Wireless Limitations

W

wik022588

New Member
Hi,
I am currently deployed in Afghanistan. I have 2 laptops (both brand new) connected wirelessly. One is a Toshiba Satellite P755 and the other is an ASUS U31SD. Since we only have one CAT5 cable running into our tent for internet I am using the Toshiba as a wireless router via the "Intel My WIFI Technology" program that came on it. I have a 2 TB external hard drive connected to the Toshiba via USB 3.0. I am leaving the Toshiba sitting in the corner to provide us with WIFI in the tent as well as a wireless server for movies on the external hard drive. I am using the ASUS as my laptop for watching movies and checking email. I noticed when I copy movies wirelessly from the toshiba to the ASUS, the wireless NIC does not exceed 25% of its capability on either laptop. I know it isnt because of the external hard drive because USB 3.0 works at higher speeds than that, and it also happens when I exclude the hard drive and copy files straight from one laptop to the other. Is there anything I can do to push my wireless NICs to their full potential?
 
You wireless speed is dependent on your network speed, not the total speed of you wireless card. Do a speed test here

www.speedtest.net.

That is your actual internet speed. Divide that by 8 to get your average download speed.

So if your internet speed is 16mbps then your max download speed would 2mb/s. But if this is wireless then you will never come close to that as wireless will actually be slower then wired connection.
 
I understand that, but the Toshiba laptop IS the network. Both laptops have wireless NICs capable of 65 Mbps. When they are connected directly the way they are I would imagine they would utilize more than 25% of their capabilities
 
Again, you will never get close to your max speed. Also interference from other devices or your location could be causing the slowdown.
 
I'm not trying to figure out why the internet is slow. I know that is because of this hell hole I'm in. The problem is file transfer from one laptop to another. They are not connected through the internet. They are on a WLAN. The EXTREMELY slow internet doesn't have anything to do with transfer rates from one PC to another via their wireless NICs. My question is why will my NICs not exceed 25% of their capabilities
 
Interference most likely. You can try updating the wireless drivers on both machines but I doubt that will help. Your are deployed and I'm sure there are lots of other equipment in the area that is interferring with transfers. You can try changing the wireless channel and see if things improve.
 
Well, you're probably right. There is definitely alot of stuff around here that would interfere. Unfortunately, I can't change the wireless channel on either. I did find a forum where a guy was having the exact same problem as me, and microsoft told him to disable superfetch in systems services, and turn off Remote Differential Compression in Windows Features. This worked for him, but I have done that on, and restarted both laptops but still no dice.
 
Still a bit confused... I have a link speed of 65Mbps between the 2 laptops. This should work out to about 8MB/s. My problem can't be interference because I have perfect signal strength between the two. When I copy files from one laptop to another (no internet involved) the files transfer at approx. 2MB/s, which verifies that it's only working at about 25%. How can I get them to work at the 100% 8MB/s?
 
You will never obtain 100% efficiency, especially on wireless. The larger the file(packet) the better the efficiency will be, if you are trying to transfer several small files your overall speed will be greatly reduced.
 
Not achieving 100% is ok with me, but shouldn't I be able to at least exceed 25%? I am currently transferring a 24.5 GB folder full of movies and it's not exceeding 2MB/s. The overall time is at 4 hours. Maybe it's just me, but I would assume that I should be able to go faster than this considering the wireless cards are more than capable of doing so
 
I know there are other, faster ways of transferring the files. If I was in a hurry I would just use the external hard drive as a thumb drive, but I have 6 months left here. I'm simply trying to find out why my equipment isn't working at its full potential
 
no... Problem is not solved. Like I said, it is not a time issue. I have plenty of that. I don't care that I have to wait. I do, however, care about that fact that my hardware isn't working as fast as it should. That is the issue I need help with, not finding different ways to make the time go by faster....
 
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