802.11n Frustration (Guidance needed)

Previously, I had a Draft N router that bricked itself during a firmware upgrade. Until it gave up the ghost, it ran flawlessly giving 270-300mpbs connections on both 2.4 and 5Ghz. Since it had been a while, I decided to go router shopping.

Tried that Netgear WNDR4000 since the previous version received such fantastic reviews. Performance was less than half of what I was previously getting (only 144mpbs).

So, frustraited, I ran down to the local Staples and purchased the Cisco E4200. Figured the Netgear thing was either a lemon or a fluke. Fired it up and... same thing... about half performance.

I then started digging to see if I could figure out what was going on. After a ton of tests, best I can figure is that the current crop of routers are 'locked' somehow to not allow faster connections than 144mpbs. On 5Ghz, I can't get anything more than 230. My laptop has the Intel 6300 three-stream... In theory I should be able to take whatever it can give up to 450mpbs. I returned both and am now trying to figure out where to go from here...

Are all of the current models crap? All I want is to get something that can give equivalent performance to what I had while still being reliable.

Any recommendations or suggestions are greatly appreciated...

 

There must be something else going on with your machine because I have the same wireless card as you and consistently get 300-400 Mb/s (with an occasional burst to 450) when connected at 5 GHz to my Airport Extreme router.

I'm guessing you've tried drivers for your wireless card. Have you also messed about with any of the adapter's advanced settings in device manager?

 

There was nothing wrong with the routers. You should have asked before returning them.
To get above 150mbps you need 40MHz channel width and to get it you need to choose a proper channel- one that doesn't interfere wit other people's wireless. If it does router will automatically fall back and you're back to square one.
As for 5GHz range- it has poor range so 230mbps is probably because of this.
Also Intel 6300 needs three antennas to achieve 450mbps and most notebooks are sold with two. Check it- if you have two installed you have to decide- either but another one and upgrade of forget it and stick to 300mbps.

 

Only thing that has changed is the router itself... My original router was a Cisco 610N and I had no performance problems with it. I'm seeing the same thing on both of my laptops - each have the 6300 cards. InSSIDer reports the routers both as advertising their maximum speed as 144 in 2.4Ghz and 450 in 5Ghz.

Due to my home construction (brick) I know I'll never see 400+ but if I could get at least 300 before I should be able to get 300 now.

I've checked my Intel settings and both notebooks are still set to 20/40 Auto (you can't force 40 in the drivers). Routers were set the same. I've had both notebooks apart for other reasons and they both do in fact have the third antenna installed and connected. I've tried channels 1, 6 and 11 with only slight differences in performance.

 

You have to choose a channel that's free (if that's possible). Non-overlapping channels are preferred.
With both ends set to 40MHz the only reason is the automatic fall-back that happens if you get into someone else's space.
Another words- check inSSIDer and change your channel.

Also- Linksys E4200 is set to auto (20/40MHz) on 5GHz range but default setting for 2.4GHz is in fact "20MHz only".
Unless you're sure that you've changed it that would be why you've been limited to less than 150mbps on 2.4GHz range and at the same time have reached over 150mbps on 5GHz.

 

Downloads,

From the best that I can tell, channels 6 and 11 are free and channel 1 has a very weak signal that I can't figure out who it is. I'm somewhat isolated.

I'm 100% certain that I set 20/40 auto in both routers. My old one defaulted the same way so that was one of the first things I did.

 

Mind you 40MHz means basically that you're using two normal channels at the same time so you need main channel free and one near it too.
Anyway- we won't have any success here because you don't have a router right now (if I understand correctly).

Since you've gone though almost all good routers can I recommend a Netgear WNDR3700? While it can't do 450mbps it's a simultaneous dual band router with great hardware, good wireless range (2.4GHz is good while 5GHz id decent) and good default firmware. As all routers I recommend it's also supported by 3rd party firmwares (just in case)

BTW Netgear WNDR4000 is not really a successor of WNDR3700. WNDR4000 uses the same main chip (SoC) that E3000/WRT610N uses- just with 3x3 radio added for 5GHz. Linksys E4200 is better although it uses the same chip it has special routing feature enabled (makes routing throughput higher) and has better radios than WNDR4000.

 

Downloads,

I'm open to trying anything.... However, I was under the impression that the WNDR3700 (fantastic reviews) was discontinued and replaced with the WNDR3700v2 (not nearly as good). Is this not correct?

 

That's true. WNDR3700v2 has 5GHz wireless that doesn't match this of v1 but it's still decent.
On the plus side- some v1 radios had a nasty habit of getting weak and dying. Only some of them were affected but you wouldn't know until you've checked the serial number. Version 2 has this issue resolved.

EDIT:

You may have already seen it but still. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...band-gigabit-router-reviewed?showall=&start=3