Question Slow Wifi Speeds on Windows 10 Computer (working fine on all other devices)

[nate2501]

My computer wi-fi is very slow. When I do an internet speed test it comes in at about 80-100 mbs but on my laptop and phone i get 300-600. I also have super high erratic ping in games on the computer which has an Qualcomm Atheros AR938x Wireless Network Adapter. I tried restarting, reinstalling windows, reinstalling drivers- basically everything on this computer but the wifi and ping are still terrible- yet is fine on my phone and laptop connecting to the same wifi. If anyone has any idea what this could be please let me know! I would really appreciate it.

 

[rgd1101]

are you testing the laptop and phone at the same location as the pc?

 

[nate2501]

are you testing the laptop and phone at the same location as the pc?

Yes. My computer is pretty close to the router. I have even tested the phone and laptop further away and they are still both significantly higher. Theres a problem with the computer- I genuinely do not know what to do.

 

[JohnMGotts]

And what speed does it run when you connect via ethernet cable to the router?

 

[bill001g]

That is a rather old and strange card it is 802.11n or wifi4. Most cards do not use 3x3 mimo.

Your phone likely is using a much more modern wifi chip.

There are many variable involved. Make sure you are using the 5ghz radio band, you might have to set the SSID differently on your router so you can force it. Most other things depend on stuff like how many antenna/mimo the router supports.

It is not uncommon to see less than 100mbps on most 802.11n cards....and even less if you are connection on the 2.4ghz radio.

So first why do you need more than 80mbps. Generally you only need more speed if you are downloading large files. You can eaisly watch 4k netflix and having more speed will not make it run any differnet. If you are like many people on this forum and play games on the machine then you have a couple issues. A larger connection is helpful for those massive 20gbyte game installs but it is still wifi. Wifi is always going to randomly get ping spikes and lag in games.

If you can't just use a ethernet cable maybe consider buying a newer wifi card. You can get wifi6e cards for the $30 range. Be careful though if you are running something like windows 7 you might want to stick with 802.11ac (wifi5) since drivers are hard to get for older OS.

.....never mind the last comment I didn't read your title. Most cards you can now get win10 drivers for. The newest and expensive wifi7 though sometimes only suport win11 "offically"