[SOLVED] HUGE variation in WiFi speeds with repeated speed tests.

[Frooby]

Hi all.

I have TalkTalk fibre along with their latest Sagecom FAST 5364, and things are fine when connected via Ethernet - a good, solid circa 30Mbps.

Via WiFi, however, things are weird. Pages can often be painfully slow to load to my Packard Bell L5800 all-in-one PC (which is running fine...), with the scrolling symbol going for a few seconds. What's really strange, tho', is how variable the speed results are - I have moved the PC to within a metre of the router and have just run a number of TalkTalk speed tests one after t'other. These returned:

25ms, 2.6Mbps down, 0.4Mbps up
20ms, 28Mbps down, 8Mbps up
24ms, 4.5Mbps down, 0.9Mbps up
21ms, 3 Mbps down, 1.1Mbps up

Plugged in Ethernet cable and 19ms, 30Mbps down, 8Mbps up

My phone returns similar variations in speed, so it looks as tho' it's not my PC

Just tried my PC again via WiFi and the down speed started at 1.1Mbps and climbed at a very steady pace up to 11.4 throughout the test. Tried again, and it gave 29.6Mbps.

What could be causing such variation?! How do I begin to sort it?! (I have also asked on the TT forum, but have found it to be as slow as my WiFi in the past...)

Many thanks.

 

[Ralston18]

Are you sure that only one network adapter (either wired or wireless) is enabled on each computer?

What frequency and channel are you using for wireless? Try changing to move away from interference or congested bands.

 

[Frooby]

Many thanks Ralston18.

I'll check what you suggest - I presume I'll find network adaptors under network settings?

The router has two bands - one at 2.5GHz and one at 5Ghz. The PC connects via the 2.5GHz band, and I'm not sure if any device in the home uses 5Ghz (would my wife's Samsung S8?), so I've tried turning it off.

In theory, tho', should it be ok to have both on, and each device in the house simply connects to the most appropriate band?

Cheers.

 

[Frooby]

Turning off the 5GHz band seems to have sorted it. It's running virtually as fast as wired

 

[bill001g]

Very interesting fix. People use the 5g band generally because it has more bandwidth and therefore more speed. It does have less ability to penetrate walls so it has less coverage in most houses but is generally a lot faster. Does not matter so much in your case where your internet is only 30mbps.

Maybe your PC was connecting to the 5g band because it "thought" it was better because it had higher signal levels but was getting lots of interference.

It should not hurt to have the 5g band turned on. If you use different SSID then you should have more control over what device is talking to what radio.

 

[Frooby]

Thanks Bill.

I'm not going to pretend I understand the intricacies of this, and I think you are right when you say 2.5GHz - which seemingly travels and penetrates further - is adequate in my case as it seemingly handles the full 30Mbps speed I get from my fibre.

I'll probably play around with SSIDs later just for fun