Do I Need a New Router or Modem? (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Thanks, Dave. I realize all that. I guess what I'm wondering if that big a drop in speed from wired to wireless is normal.

It can be. I get 800 Mbps desktop and 50 Mbps wireless. I’m sorting out why: a combo of various factors I hope to fix by spending money.

 

[DaveF]

Also, to be sure: When you’re checking wifi speeds, you’re the only wifi user? Peg isn’t playing Fortnite? The dog isn’t streaming A Dog’s Life in UHD to his comfy chair? You don’t have downloads going on to get the latest Woody’s Roundup?

As best possible, your wifi speed checks are of an ideal network?

 

[DaveF]

I’m guessing your speeds are due to one of or a combo of:

* Old laptop with wifi dongle
* the USB wifi dongle itself
* The extender

But you said Peg’s newew laptop with better wifi card gets same results? Which would rule out your laptop and your wifi dongle per se. Suggesting it’s the extender.

Also, do you get same wifi results on phones and tablets (not just laptops)?

 

[Dave Upton]

Thanks, Dave. I realize all that. I guess what I'm wondering if that big a drop in speed from wired to wireless is normal.



My laptop usage is actually about six feet from my modem/router...so I think those speeds are representative. When I get the chance, I will do what you say and turn off the extender (which is at the other end of the house) and also try Fast.com.

It is when your laptop is a (forgive my bluntness here) subar, underpowered budget model. Even in its heyday, the A8 was a bit slow, and I suspect that is your main problem.

WiFi really depends on a good CPU and a good wifi chipset. Unfortunately, the laptop you're using has neither so wired will be much faster.

 

[Mike Frezon]

It is when your laptop is a (forgive my bluntness here) subar, underpowered budget model. Even in its heyday, the A8 was a bit slow, and I suspect that is your main problem.

WiFi really depends on a good CPU and a good wifi chipset. Unfortunately, the laptop you're using has neither so wired will be much faster.

Thanks, Dave. I figured that was the answer.

Maybe its time for an upgrade this year!

 

[Mike Frezon]

While I wait until the day I get a new laptop, I've got another question if one of you learned gentlemen cares to chime in.

I purchased a couple Cat-6 cables to connect my modem to my router and my laptop to my router (knowing full well it likely would make no difference).

When I connect my laptop to the router (a Netgear Nighthawk), instead of getting the normal blinking white light indicating a good, active connection, I get an orange light (which, I believe, indicates the connection is not quite correct). However, my laptop still gets a much improved speedtest result of 97/12Mbps versus a wifi speed of 35/12Mbps.

I guess I'm just kinda curious as to why I'm getting the orange light when I connect my laptop to the router.

And, for the record, different cables also result in an orange light and other devices hardwired to the router (my Apple 4k TV streaming device)produce a normal white light. And I swapped around the devices into different ports and the orange light follows the laptop connection.

 

[Clinton McClure]

While I wait until the day I get a new laptop, I've got another question if one of you learned gentlemen cares to chime in.

I purchased a couple Cat-6 cables to connect my modem to my router and my laptop to my router (knowing full well it likely would make no difference).

When I connect my laptop to the router (a Netgear Nighthawk), instead of getting the normal blinking white light indicating a good, active connection, I get an orange light (which, I believe, indicates the connection is not quite correct). However, my laptop still gets a much improved speedtest result of 97/12Mbps versus a wifi speed of 35/12Mbps.

I guess I'm just kinda curious as to why I'm getting the orange light when I connect my laptop to the router.

And, for the record, different cables also result in an orange light and other devices hardwired to the router (my Apple 4k TV streaming device)produce a normal white light. And I swapped around the devices into different ports and the orange light follows the laptop connection.

If I remember correctly, a solid orange light means your device is communicating at 100Mbps and a solid green light would be 1Gbps.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

While I wait until the day I get a new laptop, I've got another question if one of you learned gentlemen cares to chime in.

I purchased a couple Cat-6 cables to connect my modem to my router and my laptop to my router (knowing full well it likely would make no difference).

When I connect my laptop to the router (a Netgear Nighthawk), instead of getting the normal blinking white light indicating a good, active connection, I get an orange light (which, I believe, indicates the connection is not quite correct). However, my laptop still gets a much improved speedtest result of 97/12Mbps versus a wifi speed of 35/12Mbps.

