Wireless speed on WRT54G router?

tvout · 17-03-2008, 10:47

Hi all,
I wondered what everyone else here got on wireless connection with their WRT54G or WRT54GS router?
I've run several tests using different connections and doing speed tests...

Direct connection between laptop and the modem I get about 18mb/s
Direct connection between laptop and the WRT54G router I get about 16-18mb/s
Using Wireless I get only about 8 mb/s, never more than 9mb/s

Is it normal to have that much of a difference between a wired and wireless connection? I've tried all different channels on the router and I only sit about 2 metres from it as well...

The high speed connecting directly to the router would suggest that the WLAN port does support 20mb ok wouldn't it?

I'm really considering getting the WRT54G with Speedbooster model to see if that makes any difference.

I've got the DD-WRT firmware V23 and put the mW power to 70 as suggested being the maximum recommended...

Would going from a WRT54G to GS be worthwhile do you think?

RDDearing · 17-03-2008, 11:36

What form of wireless card do you have on the laptop? Is it a USB stick? If so, is the USB socket only USB1.1 (which is considerably slower than USB2)? Also, assuming that the wireless runs 802.11b and g are you connecting to the "b" signal which only runs at a maximum of 11Mbps?

tvout · 17-03-2008, 11:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by RDDearing

What form of wireless card do you have on the laptop? Is it a USB stick? If so, is the USB socket only USB1.1 (which is considerably slower than USB2)? Also, assuming that the wireless runs 802.11b and g are you connecting to the "b" signal which only runs at a maximum of 11Mbps?

It's an internal mini PCI card (Prism) which according to windows wireless connection status is running at 54mbps. Good thinking though. Is that a sure sign that it is actually running at up to 54mbps if windows wireless settings state that? Is there something I might be missing that's causing it to run at only 11 do you think?
I've been looking for an updated Prism/Intersil miniPCI driver but can't seem to find them anywhere...

Aragorn · 17-03-2008, 12:13

If its a Prism card, using a GS router won't make any difference, afaik. The speedboost only takes effect when all wireless NIC's on the network are using Linksys GS 'standard' - same goes for any speed boosted G network (Belkin, Netgear, etc).

I found this article about the 'real speeds' of Wireless -

Quote:

The fact is that real Wi-Fi speeds, measured in terms of file transfers, have always been slower than the claimed data rate. This is because headers, handshakes and other overhead take up a substantial amount of the available bandwidth. Here are the real file transfer speeds I measured with each class of WLAN product:

802.11b, nominally 11 Mbit/s, actual throughput 4.5Mbit/s
802.11g, nominally 54 Mbit/s, actual throughput 18 Mbit/s
Boosted G, nominally 108 Mbit/s or 125 Mbit/s, actual throughput 22 to 24 Mbit/s

So the bottom line would be that unless you have ONLY matching routers/cards on your network, 18Mbit/s is the max you will get if there are no B cards in range and you are in G mode.

tvout · 17-03-2008, 13:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aragorn

So the bottom line would be that unless you have ONLY matching routers/cards on your network, 18Mbit/s is the max you will get if there are no B cards in range and you are in G mode.

Cheers Aragorn, useful stuff.

I have the following devices that use the WLAN:
Linksys webcam (G)
2 X laptops and 1 desktop (all G)
1 X Network bridge (D-Link - B I think...)
Nintendo Wii, 2 X Nintendo DSs & a Nokia N95 (B or G? Not quite sure)

I thought that the B device I have might be dragging the network down and causing me to only get 8mb/s on the laptop...

I've just changed the router to 'G only' mode and it's still the same on downloads. Not sure really then if there's any way of improving things that easily. I guess the answer for getting as much as 18mb/s is to go wired when needed...

Aragorn · 17-03-2008, 13:58

The DSes are def B devices (and only support WEP

). The Wii is a G card as is the N95.
So, to get the best possible speeds you would need to turn off the DSes and network bridge, make the router is in 'G only' mode and for testing purposes disable the encryption.

RDDearing · 17-03-2008, 14:07

B & G are broadcast independent of each other. We have a "b" PDA and a "g" laptop (which makes use of the "turbo" feature) - the laptop's connection is not affected by the PDA.

Aragorn · 17-03-2008, 15:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by RDDearing

B & G are broadcast independent of each other. We have a "b" PDA and a "g" laptop (which makes use of the "turbo" feature) - the laptop's connection is not affected by the PDA.

Quote from the wiki -

Quote:

in an 802.11g network, however, activity by a 802.11b participant will reduce the speed of the overall 802.11g network.

Some Turbo cards use two channels simultaneously to boost the speed, so I guess a b device may only slow down one of those channels.