Question Strangely slow download speed ?

[evandyk]

I have a Beelink SER6 Max Mini PC. It is pretty great for the tiny package, but has one flaw. Strangely slow download speed.

• AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX
• Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160MHz

On speedtest, I usually get no more than 20 Mbps download speed, and it often crawls at below 10. Upload speed is always much better - usually 70-100 Mbps.

For comparison, an iPad Mini next to the computer gets typically 300 Mbps both down and up, and an iPhone gets around 100 Mbps up and down.

The modem reports that it's getting 1.1 Gbps down and 750 Mbps up.

Is it just the tiny antenna? Or might there be a software, settings or driver issue going on? I installed the latest drivers from Intel.

Thanks!

Edit to add: I just tried to hotspot my computer to my phone and got 100 Mbps down and 30 Mbps up which is pretty much all of what my cell service is capable of.

 

[bill001g]

Make sure you are connecting on the 5ghz radio on your router. You want the ssid different so you can force it to connect where you want.

If you machine is connecting on 2.4 on the router and 5 on the phone it would explain the difference.

So many variables involved. You need to see the wifi radio channels being used when you are connecting to the router and phone. Could be some radio frequcies have more interferece than others. You can generally see stuff like this in the wifi status. It many times will tell you the channels and the so called "speed". This speed though represents the encoding being used and is a result of the pc negotitation what it thinks is the best option.

Takes almost nothing to block radio signals so even tiny difference in the placement of the unit might block antenna and it is worse when the antenna are small to begin with.

 

[evandyk]

Every time I've looked it's connected to the Gghz, though I haven't locked it there in the settings.

What's weird to me is that the download is so much slower than the upload, and that that's very consistent.

 

[bill001g]

With wifi upload and download speed on more modern devices negotiate the data encoding method separately.

What it generally means in your case is the router can hear the signals sent from your device better than your device can hear the signals from the router.

Depends on the device driver but many times you can see the 2 different negotiated rates on the status screen.

Doesn't matter a lot the device attempt to get the best signals they can and there is not much you can change that will affect it.

I have for a very long time wanted some kind of display so you could see what kind of errors and data retransmission the wifi chips were doing. This was my first attempt and failure at modifying third party firmware for a router. All this function is inside the wifi cpu chip and there is no ability to change the software load into the chip by the router.

You only real option is to try to move the box around and see if you can get a different signal pattern. The only other things you have any control over is the radio band (ie 2.4 & 5) and the radio channels you are using.

 

[bill001g]

If you get desperate enough you likely could use a external USB wifi device. Maybe there is something wrong with the wifi chip on your pc motherboard.

 

[evandyk]

You only real option is to try to move the box around and see if you can get a different signal pattern. The only other things you have any control over is the radio band (ie 2.4 & 5) and the radio channels you are using.

I can only move it around so much since it's kind of attached to my desk, but I'll see if I can get it to the other side of the room and see if that makes a difference. I think I have a long HDMI cable.

 

[evandyk]

I got a USB adapter and instantly went from 8/25 to 50/90.

 

[evandyk]

The adapter has a cradle and a 1m cable, so I moved it up a little higher and got 300/200. Must be the tiny antenna in my tiny computer. Unfortunately that means two of my three USB-A ports are permanently occupied.

 

[bill001g]

The mini computers are kinda strange with wifi. A true desktop would have large external antenna. A laptop has big antenna behind the screen. Something like a phone or tablet although it also has small internal antenna they are not sitting on a desk so they tend to get better signals.

Then again your wifi nic in the machine might have just been defective and unfortunately they solder them on to the board.

Those usb adapter with long usb cables tend to work very well...sometimes better than the internal cards that have the antenna mounted directly on the card since the desktop case blocks the signal

 

[evandyk]

I got this one because it looked like it had a good large antenna. Seems to be working great.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BTTNN7FN?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_product_details