cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

slow wifi

rileylycnh
I've been around

so i believe its been the past 4-5 months that i have been having a problem with my wifi. there are 3 people in my house that use the wifi at the same time and in december january and february there was really no problem at all with speed but i started noticing thing like being disconected from the interne while using wifi with my devices which are laptops and phones. now after being on the phone for an hour with a lady that had no idea what she was talking about kept getting me to check the internet speed which i couldnt because i couldnt be on the internet any longer then 3 mintes before my router would restart she then told me to reset it myself using the usb that the tech had left. after reseting my router the problem was fixed for about 2 weeks and all of our devices were back to disconecting because the router would reboot this problem has since then dissapeared with no explanation but we now have a new problem and that is extremely slow internet while using the wifi when i play online game mainly nhl14 and league of legend i experience extreme amounts of lag but when im connecte through an ethernet cable the lag goes away now i could obviouslyjust connect my laptop and ps3 to my router everytime i want to play but that just takes out of the convienence of being able to play wherever i want in my house i just want to know if there is any way to fix my wifi speed so i dont have to directly hook up to my touter everytime i want to do something.

 

 

***edited labels***

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Re: slow wifi

Datalink
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

Hi,

 

Can you go to the thread indicated below and follow my questions posted there in response to stavic's post:

 

http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/forums/forumtopicpage/board-id/Getting_connected/message-id/176...

 

Please post the responses into this thread, which you have started.  You might have a different Rogers modem / router.  If so, please indicate that as well.  With more information regarding your modem / router and network, other forum members and myself can hopefully determine what you need to do to resolve the situation.

View solution in original post

96 REPLIES 96

Re: slow wifi

Datalink
Resident Expert
Resident Expert

Hi,

 

Can you go to the thread indicated below and follow my questions posted there in response to stavic's post:

 

http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/forums/forumtopicpage/board-id/Getting_connected/message-id/176...

 

Please post the responses into this thread, which you have started.  You might have a different Rogers modem / router.  If so, please indicate that as well.  With more information regarding your modem / router and network, other forum members and myself can hopefully determine what you need to do to resolve the situation.

Re: slow wifi

Recently my family changed up our internet plan and as a result we were given a new modem from Rogers. We do not use a 3rd party router or anything, just the modem. We were given the Cisco-DPC3825, and our internet speeds is something like 60Mbps I believe. I never fail to get a good speed from my desktop which is wired directly to the modem, the WiFi is where I start finding problems.

 

During the day the internet works great and we get nice speeds. No complaints at all. As soon as it starts to turn night, for me when I get home from work at around 10PM, that is when I notice the speed suffering. I use my WiFi from no farther then 10 ft away on my bed. The modem sits on a shelf on one side of my room, I am on the other side.

 

When I try to do something as simple as download a podcast from my phone, I only manage to get around 150Kbps. The best I have been able to get at night is 750Kbps, which is still too slow considering that I am in pretty much ideal conditions for the strength of my WiFi. There is no walls blocking it and I am very close to the modem itself.

 

I have no idea where to go from here. What I have been resorting to do is reset my modem whenever I notice the drop in speed, but that is very tedious to do every night and seems unnecassary. If more information is needed surrounding my situation I will gladly provide it.

 

I hope someone can help me solve my dillemma.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

TCups

Re: slow wifi

And durring those times, the WIRED speed is still ok?
(just trying to narrow down if its an overall slowness or just on wifi)

Is this in a house or an apartment?

My FIRST thought.. it possibly interfearance.

 

 

Just to cover both bases.. can you log into the modem, and get us the signal strength table and post it here?
(do this durring the good and bad times.. just so we can compare)

 

Beyond that, will probably have to get you to do a few things to check your wireless settings, for interfearance, etc.

