Wifi Speed test, why so much slower?

My desktop computer has a wired connection to a Zyxel VMG8924-B10A router which has another wired connection to my main Gigaclear connection. This is a Desktop speedtest result. Perhaps a bit faster than I sometimes get.

The Zyxel also has Wifi 'ac' with a max speed of 1300 Mbps. My HP laptop is 2-3 metres from this and Windows 10 shows a connection speed of 866 Mpbs. This is the Laptop Wifi speed test result. The latop has an Intel i7 processor running at 2.5 GHz

I was hoping that the laptop speed would be a bit better but apparently not. Any comments as to why this might be? There are no competing Wifi networks.

Because the 866 Mbps is the wireless connection speed before any protocol overheads and error correction are applied...

So best case scenario would be around half that, i.e. 400 Mbps and if the 1300 is achieved using MIMO and your device has only one antenna it would be half that again. On the laptop it is less about the processor and more about the Wi-Fi network card and the antenna it has.

In short, fastest we ever see in a month for confirmed Wi-Fi is 300 to 350 Mbps

In addition to Andrew's response, most WiFi monitoring tools such as Acrylic etc, only identify any working WiFi circuits in your area.

But the 2.4 GHz band is shared with many other, UNLICENSED devices such as microwave cookers, baby alarms, model aircraft controllers etc, for which a Spectrum Analyser is required to detect the whole gamut of devices may be throwing out what appears to be general "Noise" to other systems, with which your lonely WiFi circuit has to compete.

While some of those other systems may only be working for brief periods, such as the microwave cookers, others may be (almost) continuously such as baby alarms.

Whilst you mention the laptop's processor, the WiFi Transmitter/Receiver is a separate unit within the laptop, with different processing powers etc, as is the corresponding WiFi Receiver/Transmitter within the Router.

The laptop's WiFi Tx/Rx is also probably a lot "slower" than the Router's.

So there is a lot of extra processing when using the WiFi connections.

To get a better idea of those extra processing effects, try connecting and using an Ethernet cable connection from the Laptop to the Router, which will then give a much clearer idea of the "Overheads" involved when using WiFi.

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This Wikipedia article gives a lot more detail of the general use of the 2.4 GHz Band -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2.4_GHz_radio_use

Edited by deleted (Tue 26-Sep-17 11:27:54)

The test was done using 5GHz. The laptop does not have an ethernet RJ45 socket possibly because the laptop is to thin. The HDMI socket is about as deep as can be accommodated. This evening I will try having the laptop very close to the router to see what difference if any that makes. Maybe I should ask HP what performance I should expect.

What is the HP model?

It is an HP ENVY Notebook - 13-d004na, now about 18 months old.

The wireless connectivity is described as "802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2x2) and Bluetooth® 4.0 combo (Miracast compatible)"

I get about 100mbps on my Wifi LAN using an Asus DSL-N55U with N600 connectivity. I was thinking of upgrading to ac speeds but it doesn't seem worth it by your results. My SSD is only capable of 210mbps so I would likely see very little improvement on ac.

I did some more rests. I found that putting the laptop next to the router did not improve the speed.

I have a Gigabit connected Synology NAS. My desktop PC can pull data from this at 111MBps according to Windows 10. The laptop could only manage 36MBps. (both via Zyxel Router)

If I just use 2.4GHz on the VMG8924-B10A the laptop can transfer data from my NAS at abou 16MBps

If I revert back to the Netgear DGN2200 which also only does 100Mbps Ethernet the transfer speed drops to about 7MBps. The Netgear was suppied free by Plusnet when my DSL connection speed was about 1.5Mbps. The Zyxel was bought on ebay about a week ago for £22.90 inc P&P.

Michael

Unfortunately at some parts you state "Mbps"; and at others "MBps"

This confuses the issue, keeping in mind that typically there are about 8 bits to a BYTE.

My suspicion is that all of the units in your posting should be "Mbps", otherwise it does not make sense.

Its unfortunate that the same Alpha letters are use - but here "UPPER CASE" makes an 8 times difference compared to "lower case", so important.

The post is correct B = Byte b=bit. If you think it does not make sense, please explain.