Fibre to the door speed - variation

[parabellum]

Some ideas please. I recently upgraded to BT fibre to the door, top speed 150mbs, guaranteed minimum speed 100mbs. Using www.fast.com my Apple iPhone and iPad both show speed somewhere between 120 and 150, without fail, but my 5 year old Lenovo laptop, using Windows7, Intel Core i3 chip, rarely shows a speed above 65mbs. Are the Apple devices showing system capability speed and the Laptop actual received speed or is my laptop slowing everything down? Would appreciate sensible suggestions, thanks.

[jetcollie]

What is the speed rating for the card in the Lenovo. If it's 802.11g then you won't get the higher speeds - you need a 802.11n card for that.

[Specaircrew]

Have you tried using an ethernet cable instead of a wireless connection?

[andytug]

Jetcollie has it right, older laptop probably doeesn't have 802.11n or ac (or later) to use the 5GHZ band for faster speeds, so 56Mb is max you'll get (there are some that double up the g class to give 108 though).

On windows 10, search network, then click "hardware properties" should show what version it is.

[parabellum]

Jetcollie: Card is 802.11n so up to date there, thanks for your suggestion though,made me look!

Spec-aircrew: Will do an ethernet check, not practical without moving from room but that may explain some of it. Thanks.

andytug: Thanks for replying, the card is upto date, I am using Windows 7!.

[Thirsty]

Rule: The fastest speed you will ever get from your Internet connection is dependant on the slowest portion between yourself and the remote destination. No point in having a gigabit connection if you are connecting to a dialup modem in Kazakhstan! The fastest the data transfer will happen will be at dialup speeds.

If you have a WiFi link, then that may be the slowest link portion. It may be a function of how fast your laptop can process the arriving data too. How much memory and how many other pieces of software are running at the same time on the Lenovo? They can be full of garbage bundleware when they arrive from the factory, most of which can be safely uninstalled without losing any functionality at all. The performance boost can be astonishing.

Have you cleaned up your hard drive, emptying out the recycle bin and defragmenting the drive. The first time you do this is probably the one that is of most benefit.

Have you checked for any driver updates from the manufacturer of the WiFi card, or from Lenovo support website for your particular laptop model? BIOS updates too? Is Windows 7 up to date with known patches? Do you have any malware running in the background, stealing precious CPU cycles and bandwidth? In Hardware Devices in Control Panel is your network device flagged with a yellow question mark signalling driver issues?

Have you checked for interference, say from close-by emitters like microwaves, Zigbee hubs, or neighbours WiFi routers using the same WiFi channel? Restarting your WiFi router can often have it select a better channel automatically. Does the signal to the WiFi router have to pass through any more walls for the Lenovo than the Apple devices?

SamKnows measuring box can be installed to keep your ISP honest.

Ookla speedtest is universally accepted as a fairly reliable way to measure throughput. Versions for any platform can be found fairly easily, and they even have versions that run directly in your browser without having to install anything. Comparing results from different devices is usually accurate.

Process of elimination can be both frustrating and rewarding. Methodically rule out each possible issue till you arrive at the solution. Call out for more ideas if you get stumped.

[EGTE]

And don't forget that all the speed estimates/guarantees quoted by ISPs are to the router - not the device that you are using.

[Thirsty]

A recent update to my router firmware has tuned up exactly that - Ookla speedtest directly from the router. A pleasant surprise addition.

Samknows box plugs direct into your router and uses various types of traffic to derive a fairly accurate speed profile of common usage patterns. Not essential in your case, as you have already isolated the problem to a local device, but it still produces some interesting statistics, particularly for different times of day. I wonder how the Olympics Games currently on will affect global traffic, most people having got used to consume media online rather than via TV during covid lockdowns and isolation?

[parabellum]

Thanks Thirsty and EGTE, plenty there for me to digest! will work my way through the lists. Much appreciated..

[andytug]

Also worth checking that the laptop is definitely using the 5GHZ band and not the 2.4, if it can't get a good signal on 5 it'll drop to the 2.4 as backup, my phone has a habit of doing this if I wander out of 5 GHZ range and then doesn't always revert to 5GHZ when I come back in again. Settings>network status>properties button and scroll down should tell you what it's doing (and the link speed, which isn't the speed of the internet connection, just the one between laptop and router).

[jimjim1]

Worth mentioning that the nominal speed of WiFi e.g. 11Mbps or 54 or now higher is exactly half the maximum achievable speed with a perfect installation using special test software.

802.11b - 11 = 5.5
802.11g - 54 = 27

I have no idea if this applies to later stuff, n, ac, ... but why would they change it if it has confused people so successfully for so long? Nor do I know enough about how 802.11 works to understand why this is.

I suspect that perhaps n and strongly suspect ac and greater are hardware dependent. Not all ac hardware will get 1200Mbps (or whatever it is).

[parabellum]

Thanks andytug and jimjim1, living in an old house with thick walls I also suspect that some of the speed drop is caused by that.

[Asturias56]

we've seen significant distances in using an ethernet connection to the router as opposed to Wi-Fi

Tho TBH the only practical difference has been to improve our performance in the Weekly Family Quiz competition - you get points for fastest answer............