Re: slow wifi

As Gdkitty indicated, if you can copy the downstream and upstream tables from the DOCSIS WAN page in the modem user interface we can check the RG-6 cable signal levels. Beyond that its time to look at the wifi issue. If you can load inSSIDer on a laptop and bring up the network display, you will see in list and graphical form, the routers that are running nearby that the laptop wifi card can detect. Looking at the graphical display will show you if there are other routers that are running on the same wifi channel as your 3825, causing interference, or if they are running on channels that are close to yours, which will result in the same issue. The link below is for the last freebie version of inSSIDer. It will monitor both 2.4 and 5 Ghz networks. It does not do 802.11ac which is becoming common, so you won’t have the complete 5 Ghz network picture, so to speak. There is a new version out, which is now a pay version. Anyone with intentions to use inSSIDer long term should spend the $20 U.S. to buy the new version. The new version does not require an 802.11ac wifi card. It will read the headers from the router broadcast and display the data as necessary.

 

So, have a look at that display. If you can post an image somewhere that we can have a look at, combined with the cable signal levels, we should be able to determine what is going on.

 

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/5936-inssider.html

 

http://www.inssider.com/inssider4/

 

Re: slow wifi

CarolS51
I plan to stick around

I just updated to Rogers Ignite 100U, is it normal for my speeds to be so drastic? on my Desktop i get a download speed of 130-140 on my Laptop i only get 35-48 is this normal? even when im sitting next to the modem its slow! My wifi is just very slow on Laptops, and Tablets

Re: slow wifi

Possibly?

Which modem do you have? The CGN3 or the CGN3ACR?

The CGN3 at least, does have some.. limitations.. in it, where it can only do one wireless mode, and will lower itself to the lowest of all connected.. and can lower the speeds.

 

Some general wireless settings itself can sometimes limit the wireless speeds (leaving it on B/G/N for example, just N will often give better performance, etc)

 

 

Re: slow wifi

I was going to say exactly the same idea.  Have a look at a post of mine from yesterday:

 

http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/forums/forumtopicpage/board-id/Getting_connected/message-id/235...

 

If you have a CGN3, the way to confirm that this is a problem on the 2.4 Ghz band is to turn off all of the wireless devices and reboot the modem (unplug and plug back into power supply).  When the wifi lights on the front of the modem light up, you are good to go.  Turn on only a single device, say the laptop for example.  Run a speedtest to see what the results are.  As long as everything else is turned off and not in standby mode and therefore possibly still connected, you should see the highest result you are going to get.  Then, turn on another device and ensure that its connected and can access the internet.  Run the speedtest on the laptop and look for any possible drop in the speedtest results.  If you see a drastic reduction in data rates, that is due to the CGN3 locking down to the lowest data rate of the connected devices.  Keep adding devices, one at a time, until you determine which one is causing the slow data rates.  

 

The newer CGN3ACR should not suffer from this problem as it has been certified to operate with mixed capability devices.  The CGN3 does not carry the same certification.

 

The other consideration is that the CGN3 wifi performance just isn't that great compared to third party routers which have external antenna.   Depending on where the modem is, and where the device normally is, you may not be seeing high data rates due to the modem wifi performance and the distance from it.

Re: slow wifi


@CarolS51 wrote:

I just updated to Rogers Ignite 100U, is it normal for my speeds to be so drastic? on my Desktop i get a download speed of 130-140 on my Laptop i only get 35-48 is this normal? even when im sitting next to the modem its slow! My wifi is just very slow on Laptops, and Tablets


What wireless card does your laptop have?

 

I don't think 35-50 megabits/sec is surprising if we're talking single-stream 2.4GHz 802.11n...

Re: slow wifi

CarolS51
I plan to stick around

it is an 802.11b/g/n i guess i was hoping for faster internet on wifi! the speeds are the same as before i upgraded to the new Ignite plan i had 500gb Extreme, not sure what the speeds were for that plan, but im still getting the same

Re: slow wifi


@CarolS51 wrote:

it is an 802.11b/g/n i guess i was hoping for faster internet on wifi! the speeds are the same as before i upgraded to the new Ignite plan i had 500gb Extreme, not sure what the speeds were for that plan, but im still getting the same


Can you give us a bit more detail than '802.11b/g/n'?

 

That being said, the fact that it doesn't say '802.11a/b/g/n' is indicative of a single-band card, which is not encouraging.

