Dell Wireless WLAN 1520 Half MiniCard, 802.11n, not 150Mbps?

Hello,
I have an Alienware M15x with a Dell Wireless WLAN 1520 Half MiniCard. ( DELL Wireless 1520 (11agn) WLAN Half-Height mini-Card for Select Dell Inspiron Laptops / Inspiron / Latitude / Studio Laptops / Alienware / OptiPlex / Precision Mobile WorkStations : Networking | Dell)
I also have a Linsys WRT120N.

On my computer, I cannot get speeds of 150 Mbps, when on a simple netbook (with an Atheros 9285 WiFi card) connected to the same network can.

On my Alienware I see:



And the diagnosis says that everything is OK:


I'm using this driver:
Drivers and Downloads


Any ideas what is wrong?
Should I believe this http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21412426-General-WirelessN-Question-Why-am-I-only-getting-65mbps and live happy because I get 65 Mbps?

Thanks!

 

Set the channel width to 40MHz on the router.

 

If I change it to 40MHz, will another computer with a 802.11g WiFi card be able to connect to the router?

 

I don't remember if AR9285 supports 40MHz- probably not as it's one of the worst cards the world has seen.
You may leave it at auto (20MHz/40MHz)- if you're lucky both will work like they want to. If you're not lucky one of them- Dell in that case may just go back to 20MHz for compatibility reasons.
Anyway- check 40MHz and auto- setting it to 20MHz only is not a good idea.

EDIT: 802.11g computers will work fine as long as you don't force "n" only. However those "n" cards that don't support 40MHz may not work.

 

So strange.
I'd set on my router "Only 40 MHz" but on the DW tool (on my Alienware) I still se 20 MHz.

Could it be that the router isn't changing the "Channel Width"?
Can the DW mixup the value?

Still, I get the same speed.

Also, you were right. I still can connect with my old Toshiba with a 802.11g WiFi card.

 

The Broadcom card is probably set to 20Mhz mode only for 2.4Ghz in the driver page. So check out the Options page there and see if you can set that to "Auto" as well.

You are also using channel 9 which overlaps with channel 6 and 11. Choose either 1, 6 or 11, whichever has the least amount of clients on it. Using channel 9 doesn't allow for 40Mhz also (in the USA since there is no channel 12/13) but you are in Argentina so i'm not sure if those channels are available to you as well.

See here: Wireless-N Configuration - DD-WRT Wiki

 

@ SHoTTa35, thanks for the explanation!
And great link!

I've try to set my router to 40Mhz, but I don't see that on my Alienware.

Check this:


And this:


Is like the router is not doing only 40MHz.
Also, the Alienware (DW1520) is finding that the router is 150Mbps capable... but it is only connecting at 58Mbps.

I don't get it... is the router wrong? What I'm doing wrong?
Thanks!

 

Apparently you can't win this one.
Linksys has sort of a backup channel- you've chosen a wide channel (40MHz one) to be 3 and a Standard Channel can be either 1 or 5 in this setup.

Since your wireless card prefers for whatever reasons 20MHz channels it uses the backup one aka standard channel.
As you see on the router it's channel no 1 and your laptop is connected to this channel (instead of 40MHz wide channel no 3).
Try to update drivers as your current ones are not the most recent ones.

 

If there are other networks in the area, 11n spec will force it back to 20mhz band.

 

if your using WPA security change to WPA2.

 

I'm using WPA2-Personal with AES.

Yes, there are more N networks arround my apartment.

I still get 58 to 62 Mbps.

I've installed the new driver from Latest Broadcom 943xx Driver - LaptopVideo2Go Forums , but how can I get the "WiFi status panel" something like:



Because, now I cannot see the connection specs.

 

I used to have Broadcom card and driver usually worked fine with an older version of the panel as long as they were not distant versions.
You may want to either install the panel alone from the old driver set or if it's not possible reinstall the old drivers and then manually update driver (meaning via device manager)
Sorry for the trouble- I didn't realize the panel was not included.

 

Sorry! Haha, noo, please don't be.
I am the thankful for your help.

I'll try the old Panel with the new Driver.
Thanks!

This WiFi card was a mistake... I made a mistake when I was buying the computer and didn't realize that I had selected this card since a few days.
And I didn't had time to cancel the order.
Silly me.

 

So, I've installed the new version of the WiFi driver from:
Latest Broadcom 943xx Driver - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

The install secuence was first the driver from Dell and then that driver... So I have the "DW Tools".

Now I have this:


But still, I cannot connect to 40MHz and 150 or 130Mbps.
Always 54 to 60Mbps.

