CPU limiting Wifi?
 

I wonder if someone can give me an answer on this....

I have a HP Laptop with 8GB ram which is just an Intel I3 5157@2.5Ghz.

The laptop is fine for my needs but the question is this, can a CPU limit the speed of wifi?

The reason is this, if i connect via internal Wifi i can get a max o 216mb on my 300 the internal is an Intel AC3165 and if i use a Netgear AC6100 USB dongle i get around 209mb.

The reason i think its the CPU limiting is i have another PC on wireless and can get between 306 and 316mb wirelessly.

The Router im using should be more than ample its an Asus AC87u.

Re: CPU limiting Wifi?
 

Wireless is often very difficult to understand when it isn't working properly, yes CPU can be a limiting factor, but so can a lot of things.

What I would do is open the task manager and look at the cpu usage, if you are seeing high percentage during the copy then it's possible.

Re: CPU limiting Wifi?
 

Is the other PC a desktop or laptop? What speed do you get from your HP when it's in the same location as the PC?

Re: CPU limiting Wifi?
 

Is your laptop USB 3.0?

Re: CPU limiting Wifi?
 

Other system is a PC.

And yes its USB 3.0.

Re: CPU limiting Wifi?
 

Yes, IF the wifi card/chip can go faster AND there isn't enough CPU left over after other things that are running to do the data transfer over USB. USB uses more CPU than an internal wifi card.

However, you have plenty of CPU as your passmark score shows for both single core and multi-core scores:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...7U+%40+2.50GHz

So unless your anti-virus is thrashing the CPU/hard disk then that's not the reason.

Both your internal wifi card and your usb wifi adapter are limited by the wifi chip they use, which is a single stream chip capable of connecting at 433Mbps.

http://www.netgear.nl/home/products/...#tab-techspecs
http://www.intel.nl/content/dam/www/...3165-brief.pdf

On 802.11ac expect a maximum throughput of around half of the connection or link speed.

So, 433Mbps / 2 = 216Mbps throughput. Which is what you get on the internal card. So nothing limiting that, except the type of wifi chip.

With the USB adapter, it's a nano adapter which means a very small antenna which will reduce the signal and therefore the reliability and throughput further. So you're doing great to get 209Mbps out of it!

If you want higher speeds you need to get a dual-stream wifi card/adapter capable of connecting at 866Mbps.

Both ends of the connection need to support the same speed in order for you to get it. Having a super fast router that can do 1300Mbps connection rates is no good if you connect a device to it that can only do 433Mbps.

Re: CPU limiting Wifi?
 

And don't forget the CPU has to encode and decode all the stuff going through. That is bound to slow it down I believe.

Re: CPU limiting Wifi?
 

What is the CPU encoding/decoding?

In the context of the OP's problem your comments don't make any sense and aren't the reason for why the speed he's seeing is limited.

Re: CPU limiting Wifi?
 

Raw data is not transmitted and received. It's all encoded/encrypted (e.g. WEP, WPA, WPA2), and that takes processor time and resources to deal with I would suggest. Therefore throughput would be limited.

Re: CPU limiting Wifi?
 

tell me if i'm wrong here but i always thought the computer/tablet/phones wifi was handled via the internal wifi card which has its own decoding/encoding hardware built in, nothing to do with the cpu itself

i would try updating the wifi drivers or firmware, checking the computer for malware/virus etc..

Re: CPU limiting Wifi?
 

Thanks Guys.