I just recently started seeing ->really bad network performance on my laptop when using WiFi to my DSL router at home. After a bit of trouble shooting, I found that I'd somehow enabled power saving mode on the NIC.
Even though at the moment I'm sitting 6 feet from the router and am looking right at it, when the power save is set to "high" (maximum power saving), I get this result from the U of NC's NDT server
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 320.15Kb/s running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 739.21kb/s
Turning power save to "medium" or "low" (maximum network performance), I see
running 10s outbound test (client to server) . . . . . 758.39Kb/s running 10s inbound test (server to client) . . . . . . 4.58Mb/s
No other changes, didn't move, didn't reboot, didn't reset anything, tests done within a minute of one another.
I can even change the setting during a long transfer and watch it speed up and slow down.
This is an Intel 2200BG card in an IBM R51 laptop, using IBM's "Access Connections" control utility, talking to an Actiontec GT701 router and a
6Mb/sec DSL line.