I guess I'm just kinda curious as to why I'm getting the orange light when I connect my laptop to the router.

And, for the record, different cables also result in an orange light and other devices hardwired to the router (my Apple 4k TV streaming device)produce a normal white light. And I swapped around the devices into different ports and the orange light follows the laptop connection.

As Clinton stated, you are getting a 100Mbps Ethernet connection. Your old laptop probably has a 100Mbps card, not a 1Gbps one.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Laptops with an Intel generation 6 processor are being sold cheap as refurbs, since they can't be upgraded to Win 11 in the future. You could buy four years of use before Win 10 goes unsupported. Processor part numbers will be 6xxx (leading digit is the generation number).

Something like this maybe: https://www.newegg.com/dell-latitude-e7470-workstation/p/36B-0006-000S6

 

[BobO'Link]

Something else to check is which connection you're using. The 2.4G *will* be slower then the 5G. That dongle you listed *should* be capable of 5G so use it if possible. Even though the 2.4G connection *should* be able to handle the speed you're getting wired and *should* be as fast with that same base bandwidth as your 5G connection, in real life it rarely is. I can switch my laptop from 5G to 2.4G and see at least a 25% drop in overall speed sitting in the same location.

You may want to try this:

WiFi Analyzer — Matt Hafner

matthafner.com

It will help you analyze your local wifi network to find the best locations/channels for best performance. It's a free app and will run on Win10/11, tablets, and phones. There's a PRO version (and it'll ask you if you want to upgrade but will *not* nag you about it) but the free one will do everything you need.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Something like this maybe: https://www.newegg.com/dell-latitude-e7470-workstation/p/36B-0006-000S6

That particular seller is sold out now. Just search on newegg for "dell e7470" as they have other sellers listed. You can find them cheap on eBay but they will require some work on your part.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Does this make any sense to anyone??

You all have been kind enough to help me figure out the limitations of my laptop in terms of wifi/internet #s.

But this left my head scratching the other day.

Here is a wifi test from today on my laptop (using that Netgear Wifi dongle):

And I've been using a wired connection between my laptop and router the last few months. Here is a representative sample from today of the speed when connected by a cable:

So as you can see, I get nearly double the speed that way.

But here is what has left me scratching my head. I was at my mother-in-law's home (north of Burlington, VT) a couple days ago. I connected to her WIFI (provided by Xfinity). KEEP IN MIND, this is a WIFI connection:

And that is pinging to the same server...and about 200 miles further away!!

So what do you great minds make of THAT?!? I thought my laptops wifi wasn't capable of that kind of speed.

 

[JohnRice]

Does this make any sense to anyone??

You all have been kind enough to help me figure out the limitations of my laptop in terms of wifi/internet #s.

But this left my head scratching the other day.

Here is a wifi test from today on my laptop (using that Netgear Wifi dongle):

And I've been using a wired connection between my laptop and router the last few months. Here is a representative sample from today of the speed when connected by a cable:

So as you can see, I get nearly double the speed that way.

But here is what has left me scratching my head. I was at my mother-in-law's home (north of Burlington, VT) a couple days ago. I connected to her WIFI (provided by Xfinity). KEEP IN MIND, this is a WIFI connection:

And that is pinging to the same server...and about 200 miles further away!!

So what do you great minds make of THAT?!? I thought my laptops wifi wasn't capable of that kind of speed.

Even ten year old equipment should be capable of over 200Mb/s with a good signal, so that's not surprising.

I don't know what limitation your laptop has, but clearly it is capable of over 200Mb/s with WiFi. I don't know what your setup is at home, somewhere on HTF I detailed my recent upgrade. For about $200 I was able to get 500Mb/s pretty much anywhere in the house using an TPLink Archer AX55 as the main router and an AX10 (I think) as a wired access point.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Does this make any sense to anyone??

You all have been kind enough to help me figure out the limitations of my laptop in terms of wifi/internet #s.

But this left my head scratching the other day.

Here is a wifi test from today on my laptop (using that Netgear Wifi dongle):

And I've been using a wired connection between my laptop and router the last few months. Here is a representative sample from today of the speed when connected by a cable:

So as you can see, I get nearly double the speed that way.

But here is what has left me scratching my head. I was at my mother-in-law's home (north of Burlington, VT) a couple days ago. I connected to her WIFI (provided by Xfinity). KEEP IN MIND, this is a WIFI connection:

And that is pinging to the same server...and about 200 miles further away!!

