Author Topic: Can my PC stop holding me back so I can be free to wander to super-highway?  (Read 5462 times)

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Offline PerranOakTopic starter

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As I now have FTTP, I'm getting download speeds of 300 or even 400Mbps ... on the iPad.

On my PC, I'm lucky if I get (wifi) 60Mbps!

I imagine it's that I have a crappy wifi adapter. Some info I found on it:
Name:   WiFi
Description:   Qualcomm QCA9565 802.11b/g/n Wireless Adapter
Status:   Operational
Maximum transmission unit:   1492
Link speed (Receive/Transmit):   144/72 (Mbps)
DHCP enabled:   Yes


This seems to suggest that I should be getting 144Mbps.

May I ask two questions:
1. Can I get 144Mbps on this adapter by some sort of jiggery-pokery?
2. Do I have to buy another one to get up to 300-400Mbps?

Cheers.
You can release yourself but the only way to go is down!
RJD
 

Offline fordem

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You'll have to replace it - the 144mbps is a theoretical maximum, you'll never achieve it in practice - you'll also need to go 802.11ac, which is 5GHz, and that means you're going to have to sacrifice range for throughput.
 

Offline Monkeh

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Offline PerranOakTopic starter

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That’s pretty.
You can release yourself but the only way to go is down!
RJD
 

Offline Syntax Error

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Don't forget the FTTP end... For max speed, ditch the domestic router and get youself a lot of gaming wifi bandwidth...
 

Offline PerranOakTopic starter

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Sure but will my PC cope?

How can I tell what my current router can do?

Monkeh: yeah, I chickened-out of wiring the place - couldn't be @rsed!
You can release yourself but the only way to go is down!
RJD
 

Offline David Hess

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Link speed (Receive/Transmit):   144/72 (Mbps)

This seems to suggest that I should be getting 144Mbps.

In practice about half of the WiFi transfer speed is available.
 

Online Berni

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Don't forget the FTTP end... For max speed, ditch the domestic router and get youself a lot of gaming wifi bandwidth...

When it comes to reliably routing high traffic scenarios i tend to ditch the usual consumer vendors of Asus Netgear TPLink...etc and go for something along the lines of Mikrotik.

Had plenty of weird instability issues with the home stuff from those well known brands, they also tend to choke on a large amount of small network packets. Had weird stuff like DHCP stop handing out addresses before, then you reboot it and it works again, firmware becomes old and unmaintained and full of security holes.

Once i went with a Mikrotik router it was all much better and only time it ever needed a reboot is after a firmware update (and no stupid reboots after changing settings). All of there routers run a common RouterOS software that gets regular updates and have features common in large rack mount enterprise routers(some say its even better than cisco). Only down side is that this being a professional router means setting up the huge walls of settings can be rather complicated if you are not IT as a day job.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2021, 01:19:40 pm by Berni »
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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If running an Ethernet cable is not a workable option, have you considered MOCA or hacking some cheap Homeplug adapters to work over phone lines?

Keep that old wireless card, Qualcomm cards work great for wireless hacking with Kali.
some say its even better than cisco
That's not a high bar to beat, if my experience with Cisco devices at work around 2013-2016 is of any indication. Even some fairly basic stuff goes wrong, for example the 5GHz part of a dual band AP is unreliable and stops working all the time.
Cryptocurrency has taught me to love math and at the same time be baffled by it.

Cryptocurrency lesson 0: Altcoins and Bitcoin are not the same thing.
 

Offline Syntax Error

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An AC1900 USB dongle (or PCIe card) is approx 600Mbps on cranky 2.4GHz and 1300Mbps on 5GHz; which is about as much as can be squeezed out of 802.11ac.That's if your router isn't too antique to deal with the throughput. How fast you want to go is limited only by how much you are willing to spend.
 

