[SOLVED] Slow wireless speed on a new PC

[bojackho]

I am not a computer person but I am going to do my best here.

My dad has complained that he has been getting slow speeds on his new PC that he bought a couple of months ago. I ran a speed test and got 10 mbps. I ran a speed test from my Macbook from the exact same spot and got 300 mbps. So I concluded that the problem is not the wi-fi but his computer.

I ruled out malware because (i) it is a new computer, (ii) he said it was slow from day 1, and (iii) he has only used it for banking. Based on (i) and (ii), I figured it wasn't a software update issue either -- but I made sure to update everything and it did not help. I also purchased an external wifi adapter and that did not help either (side note: it installed and assured me it was good to go, but I'd like to know if it is actually doing the work). The wifi bars fluctuate between one bar to full. But even when it is at full, I never get above 10-12 mbps.

So now I am out of ideas and came here to ask for help. Willing to provide any additional information needed to help diagnose the problem. Thanks.

 

[bojackho]

A couple of updates:

(1) I looked in Network Connections, and it appears that my wifi is still connected via Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac rather than the external USB Adapter. I see the external adapter but it wouldn't let me connect to it for some reason.

(2) When I go into "Wi-Fi Status", it says my Speed is 195.0 Mbps.

(3) For what it's worth, the PC is the only Windows device on the network (and the only having any issues, out of ~7 total devices connected)

(4) Also wanted to post this for reference:
Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Adapter
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 1C-BF-C0-B1-A6-D3 DHCP
Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
Link-local IPv6 Address . . . . . : fe80::c428:8cac:a3f:d9ab%20(Preferred)
IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.13(Preferred)
Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Monday, August 9, 2021 9:54:31 PM
Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, August 10, 2021 9:54:31 PM
Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
DHCPv6 IAID . . . . . . . . . . . : 186433472 DHCPv6
Client DUID. . . . . . . . : 00-01-00-01-26-98-E5-09-BC-E9-2F-FC-25-1E
DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
NetBIOS over Tcpip. . . . . . . . : Enabled Ethernet adapter Bluetooth Network Connection:
Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :
Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Bluetooth Device (Personal Area Network)
Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 1C-BF-C0-B1-A6-D4 DHCP
Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes

 

[bill001g]

You may want to try to disable the onboard wifi in the bios or if the laptop has a button that turns off the wifi. This should allow you to use the other wifi. This may be simpler than finding what is causing it to prefer the internal wifi.

There is not much else other than drivers which you have done.

What is interesting is the "195.0 MBps" number. This isn't really a transfer rate but represents how the data in encoded. You can look these up in a table called MCS. It is important to get the exact number 195 means something very different than 180

In this case it means your devices is attempting to use 80mhz channels but it getting fairly poor signal levels. It is hard to say exactly how poor because you can get 195 running 1x1 mimo at say 50% signal level or you can get 195 running 2x2 mimo at 25%.

I would see if there is a option to force the device to use 40mhz channels. You can likely force this on the router but if you can set it on the end device it would not affect other devices.

All I can think of that would affect signals level is if there was something wrong with the antenna cables. If this is one of the newer desktops that has wifi on the motherboard there are no cables. On desktop check that the antenna are firmly attached. Some people on new machines forget to attach the antenna.

 

[bojackho]

Thanks for the help, bill001g.

I disabled the onboard wifi receiver, which enabled the external wifi adapter, which helped! The download speed went from 10 mbps to 180 mbps -- yes, still lower than what I am getting on the Macbook from the same spot, but definitely good enough considering the infrequent use of the computer.