ups and downs of wifi

[PerranOak]

On my laptop (Win11) the download speed is 260Mbps but the upload is 0.35Mbps.

All other devices (in the same or other rooms) show 260/60 or better.

I looked at the "Speedtest" history for this laptop and it used to be - months ago - 260/60 too.

Have I accidentally changed some setting somewhere?

Any help gratefully received.

[Halcyon]

Do you know if you're connecting to Wi-Fi on the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band?

If it's 2.4 GHz, unless there is a specific need for it, I'd disable it on your router. It's congested, slow and unreliable in RF-congested environments.

If you are using 5 GHz, download something like the Ubiquiti WiFiman application on your phone to check for nearby networks and devices which might be interfering with yours. If your wireless router/access point isn't doing a good job of finding a free/less congested channel, you might need to force it over to something more suitable yourself.

[SiliconWizard]

Yeah, 2.4GHz is really crowded. If you have neighbors nearby, you're screwed.
What I do is manually change channels on a regular basis based on which is less crowded at the time. I've found that leaving it on "auto" didn't work well at all.

[Halcyon]

Yeah, 2.4GHz is really crowded. If you have neighbors nearby, you're screwed.
What I do is manually change channels on a regular basis based on which is less crowded at the time. I've found that leaving it on "auto" didn't work well at all.

Most consumer routers/access points will only listen for the "best" channel at boot-up. It's not usually a continuous thing.

[Psi]

You may have a two antenna diversity setup inside the laptop and one of them has become loose/disconnected.

It's possible that when it downloads its just picking the antenna with the strongest received signal so you get good speeds. But when it transmits a lot of the power is being lost in the bad/disconnected antenna.

This is just a guess, any RF graybeards feel free to correct me.

Check out some disassembly video's for your laptop and see if it has two wifi antennas.
(Note it may have a BT antenna too, so could have 3 or 2 where 1-2 is wifi and 1 is ble.
So it can be a bit tricky to tell which is which unless you can identify which is the WIFI and BLE modules.)

Alternatively you could also see if you can replace your WIFI module with a new one in case your one is bad. They usually don't cost much and are little plug in cards.

[Mechatrommer]

one of the reason i dont use laptop as my main workstation..

PC's still have it, well... not the kind of solution you are looking for...

[PerranOak]

Thank you all.

It seems to be resolved now all by itself; I can't understand why.