Offline Monkeh

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An AC1900 USB dongle (or PCIe card) is approx 600Mbps on cranky 2.4GHz and 1300Mbps on 5GHz

Which are essentially marketing numbers, not real throughput.
 

Offline Syntax Error

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Puff indeed. But there is now 802.11ax (a.k.a "Wifi 6") which has a wide 160MHz bandwidth and speeds of 2400Mbs+

Why you need that much spectrum is anyone's guess, but a long time ago we though 64Kbps was freekin' FAST.

@PerranOak, check out 'overclockers.co.uk' for some serious router and PC card combinations. Just leave your credit card at the door.
 

Offline Monkeh

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Puff indeed. But there is now 802.11ax (a.k.a "Wifi 6") which has a wide 160MHz bandwidth and speeds of 2400Mbs+

Why you need that much spectrum is anyone's guess, but a long time ago we though 64Kbps was freekin' FAST.

@PerranOak, check out 'overclockers.co.uk' for some serious router and PC card combinations. Just leave your credit card at the door.

Yes, get ripped off for some consumer trash in an ugly box.

Start with a better adapter for the PC, and look at the router only if you're not satisfied with getting performance on par with your iPad. And if you do look at the router.. look at real ones from names like Mikrotik, Ubiquiti, Aruba..
 

Offline mariush

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Your adapter is using 2.4 Ghz band, probably 802.11n, and the peak is 144 mbps ... your router/modem/access point will most likely be optimized for 5 ghz  and 802.11ac

Your best option would be to get a 5ghz 802.11ac wireless card, best would be one that goes in a pci-e x1 slot, they cost 15-30 uk pounds.
Depending on what you buy (how many antennas and if the card can combine the antennas together to give you more speed) and what your modem/router/access point supports you'll have a maximum of 433 mbps or higher. 
With 802.11ax you can get more than 1gbps but it's more finicky, i think it's more sensitive to distance and obstructions and you're probably still better off with a higher quality 802.11ac card and router instead of going overboard with ax.

Powerline networking is another option, you can get high speeds, 2-500 mbps is doable, but keep in mind they have higher latency, it's not quite as low latency as direct cable or even wireless, but if you're not gaming competitively it should be fine.



As I now have FTTP, I'm getting download speeds of 300 or even 400Mbps ... on the iPad.

On my PC, I'm lucky if I get (wifi) 60Mbps!

I imagine it's that I have a crappy wifi adapter. Some info I found on it:
Name:   WiFi
Description:   Qualcomm QCA9565 802.11b/g/n Wireless Adapter
Status:   Operational
Maximum transmission unit:   1492
Link speed (Receive/Transmit):   144/72 (Mbps)
DHCP enabled:   Yes


This seems to suggest that I should be getting 144Mbps.

May I ask two questions:
1. Can I get 144Mbps on this adapter by some sort of jiggery-pokery?
2. Do I have to buy another one to get up to 300-400Mbps?

Cheers.
 

Offline BrokenYugo

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Are you just looking for higher numbers or actually feeling performance issues? Bufferbloat (a problem solved at the router end) will make perfectly adequate rates feel sluggish doing browser type activities, or give big ping spikes when gaming.
 

Offline PerranOakTopic starter

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Cheers all.

What happened was, when the guy fitted the new connection he said I should test the speed to see if I was happy. I tested it on the iPad and clocked 350mbps. Previously, we'd been getting 2mbps (yes, two, that's not a typo) so I was very happy.
Later I tested it on my PC and got 40mbps: not happy.
They then gave me some bull about the guaranteed speed being for wired connections (hence another post of mine re Ethernet), b@stards.

It's really that I want the speed that I pay for. Sure, the iPad element is great, no complaints. However, I use the PC quite a lot (though not for gaming) and am resentful that I have to pay more (wifi cards, etc.) to get the speed I was quoted. (yes, I should've read the small print)
You can release yourself but the only way to go is down!
RJD
 

Online Berni

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Cheers all.