 

Ultimately, though, here's how I see it: the 100/250 Rogers plans are, quite frankly, faster than 90% of the wifi gear out there. If you are running 2.4GHz-only hardware, you will not see those speeds over wifi. If you want fast wifi, you need to be using 5GHz, either dual/triple-stream 802.11n or, even better, 802.11ac. But 95+% of non-Apple consumer-grade hardware doesn't support 5GHz...

Re: slow wifi

Gdkitty
Resident Expert
Resident Expert
I wouldn't 100% say the vivienm

I am currently running a fairly basic 2.4ghz Intel N card in my laptop.
I am able to get About 97mbps on speed tests with it.

Big difference is as well, that I am running my own N66U as an AP.
I think a good portion of it is the wifi end on the CGN3 as well.

Re: slow wifi

@CarolS51, we're going to need more information in order for us to provide any assistance.  First question is what modem do you have, CGN3 or CGN3ACR?  Second question, can you navigate to Control Panel....Devices....Network Adapters.  When you are there please copy the model of adapters that are listed and type or paste them into this thread.  When we know the modem model and wifi card model, we should be able to come up with a reasonable approach to the problem.  Fwiw, I don't think I ever saw anything more than 105 - 110 Mb/s on a 2.4 Ghz network from my CGN3, and that was at close range to the modem.

 

The other issue is the possibility of living in a busy wifi neighbourhood.  If you install a program like inSSIDer to look at that environment, you, or we should be able to determine how tough it will be to see higher data rates.  The link below is to the last freebie version of inSSIDer.  It will monitor both 2.4 and 5 Ghz networks, but it does not display the newer 802.11ac networks which run in the 5 Ghz band.  The network display will show both in list form and graphically, how many other routers are running nearby and from the graphical display, it is possible to determine if there are better channels to be operating on that might yield higher data rates.  If your laptop is 5 Ghz capable, you should notice a significant difference in the number of 2.4 Ghz networks running versus the number of 5 Ghz networks running.  That might give you some idea that the 5 Ghz band is a better place to be operating.  If you load the application, take a screen shot of the network display and post it somewhere that we can have a look at it, we can tell you how easy or difficult it might be to switch channels.

 

 

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/5936-inssider.html

 

Here is a link to the new version which has since become a pay version.  For $20 U.S., if you run networks in the 5 Ghz band, its worth buying.

 

http://www.inssider.com/inssider4/

Re: slow wifi


@Gdkitty wrote:
I wouldn't 100% say the vivienm

I am currently running a fairly basic 2.4ghz Intel N card in my laptop.
I am able to get About 97mbps on speed tests with it.

Big difference is as well, that I am running my own N66U as an AP.
I think a good portion of it is the wifi end on the CGN3 as well.

How dense an environment are you in? i.e. apartment, townhouse, big spread-out single-family house, etc?

 

And yes, I agree, the N66U is going to be better than the CGN3. In all fairness, I've never done serious speedtesting on 2.4 using the AC68U, maybe I'd be pleasantly surprised...

Re: slow wifi

CarolS51
I plan to stick around

Thank you everyone for helping! im not very good with computers..so everything you mentioned and numbers, i have no clue what that all means!

 

 i am using the CGN3 Modem and my Network Adapters are Broadcom NetLink (TM) gigabit Ethernet and Realtek RTL8188CE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC

 

I will download what you mentioned and see if i can add the screenshot! Thanks so much for your help

 

Re: slow wifi

Take your time, and if we say something that you don't understand, please let us know so that we can provide a better explanation.  Take it slow and don't get flustered by the details...  There are a good number of people here who can help  🙂

Re: slow wifi


@CarolS51 wrote:

Thank you everyone for helping! im not very good with computers..so everything you mentioned and numbers, i have no clue what that all means!

 

 i am using the CGN3 Modem and my Network Adapters are Broadcom NetLink (TM) gigabit Ethernet and Realtek RTL8188CE Wireless LAN 802.11n PCI-E NIC

 

I will download what you mentioned and see if i can add the screenshot! Thanks so much for your help

 


I'm looking at the specs for the RTL8188CE (http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=48&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=272), which strikes me as a bargain-basement elcheapo joke of a card typical of what is found in consumer-grade Windows laptops or desktops.

