Intel (R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN card performing poorly

Hello all, I recently purchased a new laptop for uni, a Dell Studio 15, I thought it was a decent buy as it was on sale from £825 to £579, (albeit it was £699 once the necessary upgrades were made). However, when purchasing I noticed an option to upgrade my wireless card. I chose not to and so got the default one, which is the Intel (R) WiFi Link 5100 AGN.

On my old laptop (Dell inspiron 15) my laptop was able to download at speeds of 800kbs/1mbs+ and it had a very far range of connectivity. This laptop however cannot download at more than 450/500kbs, and has a very poor range of connectivity.

Is there a problem with this card any my router? The router I have is the one I have always had and used on my old laptop. It is a Netgear router I received free with my sky broadband package. Also, is it possible to upgrade my wireless card? Thank you.

 

There's a lot to say about WIFI connectivity. There's considerable difference in the performance of WIFI adapters. However it's not only WIFI adapters, the full picture like the operating environment should be taken into account.

Read about what affects WIFI signals here.

Cheers!

 

Thanks for that but unfortunately (I use the term loosely) my environment is fine!