Is my chassis obstructing my wireless signal?

[JustinKrulicki]

I believe my brand new workstation chassis could be causing a wireless signal interference. Just installed an Asus PCE-N15 adapter. Running on 2.4 GHz. 5 GHz is also available and only taxed by 1 other device.

System:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4690K CPU @ 3.50GHz, 3501 Mhz, 4 Core(s)
Video Card: AMD FirePro V4900 (FireGL V)
Power Supply: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250G SCSI Disk Device
Chassis: Corsair 200R

Test #1: Chassis is right beside wireless router
80 Mbps download, 15 Mbps upload

Test #2: Chassis is at same elevation as router, antennas pointing in same direction as router, but going through 1 wall, 30 ft away from router
40 Mbps download, 10 Mbps upload

Test #3: Rotate chassis 180° so antennas are facing the wall (chassis is now in between antennas and router). Same elevation, same distance as above test
18 Mbps download, 10 Mbps upload

Test #4: Rotated chassis, same as test #3, but lowered chassis to the ground level (4' drop)
0-10 Mbps download, 0-8 Mbps upload
Would occasionally time-out rogers speed test
Consistently close to 0 Mbps during peak hours, failing to connect or taking forever to connect to internet pages

Test #5: My laptop, in the same positions as the tower achieves much higher download speeds on the 2.4 GHz network and double the speeds on the 5GHz.

Are these tests not indicating that the chassis itself is blocking the wireless signal to the rear-facing wireless adapter? Is this normal for workstations with towers? Could any high voltage internal devices (ps) be causing this? What might be the effect of swapping the adapter for a different adapter that runs on 5 GHz? Why are download speeds only affected?

Already tried ASUS drivers and preferred RealTek drivers. Can post pictures if necessary.
Any help would be appreciated. I really don't want to run an ethernet cable or move this machine to the other room.

Thanks in advance!
Justin

 

[digitaldoc]

Yes, the metal case can definitely interfere with the wifi signal. This is why I use USB wifi- so I can position it away from the case, towards the router to maximize the signal.

 

[DeauteratedDog]

Yes, that is exactly what is happening. Your chassis is a big hunk of metal which will block the signal very effectively, as you have shown. Antennas really want to be in clear space.

If you must locate put the chassis somewhere that it blocks the path to your access point/router then you should re-locate the antennas to a position where they are not blocked.

You can purchase antenna stands to hold the antennas in a better location (example: Rosewill RNX-AS14001). For .11n or .11ac radios, you need to relocate all of the antennas for best performance, for .11a, .11.b, or .11g relocating all the antennas is still a good idea, but less important.