What happened was, when the guy fitted the new connection he said I should test the speed to see if I was happy. I tested it on the iPad and clocked 350mbps. Previously, we'd been getting 2mbps (yes, two, that's not a typo) so I was very happy.
Later I tested it on my PC and got 40mbps: not happy.
They then gave me some bull about the guaranteed speed being for wired connections (hence another post of mine re Ethernet), b@stards.

It's really that I want the speed that I pay for. Sure, the iPad element is great, no complaints. However, I use the PC quite a lot (though not for gaming) and am resentful that I have to pay more (wifi cards, etc.) to get the speed I was quoted. (yes, I should've read the small print)

If say the job of the ISP is just to bring internet to your house. Its your own matter on how you want to connect all of your devices around the house together and to the internet pipe that your ISP provided for you. By the looks of it the ISP did a good job of bringing a nice fat fast internet pipe to you.

You have a ethernet port on the back of your modem that is your nice fast on-ramp onto the internet super highway. All you need to do is build the local road network around your own house that lets your devices get to it just as fast. It's your house so its your choice on how you do that, just like it is your choice what furniture you want inside your house.

But typically all general purpose wireless solutions are fairly poor in performance and are unreliable. This is the reason why cable TV exsists, the reason why PC monitors connect to a PC over a cable and not wirelessly. You simply can't get the same bandwidth trough radio waves as you can over a copper cable. Wireless links tend to only be fast and reliable when a good RF communication channel can be made between them, such as microwave links where two highly directional antennas are placed precisely aligned to each other with no obstructions between them. WiFi is no such thing, it has poor performance omnidirectional antennas with lots of obstructions in the form of walls and furniture. You can get some impressive performance with 5GHz ac WiFi, but it will not reliably cover more than a few rooms unless your house is very tiny.

Best solution is to run a CAT6 ethernet cable, letting you get up to 10Gbit speeds around your house. Next best thing is power line networking that uses mains cables to transfer data. The poor reach of the fast 5GHz WiFi can also be solved with this (since you don't want to drag a ethernet cable around with a laptop) since you can install 2 or 3 separate access points that each cover a part of the house with a strong fast wifi signal, then backhaul the data to the modem over fast reliable ethernet cables. You also want to buy your own router and not use the routing functionality built into the ISP supplied modem. Most of these home networking equipment is crap as i said, but ISPs will typically give you network equipment from a cheep noname brand that is even worse. All of this has become particularly important  now that fast fiber internet is becoming available to households. But if you like to transfer files between computers in the house over the network its even more important to avoid slow performance.

It is not unusual to spend $300 on building a proper home network and a good few days running cables around the house to wire it all up. But if the house has a lot of heavy internet users it is well worth it as it saves a ton of frustration and grief for the next 15 years to come.
 

Offline Monkeh

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However, I use the PC quite a lot (though not for gaming) and am resentful that I have to pay more (wifi cards, etc.) to get the speed I was quoted. (yes, I should've read the small print)

What's next, you're going to complain you don't get given a computer with your connection? That you need to supply your own electricity?
 
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Offline PerranOakTopic starter

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Cheers both.

I realise that I am moaning and need to do something about my various connections.

I think that ISPs would save themselves a few calls if they advertised more clearly though.
You can release yourself but the only way to go is down!
RJD
 

Offline wraper

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Cheers all.

What happened was, when the guy fitted the new connection he said I should test the speed to see if I was happy. I tested it on the iPad and clocked 350mbps. Previously, we'd been getting 2mbps (yes, two, that's not a typo) so I was very happy.
Later I tested it on my PC and got 40mbps: not happy.
They then gave me some bull about the guaranteed speed being for wired connections (hence another post of mine re Ethernet), b@stards.

It's really that I want the speed that I pay for. Sure, the iPad element is great, no complaints. However, I use the PC quite a lot (though not for gaming) and am resentful that I have to pay more (wifi cards, etc.) to get the speed I was quoted. (yes, I should've read the small print)
:palm: |O You complain they did not upgrade your computer. Why should they even touch it? What a pain in the ass unreasonable customer.
 

