dissappointing LAN transfer rates :(

hpvista

hpvista

New Member
Hello,

My lan network has a laptop and a desktop connected to it (laptop wirelessly, desktop with ethernet cable). I do extensive media sharing between them (file transfers). Although my ISP provides me a 5 mbps download rate and a 500kbps upload rate, I can only transfer files on my lan at a speed of 1 mbps. Even if lan transfer rates are not based on the data speeds given by my ISP, My router is capable of 54 mbps, so what would be the reason behind the slower transfer rates between my network?

all help/advice is appreciated, thanks in advance

Hpvista
 
Could be a few things.

1. Your router needs to be rebooted.
2. Try updating the lan driver on the desktop and wireless driver on the laptop.
3. Do some general maintenance on each system - Run ccleaner and check for malware using malwarebytes.
 
1. There's a difference between mbps (megabit) and MBps (megabyte). 1MBps = 8 * 1mbps
2. 54mbit wireless speed practically comes down to a max of 25mbit (close to router)
3. wireless 25mbit corresponds to about 2/3 MBps

So basically if the 1mbps you're reffering to is 1 megabyte per second. And you're not very close to your router. These results are pretty normal. You might be able to tweak some settings on your router and wireless network card(your wireless is your bottleneck obviously) and get some higher speeds but no drastic increase.

If you want to transfer big files fast, get wired.
 
Typical wired LAN connections are 100Mb although you can get 1Gb LAN adapters. Same with routers, they most often have 100Mb connections but are available with 1Gb. However, since your laptop is wireless and 54Mb, when you transfer between the desktop wired to the router and the laptop connected via wifi you are gated by the link to the laptop. If you want the fastest transfer speeds you would need to go wired as Vipernitrox suggested and upgrade all LAN connections to 1Gb.
 
Thanks for the advice guys! Connecting my laptop to my desktop via wire is semi impossible, so I tried router reboots and updating network adapters. After updating, the transfer rate increased to 2.6 MBps, which works good enough to stream videos over a network. Just out of curiosity though, does the internet download and upload rates provided by my ISP have any affect on data transfer rates within my LAN network? just curious because I am considering upgrading to a gigabit router if it will boost data transfer rates within my network.
 
If the same laptop your are using, it is pointless to upgrade the router, I think it is bottleneck by the laptop wireless adapter unless it specify as gigabite adapter. Your internet speed don't affect your internal network speed unless you tranfering the files are downloading.
cheers.
 
I don't know what kind of laptop you have but if it supports wireless-N you'd be better off looking for a router that supports that to. That would be more benificial then getting a router with gigabit switch ports.
 
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