Slow wireless file transfer within LAN over 2.4Ghz

beyonddc

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 25, 2002
Messages
417
Slow wireless file transfer within LAN over 2.4Ghz

This really makes no sense to me. Very weird scenario. :(

This is the 2nd day I own the TP-LINK WDR-3600 which is a dual band router. The first day, everything is operating normally where file transfer within LAN over wireless on 2.4GHz is okay (70Mbps down according to LAN Speed Test) but now I am having issue with wireless file transfer within LAN over the 2.4Ghz.

When I run an Internet speed test via www.speedtest.net, I get the result of 30.87Mbps download and 5.92Mbps upload, the WAN speed seems very reasonable and matches the speed advertised by my ISP Provider (Comcast).

The issue I have is slow wireless file transfer within LAN over 2.4Ghz. I have a NAS in my LAN. I use "Lan Speed Test (Lite)" to conduct my throughput test. The result of my LAN throughput test showed that I only get 2.01Mbps download. I conducted the same test on two different computers with similar results. The two wireless NIC that I used for testing is
1) ASUS USB-N13 300Mbps wireless adapter installed on my Windows 7 64bit OS.
2) TP-LINK TL-WN822N 300Mbps

However on my 5Ghz network, I can get 78Mbps download from the same NAS in my LAN.

The file transfer over wired from my NAS to a computer is over 300+Mbps download.

I am not sure what's going on there. This seems like a problem specific to file transfer within LAN over 2.4Ghz.

Thoughts?

Thanks for reading!
 
Probably interference on the 2.4Ghz band. Your measured throughput matches what a 48Mbps wireless link should see.
 
Have you tested with iperf to see the non SMB transfer speed through put?

Windows data transfer over wireless blows normally.
 
OP: What connection speed does the task bar on your test computer say you are getting?

Wireless transfer speeds blow in general, not just for SMB/CIFS.

But yes, for NAS and file transfer type stuff, wired gigabit Ethernet is really the only good way to go. Simply forget wifi for NAS. It never works well. In fact, the documentation for FreeNAS comes out straight and recommends against using WIFI for any NAS application ever, and suggest a minimum of wired Gig-e.

Even if you get everything up and running properly, the most you can expect over WIFI is 6-8MB/s, despite all the MBPS claims they make. Gigabit ethernet tends to deliver over 100MB/s depending on protocol and overhead.

To troubleshoot your settings, I second the recommendations above to use iPerf. It's a very useful tool. The 2.4Ghz band is very crowded these days. If you live anywhere except a rural area, you can expect lots of interference from other routers, cordless phones, defective microwave ovens, etc. etc, which will make your transfer speeds fluctuate all over the place.
 
I would try using a different channel. Change channel settings in the router's interface.
 
I would try using a different channel. Change channel settings in the router's interface.

With 2.4 in a crowded area (city, apartment building) that won't matter at all.

5Ghz can be an improvement but the best option (as stated above) is a wired connection.
 
With 2.4 in a crowded area (city, apartment building) that won't matter at all.

5Ghz can be an improvement but the best option (as stated above) is a wired connection.

It doesn't matter if you have a clean channel, the channel at my house has very very low interferance and wireless transfers still blow.

Its the nature of the beast, wireless is not good for large data transfers. Its good for web browsing
 
Both of those wireless adapters are USB.

USB completely sucks for wireless. USB is going to introduce extra latency than what would otherwise be there.

Also, I would not trust any consumer wireless router to work reliably to it's full speed unless the router and card are from the same exact company and are advertised to work properly together.

Even then, I have had so much trouble with crappy consumer wireless routers that I refuse to use them anymore. Everything from widely varying speed to constant disconnects as well as the routers just flipping out and having to be power cycled and sometimes wiped and reconfigured to get working again.

What you are seeing is typical of consumer oriented wireless products.
 
Pleab = wireless is wizardy
Noobie = wireless is an art
Avg IT guy = wireless is 1 part art, 1 part science
[H]ardcore = wireless is science, if you know what you are doing, but it still takes applying the scientific method
Wireless Network Engineer = wireless is easy, you
re all clueless
 
So humor me and download and run inSSIDer click on networks and post screen shots from your desktop.

Also please describe what would be in the way if you drew a straight line from the router to your client. Walls, type and material, thickness.etc How old is the building? Details are important.

I'll also need to know, if the channel width is set to 20Mhz or 40Mhz
 
Also, I would not trust any consumer wireless router to work reliably to it's full speed

I agree here as well.

Back when I was banging my head against the wifi speed wall, one of the top consumer routers on the market was the Netgear WNDR3700. I paid a lot for that thing, thinking it would fix my problems and it didn't.


When I - instead - went with a Ubiquiti Unifi AP, my interference went down, signal strength went up, and I actually connected well in dual band mode.

It improved the wireless experience. it's still fairly slow for file transfers, as all WIFI is, but it made a huge improvement.
 
Pleab = wireless is wizardy
Noobie = wireless is an art
Avg IT guy = wireless is 1 part art, 1 part science
[H]ardcore = wireless is science, if you know what you are doing, but it still takes applying the scientific method
Wireless Network Engineer = wireless is easy, you
re all clueless

What am I if I exclaim that all wireless is crap? :p
 
Despite your doubts I have several WDR3600 running at ~10mbyte/s+ during transfers, not using stock firmware but OpenWRT on the 5Ghz network. As mentioned earlier its most likely due to interference on the 2.4Ghz band, you can try to switch channels and use 20Mhz instead 40Mhz but it wont help much if you have lots of interference.
//Danne
 
Pleab = wireless is wizardy
Noobie = wireless is an art
Avg IT guy = wireless is 1 part art, 1 part science
[H]ardcore = wireless is science, if you know what you are doing, but it still takes applying the scientific method
Wireless Network Engineer = wireless is easy, you
re all clueless



Haha I got a kick out of that, thanks. :)
 
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