Slow Upload Speed on a Windows Surface Laptop

[Dummcy]

This is becoming very frustrating.

I have a Windows Surface laptop with pretty much zero upload speed. It’s so bad that speed.net displays big bold upload error message during speed tests. I called tech support and of course they try to blame it on my laptop as works on phone and another laptop. But, my laptop also works with any other hotspot, both on my phone and in any public place, just not when connected to my Ignite modem wireless hotspot.

By the way, the Wi-Fi app also stopped connecting to the modem.

I went to the extreme, formatted my laptop and completely reinstalled the OS from scratch and that did not help. I reset the modem 2x and it would get better briefly, but then goes back to no upload speed. I can’t even use the chat on the Rogers page! Definitely something on the modem blocking the upload speed.

Anyone else experienced this?

*Added Labels*

[RogersMoin]

Hello, @Dummcy.

Welcome to Rogers Community Forums! 😃

Thank you for posting your concern. Slow upload speed only on one of the devices can be related to its WiFi adapter.

Since the issue can’t be replicated on the other devices, let’s try figuring out the root cause of the slow upload speed on your Windows Surface laptop. Please answer the following:

• When did you notice the upload issue on your laptop?
• What OS are you running on your laptop?
• Have you checked for any pending network (WiFi adapter) driver updates?
• Is your laptop connecting to the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz network?

We look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,

RogersMoin

[Dummcy]

Hello,

I understand this is a tricky one. The tech support engineer I talked too was confused too. To answer your questions:

• When did you notice the upload issue on your laptop? - A little over a week now.
• What OS are you running on your laptop? - Windows 11 Pro 21H2, OS Build 22000.556
• Have you checked for any pending network (WiFi adapter) driver updates? Absolutely no pending updates. 
• Is your laptop connecting to the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz network? - I believe modem is in some kind of auto-mode as no way to specify/configure separate 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz.

I don't believe this has anything to do with my laptop really. To prove this, I went and purchased a Netgear router, wired to the modem set up access point on it. My laptop connected to the Netgear access point perfectly fine. 

So my laptop experiences speed issues only when connected to the Rogers modem via WIFI. Not when tethered to my cell phone, on Bell, not when connected to public access points like IKEA, Starbucks etc. that I tested with, not when connected to the Netgear wired to the Rogers modem. 

Thank you!

[-G- · Accepted solution]

@Dummcy  Something else to try: You mentioned the WiFi app so I presume that you are an Ignite Internet customer.  Do you have the older (dark) XB6 modem/gateway or the newer (white) XB7?  If you have the XB7, have you tried reconfiguring the 5 GHz radio to NOT use 802.11ax?  The XB7 only has a partial Wi-Fi 6 implementation (it does not support WPA3) and this can cause problems for some Wi-Fi chipsets/drivers.

[Dummcy]

I have the Hitron CODA modem. I managed to access the Wifi app finally, as it’s also been very unstable since this issue started.

In the My Wi-Fi tab, I found the band steering setting. I’m surprised this is not accessible when accessing the modem admin page via the browser as I was looking for it!

I changed the band steering default configuration which split my network name into 2.4 and 5 GHz distinct names. I connected to the 5 GHz, and voila, problem solved! I even noticed a better speed now, go figure.

I will monitor for couple days and report back, should the issue return.

By the way, to answer your question, this modem also appears to not support WPA3 as per the Wi-Fi App. It shows options for WPA2 and Open.

Thanks all for your suggestions steering me to the solution!