Atheros 9285 N adapter-only getting G speed

Hi everyone,

I just purchased a Vaio E series laptop and it has the Atheros 9285 wireless N adapter included. My other laptops are G, but I have the Linksys 610N USB adapters installed and, in conjunction with my Linksys 310N router, I achieve speeds of up to 270 Mbps. However, with the Vaio, i cannot get higher than 54 Mbps.

I have set the router to Mixed mode with the broadcast frequency of 2.4 - because the Atheros card does not work in the 5.0 band. In this scenario, all other computers receive N quality speed, but the Atheros is only getting G speed.

If I set the router to output N only, all other laptops are fine, but the Vaio will not connect to teh network at all. I called Sony and tehy told me the card was only capable of G speed, but the documentation clearly says it is an N card.

Does anyone have an answer to getting more speed from this card?

Thanks a million!!

 

Do you have a wireless channel set to 20MHz or 40MHz? These are router settings- so log and check it- if it's 40MHz change it to 20MHz.

EDIT: BTW- you can always update the driver too.

 

Thanks for the reply!

My wireless channel is set to 20 MHz and I do have the current driver installed.

This is really strange. The Vaio SmartWi Connection Utility is showing the speed at 54 Mpbs. If I plug a wireless N USB adapter into teh computer, the connection speed jumps to 243 Mbps.

Seems like it could be a faulty card?

Thanks again!

 

That's weird because your speeds achieved with Sony and other notebooks look more like 40MHz than 20MHz but since it's at 20MHz change it to 40MHz- that should in theory result in sth like 120mbps for Sony but may well prevent it from connecting too.
Check this anyway.

 

Thanks again

The laptop seems to connect regardless of the setting of 20 or 40 MHz. It is currently set to 20 but I have tried it at 40 as well and it works. But I believe it is working because it is connecting at a G setting rather than N.

As soon as I change the router setting to "N Only", the Atheros will not connect.

I spoke at length to Sony about this today. One interesting thing I noticed was in the device manager. Normally, there is a setting in the advanced properties of the network card that says "802.11 N" and you can choose to enable or disable it. In my case, that option is not there. Instead it says "Adhoc 11 N" with the option to enable it (which it is). I think that the problem lies here, but I have no idea how to fix it.

It is the same problem outlined here:

http://vaio.sonyelectronicscommunity.com/vaio/forum/discussion/?thread=6640238324347616196

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

 

Advanced driver settings usually do not contain settings for "n enabled/disabled"- it's Intel that uses or used to use them for some reason.
I also have an Atheros Wi-Fi card and it doesn't have such a setting either so you shouldn't be concerned with that.
When you say you have the latest driver you mean version 8.0.0.279 (for Win 7)?
Did you try to set the network to "n only" and wireless channel to 20MHz (I mean at the same time)
What advanced settings are available for your Wi-Fi card (in device manager) and what values do they have set?

 

My advanced settings are:

802.11b Preamble Value=Long and Short
Adhoc 11n Value = Enabled
Network Address Not Present
Receive Buffers Value = 256
Scan Valid Interval Value = 60
Transmit Buffers Value = 512

I am running the latest driver (the one you quoted) and I have set the router to N only and 20Mhz at the same time. The card will not connect under these circumstances. I tried with the original Linksys firmware for the 310N and I am now trying with the DD-WRT custom firmware. There is no change in the results.

Thanks!!

 

Advanced settings of your wireless card are fine.
DD-WRT is a good idea BTW so even if it doesn’t help you solve this problem (as it's probably not caused by router in the first place) you should consider stocking with it. It has a lot of useful features and you once you get accustomed to it you'll probably never want to use anything else.

Now that I'm out of ideas- could you provide me with the exact model number of your laptop and/or link to product site?

 

I had that card in my vgn-nw225f/b and was only getting 65mbps. It was driving me crazy and I eventually just got an intel 5300 (highly recommended!) to replace it.

But there are modded drivers that allow you to access more settings that seemed to help, if I recall correctly.

Check out this link

 

I forgot to mention that you need to be using wpa/wpa2 security on your router. I don't think you'll get over 54mbps if you are using WEP security.

 

Thanks for all your help. It was really appreciated.

This is the laptop:

VPCEB15FM/T | VAIO® E Series Notebook PC | Sony | Sony Style USA

 

Thanks for the tip.

I've never had that problem before, as I've always used WEP. Is that a feature of this Atheros card? I will certainly try it out and see if it works.

If I turned off all security, would I be able to get the speed to increase? I'll test and report back.

Thanks again!

 

That's impossible- in order to achieve "n" speeds you need to run WPA2- that's set on the router. So if your other notebooks connect at 270mbps or so it means you are running WPA2.
It's not a feature of this card BTW and if you turned off all security all of your devices would have gone back to "g" speeds. You must run WPA2 to run at 802.11n speeds.

 

Changing to WPA2 Personal did the trick. I am now connecting at 150Mbps!

Thanks for all the help! It was greatly appreciated and much more help than Sony could give!

 

That means that none of your wireless devices were connected at "n" speeds until now
Good job kayphoonstar- I assumed that Willise uses WPA2 since other devices connected at "n" speeds.

 

So now that I feel a little silly, I have to ask - why are my other laptops showing 243-270 Mbps in the wireless connection managers if I was using WEP?

Still in all, I am very grateful for the help and I guess I've learned something new today.

Thanks!

 

Sometimes this happens- more often with vendor-added connection utilities than with Windows but sometimes when it's the vendor specific utility handling the connection Windows also gets fooled. Rarely Windows gives wrong information on its own. Anyway- good thing it's solved.

 

Glad I could point you in the right direction!

 

Atheros 9285 is draft N,2.4ghz, High speed 150mbps
my router is buffalo war-g300n, update dd-wrt, make it 270mbps,
Please see my AR9285, it can run 135mbps when link my dd-wrt
great.



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I have got the same problem, and it will not resolve itself.

First, I built this new HTPC with a Zotac ION 330, and it came with this mini-PIC-E 9285 adapter. I installed the new board in my olf case and remeber being surprised that I was getting 150mbps...nice!

Fast forward to last night. Installed in new case and it won't connect.

My D-Link DIR-655 reports and shows it trying to authenticate on 2.4gHz N network, and then the log says "disconnected: deceived deauthentication.

I have changed all the settings for my wi-fi net (i.e. hide SSID, 20mHz, WPA, WPA2 Only, AES, AES & TKIP......NOTHING WORKS!

2 iphones have no problem connecting instantly to G portion, and my Lenovo with Intel b/g/n connects instantly using WPA2-Only AES and gets 108mbps connection (D-Link recommends this for best performance and they are right, if I try other types of encryption the Lenovo drops to 65mbps)

I do not have the Ad Hoc N enabled now nor did I at the start when I had 150, but I have tried enabling it to no avail. I was able to connect to the G portion with this 9285 one time in about 2 hours of toying with it and the speed was crap.

One thing I noticed on the 1st day in the old box, is that it would not connect and I checked the wi-fi antenna on the HTPC and I actually got it to connect when I loosened the antenna a bit, strangely enough......

....sigh