Is it really a 802.11n WiFi card?
As far as I can read here it is: DELL Wireless 1520 (11agn) WLAN Half-Height mini-Card for Select Dell Inspiron Laptops / Inspiron / Latitude / Studio Laptops / Alienware / OptiPlex / Precision Mobile WorkStations : Networking | Dell

But I cannot make it work.
Any other ideas?

 

I'm wondering if it's just that you are in a crowded area? The final N Spec states that it should only go in 40Mhz mode if the channels needed are free. You obviously have other people on channel 1 and 6 so you don't have a free space to do 40Mhz. You running 40mhz would kill other people's internet as it would "drown out" their 20mhz).

As i was saying before however, did you check the drivers to see if it has the option of allowing 40Mhz in the 2.4Ghz range?



As you can see their mine is by default only allwing 20mhz but changed it to 40Mhz. I'm also using DD-WRT on my router so i'm not sure if it's behaving properly also as i get 300Mbps with other wireless neworks. However i definitely don't get 300Mbps speeds when copying files to/from my 1Gbps NAS.

Also it seems you are using a very old version of the firmware.

Firmware 1.0.01 (Build 01)
- Add support for European version of the product

Maybe upgrade to the latest build and that might be fixed:

http://homesupport.cisco.com/en-us/wireless/lbc/WRT120N

Download: http://homedownloads.cisco.com/downloads/firmware/FW_WRT120N_1.0.05.003_US.bin

 

I can't find an option for "40Mhz in the 2.4Ghz range"
Here is a list of options for the Broadcom driver: Latest Broadcom 943xx Driver - LaptopVideo2Go Forums
(pass the drivers version list)

I'm thinking about buying a Linksys WRT160N and maybe changing the firmware to the DD-WRT... do you recomend it?
As far as I can see: it's supported Supported Devices - DD-WRT Wiki

 

I dunno about that, maybe that's why though.

No point in getting the WRT160N however, get the E2000 or WRT320N and put that in 5Ghz mode ONLY and use your current router for G setup. Your wireless card supports 5Ghz so might as well go there instead of adding another that might not help. The WRT120N doesn't support DD-WRT apparently but no point in only going 1 step up if you are getting a new router. You can get the E2000 for $50 or the Netgear WDR3500 or so for cheap prices which would be good too.

 

@SHoTTa35, oh! Sorry... I never told my secret.

The Linksys WRT120N is not mine. A friend of mine is on vacations and lent me his router, his WRT120N.

I'm moving from a Linksys WRV200 to... maybe a Linksys WRT160N.

Here, in Argentina the E2000 cost USD140 and the WRT160N cost USD90.
Do you think that the E2000 pays for those 50 bucks?

By the Netgear, you mean this one? http://www.netgear.co.uk/wnr3500.php Because I cannot find that one here in Argentina for sale

 

TP-Link TL-WR1043ND is a very good cheap router with gigabit Ethernet, three detachable antennas, USB port, 300mbps 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and CPU that is faster than the CPU of E2000 (although slower than WNR3500L).
It's also supported by DD-WRT and is usually pretty cheap- check if you can buy it in Argentina.

 

I've got a wnr3500v2 running dd-wrt and with an atheros 9287 and get 100 to 200Mb/s connections just fine btw. So it should work.

 

I can get the TP-Link TL-WR1043ND for USD 162 here in Argentina.
Is even more expensive than the E2000.

Which one should I think about buying?

The wnr3500v2, I cannot find it here.

 

That's robbery It costs $58 in Europe (including taxes).

WNR3500L would be the best but E2000 seems to be the best choice given the prices. Since prices in Argentina seem to be off a bit how much is an Asus RT-N16? That would be quite a good one if it's relatively cheap.

 

The Asus RT-N16 cost USD 207 here in Argentina.
Yes! WE ARE CHEAP!

I must add, here my Alienware M15x cost the double that it cost in USA. Yes the price in USA times 2!

 

I had found the solution!

I'm using this driver:
Latest Broadcom 943xx Driver - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

I only had to set this option:

Code:

Bandwidth Capability: 11a/b/g:20/40MHz

And now I have this values:


Also, I've just bought a Linksys WRT160N, and I'm using firmware 3.0.03 Build 3.
Linksys by Cisco - WRT160N Support

Also, I add three tutorials for the driver:
http://www.linksysinfo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=47263
http://support.dell.com/support/sys...dhs&~file=/network/p70008/en/props.htm#toc_74
http://forums.laptopvideo2go.com/topic/14644-latest-broadcom-943xx-driver/