So what do you great minds make of THAT?!? I thought my laptops wifi wasn't capable of that kind of speed.

Are you still using your old router that you mentioned in post #134? Back then, you stated that your wife was getting 50Mbps using WiFi through that router. If so, it sounds like that router has some WiFi speed limitations and it may be time for an upgrade.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

@Mike Frezon, I'd recommend just upgrading your router to something like the TPLink Archer AX55 @JohnRice mentioned -- I actually recently upgraded my mother's setup to that as well after switching her service from Verizon FiOS to Spectrum 400Mbps (for just $40/month), which actually provides ~480/24 (w/ 10-15ms ping) in practice during less busy times.

And right now, Amazon's offering it w/ $15-off coupon plus 15% cashback if buying w/ Amazon Prime Visa...

Amazon product

Seems like a pretty good router, especially for its price range... as long as you don't mind needing to set up online access for admin/setup -- normally, I don't like that kind of requirement, but it's helpful/preferable for my mother's setup anyway since it allows me to more easily, remotely check on and do basic troubleshooting for her.

That should be plenty good enough for any modest apt-size home/area and easily handle much faster broadband (probably upto ~600Mbps or so) than the 200Mbps service you currently have, if/when you upgrade -- if you contact Spectrum, they might actually even bump you up to 400Mbps for no extra cost at this point...

_Man_

 

[Dave Upton]

Does this make any sense to anyone??

You all have been kind enough to help me figure out the limitations of my laptop in terms of wifi/internet #s.

But this left my head scratching the other day.

Here is a wifi test from today on my laptop (using that Netgear Wifi dongle):

And I've been using a wired connection between my laptop and router the last few months. Here is a representative sample from today of the speed when connected by a cable:

So as you can see, I get nearly double the speed that way.

But here is what has left me scratching my head. I was at my mother-in-law's home (north of Burlington, VT) a couple days ago. I connected to her WIFI (provided by Xfinity). KEEP IN MIND, this is a WIFI connection:

And that is pinging to the same server...and about 200 miles further away!!

So what do you great minds make of THAT?!? I thought my laptops wifi wasn't capable of that kind of speed.

Are you using the wifi dongle in both cases?

If so, that means you're not CPU/chipset limited which is great news.

That said, you definitely need a new home router, and the TP-Link mentioned above is hard to beat in terms of price/performance.

 

[Mike Frezon]

it sounds like that router has some WiFi speed limitations and it may be time for an upgrade.

For about $200 I was able to get 500Mb/s pretty much anywhere in the house using an TPLink Archer AX55 as the main router and an AX10 (I think) as a wired access point.

@Mike Frezon, I'd recommend just upgrading your router to something like the TPLink Archer AX55 @JohnRice mentioned

you definitely need a new home router, and the TP-Link mentioned above is hard to beat in terms of price/performance.

Ordered.

With recommendations from four guys whose opinions I completely trust, it was a no brainer. I guess if I don't get the expected upgrade in speed (Spectrum is currently giving me 200mb/s), I can always return it.

I just don't understand why the wifi on this Netgear AC1750 sucks so bad.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Are you using the wifi dongle in both cases?

If so, that means you're not CPU/chipset limited which is great news.

The answer to this, Dave, is yes. When I saw the results of that speedtest (which I just did on a lark at my MIL's house), you could have knocked me over with a feather.

 

[compson]

From Netgear about the AC1750:

Simultaneous dual band: Two separate 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi networks reduce WiFi interference and doubles bandwidth​

Are you sure you’re connecting to the 5G band? This page has a lot of annoying ads but addresses this issue for your laptop: https://whatisanything.com/how-to-connect-to-5g-on-hp-amd-a8-laptop/.

 

[JohnRice]

Ordered.

With recommendations from four guys whose opinions I completely trust, it was a no brainer. I guess if I don't get the expected upgrade in speed (Spectrum is currently giving me 200mb/s), I can always return it.

I just don't understand why the wifi on this Netgear AC1750 sucks so bad.

BTW Mike, when I set mine up, I ran a firmware update by internet, and something went wrong. After the update it would lose the network. Instead, you can download the update file to your computer and run the update from that through the admin. You can "push" it even when that update has supposedly already been done.

If you look closely at the instructions, it recommends updating that way, rather than automatically.