Why only 54Mbs?

My Belkin cable router is N rated. I just bought a new laptop that has an Intel card which is supposed to support the N standard. On my other computers (with Belkin N dongles) I get a transfer rate of 150Mbs but my new one gives just 54Mbs. Do I need to tweak a setting to get a faster transfer rate? Does this make much difference to the actual download rates at the computer? I'm getting 14-16 Mbs on a 20Mbs connection, so no real complaints.

Have you checked if 802.11n mode is enabled in the advanced tab of the wireless adapter properties (Click configure)?

In reply to a post by GeoffB:

My Belkin cable router is N rated. I just bought a new laptop that has an Intel card which is supposed to support the N standard. On my other computers (with Belkin N dongles) I get a transfer rate of 150Mbs but my new one gives just 54Mbs. Do I need to tweak a setting to get a faster transfer rate? Does this make much difference to the actual download rates at the computer? I'm getting 14-16 Mbs on a 20Mbs connection, so no real complaints.

How many device connected to your router, if any one of the device is not N, you won't get the N speed...

Have you tried different channels, I know with mine it can vary between 54-130 depending on what channel I'm using

Turns out that some cards require WPA2+AES to work over an N network. But if I do that my other cards won't connect, even with updated drivers. Back to WPA for the moment.