Offline wraper

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I think that ISPs would save themselves a few calls if they advertised more clearly though.
What should they advertise? That it will be limited by your own hardware if you chose to use it wirelessly? If you had chosen to use it wired with outdated computer with 100 megabit ethernet card inside, would you complain as well? In either case, it's not their problem. And how should they even know what network card you have?
 

Offline nali

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So, what throughput exactly were you expecting from your PC with its 144Mbit card?? (considering as has already been pointed out that's the link speed not the throughput)

Even your title correctly says "Can my PC stop holding me back", so why are you moaning about your ISP?
 

Offline madires

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I realise that I am moaning and need to do something about my various connections.

I think that ISPs would save themselves a few calls if they advertised more clearly though.

The provider's responsibility ends at the demarc (demarcation point). Anything behind that is yours.
 

Online Berni

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Cheers both.

I realise that I am moaning and need to do something about my various connections.

I think that ISPs would save themselves a few calls if they advertised more clearly though.

They advertised it perfectly fine since you can clearly get good speeds.

Be thankful that your ISP is not taking advantage of you. Some ISPs out there will indeed fix your network for you too, but by doing so they will rent you out networking equipment like routers and wifi accesspoints. As a result you keep paying a few dollars worth of rent every month for having a cheep piece of crap piece of network equipment lended to you that costs 20$ in the store. So after a year or so the ISP recovered there investment in the value of the cheep $20 access point and keep turning a extra profit of $20 per year off you. Nothing in life is truly free.

This is the equivalent of paying the water company to lay a new big fat water pipe to your house so you can get 10x more gallons per hour out of it. But once they hook it up to the water meter you keep using your old thin pipes to take it around the house. Then you complain to them that the water company didn't provide you with the service you paid for. They are a water distribution company so they upgraded their infrastructure to your wishes, not the local plumber that comes fix the pipes that you own. Technically they are not allowed to even touch your pipes without your permission, just the same as you are not allowed to tamper with the water companies infrastructure.

If you want someone else to upgrade your network infrastructure for you then you need to call the "internet plumber" to come do the network overhaul for you. This is mostly in the form of computer repair shops that might be able to send a repair technician to set up your network for you. Typically this is only done by people who don't have the computer skills to do it themselves, since then not only do you still need to buy the new network equipment, but you also have to pay the computer repair shop for the technicians time taken to install it all.

In regards to my ISPs service (UPC Telemach) they did an amazing job. They put the fiber cable into our yard, ran it to the house, put in a splice box, ran it up the house, fished it trough the cable tubing into the room, spliced in a fber jack, set up the fiber modem, ran and spliced in the coax cable TV from the modem (the modem serves as the fiber to coax converter for DVB-C) and did all of this for free. The technician was even nice enugh to notice i am using my own router and phoned back to HQ to have the modem configured for dumb bridge mode with no routing. The only part of my own LAN network he touched is plugging the ethernet cable into my router to serve it the sweet new fiber juice from the modem. Technicaly you can call them to come fix your LAN network too, but they will charge you the technicans hours. They will only come fix for free any issues related to there own infrastructure (This means up to the modem since the ISP owns it and is lending it to you)
« Last Edit: March 11, 2021, 05:06:58 pm by Berni »
 
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Offline fordem

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The provider's responsibility ends at the demarc (demarcation point). Anything behind that is yours.

That might have been true back in the day when the CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) was owned the by the customer - most fttp providers own the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) and lease it to the customer - the ONT more often than not also includes the NAT router, ethernet switch & wireless access point, so that the provider now has responsibility for everything other than the customers' compute device whether that be a phone, tablet or computer.

This is what opens them up to the question of why can I get 300mbps on my iPad but not on my computer.
 


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