID, also tried turning off 2.4 and using just 5 and made sure the card only prefers 5Ghz.

The speeds are being measured by the windows dialog and i did try speed measurments using iperf under a live linux.

Just to note though, it all works fine over wired... so it rules out drive speed.. machine bogging down.. etc.. it is only the wireless that has the issue.

I have never tried internal network transfer speeds on a HH5B.

I had issues with the 5Ghz dropping below 10Mbps, I struggled to even max out my 55Mbps connection.

Is anybody able to confirm their results?

I have a BT Smart Hub and can do 400Mbps over wireless with a wireless card at the same transmit speed.

In reply to a post by Tylexon:

Wireless card is a: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 (internal PCI-e)

Rate in windows 866.7Mbps

Yes the machine has a SSD at least 500MB/s

I have tried split and combined SSID, also tried turning off 2.4 and using just 5 and made sure the card only prefers 5Ghz.

The speeds are being measured by the windows dialog and i did try speed measurments using iperf under a live linux.

Just to note though, it all works fine over wired... so it rules out drive speed.. machine bogging down.. etc.. it is only the wireless that has the issue.

Realised this is related to plusnet one hub, this is a rebranded HH5A. I can get 400Mbps over this using a macbook air 2015, wireless AC. I am tipping the issue is the wireless card in the laptop. Intel cards do not have a great track record. Typically they can be changed and / or upgraded, but not easily.

Say you have a DELL laptop, DELL will have a bios whitelist which says the machine will only boot if it detects a small number of wifi cards, so if you go and buy a top of the line wireless AC card and put it into your laptop, chances are the machine will not boot. The machine will only accept probably 4ish wireless cards.. This is done because inside the laptop are antennas, and the antennas are designed for certain cards, DELL is able to verify if you use these cards with the antennas inside the laptop - you will not exceed any legal limits. DELL does not try every single wireless card in the world and verify that the legal limits on output power are not exceeded if used with their antenna arrangement, instead DELL, HP, ASUS etc whitelists in the bios the cards which are known to be ok & are tested (usually a small number) and only allows these to be used internally.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 24-Jul-16 21:50:14)

Well I have had a look at what card the macbook air that you tested with, it has a Broadcom BCM4360 based card, capable of upto 867Mbps, so same theoretical speed.

I can't actually find any other card that will fit this machine.. the intel is the highest i can find..

I've had some of these Intel Windows cards, one is in my work laptop, and gives me a throughput of 30Mbps despite being wireless AC. I would have to check the model number but some cards just suck.

Have you got an iPhone 6 or 6s or a modern iPad to hand?

If so connect to the hub using 5ghz and download an app called wifi-sweetspots. What speed are you getting. As an example I am getting around 350 to 400Mbps through 2 walls using 5Ghz and iPhone 6s.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wifi-sweetspots/id85...

My network speed

Say you have a DELL laptop, DELL will have a bios whitelist which says the machine will only boot if it detects a small number of wifi cards, so if you go and buy a top of the line wireless AC card and put it into your laptop, chances are the machine will not boot. The machine will only accept probably 4ish wireless cards.. This is done because inside the laptop are antennas, and the antennas are designed for certain cards, DELL is able to verify if you use these cards with the antennas inside the laptop - you will not exceed any legal limits. DELL does not try every single wireless card in the world and verify that the legal limits on output power are not exceeded if used with their antenna arrangement, instead DELL, HP, ASUS etc whitelists in the bios the cards which are known to be ok & are tested (usually a small number) and only allows these to be used internally.

Totally untrue Re. white listing Wireless Cards.

What's the real reason?

This was what HP themselves explained to me when I enquired with the on site engineer why I was unable to use my own wireless card.

Could be total rubbish for sure.

I have no other 5Ghz devices to test this with, so I can only go by this Intel card.

I can't find any other cards that arnt intel, I don't want to use a USB one as I know that would be limited.

Starting to think I will just have to accept this low end speed and just use wired if I want something faster.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

I've had some of these Intel Windows cards, one is in my work laptop, and gives me a throughput of 30Mbps despite being wireless AC. I would have to check the model number but some cards just suck.

Have you got an iPhone 6 or 6s or a modern iPad to hand?

If so connect to the hub using 5ghz and download an app called wifi-sweetspots. What speed are you getting. As an example I am getting around 350 to 400Mbps through 2 walls using 5Ghz and iPhone 6s.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wifi-sweetspots/id85...

My network speed

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Could be total rubbish for sure.

Lenovo (formerly IBM) whitelist cards. I think HP might do this, but DELL never have in my experience. Intel WiFi cards are often much more stable than Dell's generic brand (early ones were broadcom, later seem realtek). The cheaper laptops often have only one antenna, despite the higher spec card.

This might be of use on a Windows laptop, now that inssider is no longer free:
https://www.acrylicwifi.com/en/wlan-software/wlan-sc...