Help! I can connect to 5.2ghz 300mbps, but not all the time...

This is a hard subject to find anywhere and here's my problem:
I am using a Dell XPS17 L702 and recently upgraded my wifi card to Intel 6250+WiMax (originally N1000). My internet is connected through an 'Apple Airport Extreme 5th Generation' router and connects to the highest speeds of 300mbps. I've tweaked all the channels and had finally set the ones that seemed to connect best; which are 6 (2.4ghz) and 153 (5.2ghz) and the laptop seems to connect successfully at speeds fluctuating between 270-300mbps, but that seems to be short lived. Sometimes when I cold boot my laptop it only connects to the 2.4ghz range at 144mbps and nothing moves. This can be set for days even after subsequent reboots unless I reset my wifi card by turning it off/on from the laptop keyboard, or do nothing, this might revert back to the 5.2ghz after a reboot. This can also take up to a few days. Once it's connected to the higher speeds, it will continue to stay that on that route (even for days) but then it will alternate back to the lower speed of 144mbps, vice versa.

I'm not sure what the problem is here, or is this how a dual-band card or router normally performs? The drivers are periodically updated directly from Intel since I couldn't seem to find one from Dell that works. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Give different SSIDs (names) to your 5GHz and 2.4GHz networks. you cna also set your Intel adapter's preferred band to 5GHz.

As for the drivers, i'm betting the Intel adapters from Dell have some sort of ID that identifies them as such. It's already good that any mPCI-E adapter will work in a Dell notebook, this isn't the case for HP and Lenovo.

 

It is running at the higher speeds now after a reboot. I'd prefer using automatic dual-band speeds instead of renaming creating another name so that it can fluctuate back and forth. I'm gonna download the Dell driver for the card and see how that goes, it is older compared to the one I'm using directly from Intel's.

 

Then what you want to do is set the preferred band to 5GHz in your wireless adapter settings. That way you'll connect to 5GHz whenever possible.

 

Exactly.

I had the same "problem" or at least encounter at my school, just set the preference to 5GHz and it was resolved

 

So this is normal for dual-band networks for tending to lean towards the lower band at most times?
For a while I did have my prefer band set to 5ghz but I thought it connects better with 'automatic' and for the fact that the 5ghz reception bar always showed lesser than max, but I guess that's not the case.

 

2.4GHz signals fade slower with distance from the router. Therefore, you usually have a stronger signal on 2.4GHz, 5GHz will give you better throughput, but signal strength is another matter. Also, in my opinion, automatic settings on wireless netowrking gear is asking for trouble. One of my neighbors also has a 5GHz network and his router likes to change the channel for no reason and even overlaps the channel i'm using on auto settings. I know it's on auto because i checked with inSSIDer a couple of times. The same goes for 2.4GHz, ideally, you'd want the networks split evenly between channels 1, 6 and 11, but on automatic, you're bound to have networks all over the place if all your neighbors' routers are also on auto and you end up with a mess of interference.

If you know what you're doing, set everything manually yourself, smallnetbuilder is a good place to get up to speed on networking if you're interested.