Wifi horribly slow on MSI RG60G, very fast with an ethernet cable

snipped-for-privacy@onvol.net hath wroth:

Try turning OFF:

1. 802.11b compatibility mode.
2. Turbo-G features.

Ok, it's not interference.

How fast does the configuration web page come up? Can you switch from page to page in the configuration at reasonably fast speeds (or similar speeds to what you got with a direct ethernet connection)?

OK, then it's not the computah. Are you using Windoze Wireless Zero Config or Intel Proset on this laptop? If Proset, 9.x was a bit weird, but 10.x is just fine.

That would have been too easy. Have you tried a hard reset to defaults and starting over from scratch?

Ouch. That's 16 to 24Kbits/sec. It should be perhaps 25Mbits/sec at a 54mbit/sec association. I'm suprised it works at all. The Intel Proset utilities have a diagnostics and logging page. See if you're getting any errors.

Never underestimate the power and influence of aliens from outer space. Dunno. You might want to try it in some other room or house just to make sure your router is not located in the path of the alien wi-fi jammer ray gun. A basement or inside room might be best. If you want to waste some time, try loading a fresh firmware image even though the version numbers are the same. The installed image might be corrupted. Otherwise, it seems broken and should be returned or recycled.

Thank you for the message!

These options are not available on the router. I switched off Turbo on the wifi adapter, though.

When it's wired, it comes up very fast. Wireless, it's erratic and sometimes the configuration page doesn't want to come up at all. Strangely, some local websites here where I live come up fast when using wifi - maybe aliens ARE involved... :(

Zero Config...

More than a few times...

Now that's a promising advice. Thank you. I'll try it.

:))

Yes, I installed the latest firmware although it's the same as the one on the router...

Thanks again!

snipped-for-privacy@onvol.net hath wroth:

The local web sites are coming fast because they're in your browser cache. Flush the cache and they'll be as slow as the rest.

The fact that configuration web pages are slow via wireless and fast via ethernet eliminates the router WAN connection as the culprit taking the internet out of the picture. It's definately a wireless problem. My guess(tm) is the router is sick sick sick.

I don't think you'll see much there. Look for statistics that show MAC layer (not IP layer) packet loss. I forgot if Proset will show those. Incidentally, I suggest you use Intel Proset 10.x instead of WZC as it's much more informative, feature infested, and rationally designed.

You might want to drag in a friend with a known working laptop and try connecting to your router for a sanity check. It won't fix the problem, but it will help identify the culprit by eliminating the laptop as a probable cause. (Avoid alien laptops as they have incompatible protocols).

Unfortunately, it's not that easy. This is actually the only thing that doesn't make any sense, and the only piece of evidence that is stopping me from throwing the router out of the window:

I use WGET to test speed, which has no cache (verified). Wired, "wget

" returns 100 kb/s, when wireless, it's only 3kB/s, sometimes even 7kB/s. Then I download a large test file from my ISP - wired, it's 500kB/s, wireless 500kB/s. (I live in Europe.)

I know, it's alien-abduction-in-Bermuda-triangle-style weird stuff.

I was already told that router is probably "faulty". I know I might be a stubborn f*ck, but I somehow can't believe this router is "faulty" if everything other than wireless _international_ downloads works brilliantly.

I'll try that as well... Thank you.

The only reason I prefer Zero Config is the ugliness of Intel's PROSet software. I guess I'll have to get used to it if it works better. However, Zero Config works great with all other hotspots.

Thank you for your time, I'll see if I can do that too. I'll let you know if I figure it out or break it into small pieces and feed it to aliens.

" returns 100 kb/s, when wireless, it's

Hmm.... Black hole MTU negotiation problems? I assumed that your "local" meant on your LAN, not nearby web servers.

If you have a DSL connection, try reducing the router MTU from 1500 to

1492 and see if it helps. Smaller numbers are also acceptable but you'll see a reduction in max speed. I have no idea why it makes a difference with wireless but not wired, but let's see what happens first.

Use a program called MTUroute:

to determine if your router is not doing MTU discovery, if your ISP has a misconfigured router, or if there is a broken router somewhere along the path.

If it were easy, it would be no fun.

probably "faulty". I know I might be

Unless I read your description incorrectly, it's only slow via wireless on *SOME* web sites. Is this correct?

Yes, I'm sorry, I did not emphasise that clue enough although it's probably the most important one.

It's a cable modem, but the router has a MTU setting, which I played extensively with to no avail.

Thank you, this is a very interesting tool I did not know about. Strangely, one three consecutive runs (from wifi connection) it reported three wildly different values:

mturoute.exe

Path MTU: 1462 bytes. Path MTU: 1500 bytes. Path MTU: 1192 bytes.

:) Guess so, it only makes it sweeter when (if) it works out well.

It is slow "only" with all international (non-Maltese) sites.

Just when I wanted to try out the MTU tool, I decided to do a Factory Reset of the router just to eliminate any other configuration issues that might be impacting the problem. In the mean time, I have played with wifi adapter settings, of which there are only around 10 (mostly related to power management and performance), again to no avail.

*** Now, the router is reset to factory defaults and the wireless connection works brilliantly, international and local. ***

If it was one of the network adapter settings, I really don't want to find out which one. I'll let you know if the problem returned, but so far it seems wonderful.

Thank you for your ideas and kind help, it's very much appreciated! :)

When the error rate goes up, the routers will negotiate a smaller maximum packet size, which has a better probability of arriving intact. However, such changes are usually much larger than what you're seeing. I've seen routers negotiate MTU's down to about 512 bytes. However, I've never seen it change in such small incriments as what you're getting. Aliens again.

You're on Malta? Cool. The problem might be explained by congestion to whatever backhaul is being used to the continent. However, it would not explain why it's fast with ethernet and slow with wireless. I'm still mystified.

Some routers (i.e. Linksys) require that the reset button be held down for about 30 seconds or the reset to defaults fails. It's often better to do the reset to defaults from the web interface than the reset button. I guess your MSI RG60G night need a similar long reset time.

Well, by this time, I suspect you've changed literally everything with a minimal hope of putting the settings back to the correct defaults. I guess you did the right thing by resetting everything and evicting the aliens.

Well, I know what the problem is but since you've excluded me I'm going to play poker with the caveman from the Geiko commercials.

alien

Me too. ;)

I have now graciously decided to let my neighbor use my wireless connection (with password protection).

He got a wireless PCI card, and it is working at 3 bars (Good) reception, sometimes 2 bars.

However, his connection is constantly breaking. I do a

ping -t 192.168.1.172

and it looks like a zebra crossing - 15 successful pings, 10 failed, 32 successful, 12 failed, and so on. Can anyone point to a potential solution?

snipped-for-privacy@onvol.net hath wroth:

That's what RF interference looks like. The large variations and dropouts are caused by retransmissions, retries, and timeouts. Pings should be 1 to about 3 msec latency for such short links and constant value.

It is probably aggrivated by a marginal signal. 2-3 bars is usually considered somewhat tolerable and should work, but different cards and devices have different ideas of how many bars to present. Also, the signal strength may not be symmetrical. Check the access point for signal strength or use Netstumbler to sniff the traffic and extract the signal strength in both directions.

Lastly, you might have a problem with "frequency selective fading" also known as multipath and reflectons. If your antennas are located so that there is a direct path, and a longer reflected path, and they cancel, you may have a problem. Try moving the antenna a few cm in any direction to see if it helps stabilize the pings.

Possible sources of interference:

The best solutions usually involve using directional antennas to both improve the signal strength, and to reduce pickup of the sources of interference. If there are any obstructions in the line of sight, move the antennas so they are eliminated or avoided.