 

This puzzles me:

"72.2Mbps receive PHY rate and 72.2Mbps transmit PHY rate using 20MHz bandwidth

  • 150Mbps receive PHY rate and 150Mbps transmit PHY rate using 40MHz bandwidth"

Datalink, you understand this stuff better than me - does that mean the card, with a 20MHz channel, will only do 72 megabits?

 

Re: slow wifi

Yes, exaclty.  72.1 Mb/s with a single channel, and 150 Mb/s with two channels with the second channel running as the co-channel.  The wifi card only supports one antenna, so it is a single transmit, single receive, single data stream wifi card.

 

If you look at this chart, you can see, for the entries where the spacial streams equals 1, that data translates to what this wifi card can do.  Again, it is a single data stream device which can support one 20 Mhz wide data channel or two 20 Mhz wide data channels.

 

http://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/media/gallerypage/user-id/829158/image-id/1128i1B0D5B8474F8D75B

 

To run two channels, the wifi environment would have to be quiet enough that two channels could be used.  If not, the wifi card will only, and possibly always run a single 20 Mhz wide channel.

Re: slow wifi

CarolS51
I plan to stick around

@Datalink Thank you! I downloaded what you suggested and did a screen shot..only problem i have no idea how to put it on here for you to see! 

Re: slow wifi


@Datalink wrote:

Yes, exaclty.  72.1 Mb/s with a single channel, and 150 Mb/s with two channels with the second channel running as the co-channel.  The wifi card only supports one antenna, so it is a single transmit, single receive, single data stream wifi card.


So assuming a single channel setup (does anyone outside rural areas actually manage to usably run 40MHz-wide 2.4GHz?!), that would mean the theoretical max performance CarolS51 could get is 72 megabits/sec? which probably translates to a real-world 45-50ish?

Re: slow wifi

VivienM you are correct.  CarolS51, do you post pictures anywhere for other people to see?  If not, I'll send a private message with an email address so that you can paste that into an email.  Please check the upper right hand corner of this page where the envelope symbol is located and follow the envelope link. 

 

 

Edit:  @CarolS51, message sent.  Please check the envelope symbol at the upper right hand corner

 

Looking back at your first message, your getting 35-48 Mb/s, where the maximum for your wifi card when it runs a single wifi channel at 72.2 Mb/s max.  So, your not very far from the max data rate in that case.  Laptops typically have 2 antennas for wifi cards and therefore the data rate is doubled, usuall with a maximum of 300 Mb/s.  If you look at the graphical display, and see where your wifi channel is currenlty running, 4 channels up from that is where the channel that is used for the secondary transmit / receive channel is located.  The wifi card, along with the modem or router, agree to use the first channel, and the secondary channel if it is not already occupied.  If the secondary channel is occupied or noisy, it it not used, and only the first channel is used, which will limit the maximum data rate to 72 Mb/s.  With both channels running you would see a maximum of 150 Mb/s.

 

Here is the manufacturers page for your wifi card:

 

http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/productsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=48&Level=5&Conn=4&ProdID=272

 

Ok, here's the inSSIDer screenshot:  http://www.screencast.com/t/5EIcdhAW

 

If you look at the graphical portion, you can see where your channel happens to be operating at the moment, which is channel 2.  Channel 7 is occupied by the Aliant011 network.  That is the other router or modem that is really preventing your wifi card from using channel 6 to run a secondary channel.  What that image also shows is that you in a very tough wifi environment, and are competing with a number of wifi routers / modems for channel space.  Every channel is occupied, which is shown by the channels shown in red, yellow and grey.  That means that everyone in your area will be running single channels for their devices, which limits the maximum data rates to the devices.  So, I'm afraid that I don't have good news for you in terms of the data rates that you would like to be running via wireless. 

 

Are you in a house, or apartment by chance?  Just wondering.

Topic Stats