What WiFi speeds can I expect?

21 replies [Last post]
kabo
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Joined: 09/05/2015

I bought this Atheros AR5B95 AR9285 from amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Atheros-AR5B95-AR9285-802-11A-PCI-E/dp/B0098VWMOE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441819790&sr=8-1&keywords=B0098VWMOE

But I'm not very satisfied with the wifi speed, I think it's quite slow. iwconfig says Bit Rate is 65 Mb/s, Tx-Power 31 dBm, Link Quality 70/70, Signal level -39 dBm.
I'm getting around 1 megabyte/s transfers.

But isn't that card supposed to be 802.11n? My MacBook with 802.11n has a Bit Rate of 217 Mb/s and downloads at around 11 megabytes/second.

Is there some config I should tweak to get faster wifi?

kabo
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Joined: 09/05/2015

Seems it can get better, but I've already done the stuff in this post with no difference:
https://askubuntu.com/a/186603

antiesnob
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Joined: 08/22/2013

65/8=8MB/s Don't know why u get 1MB/s

How's your network desing? You have 1MB/s transfer from the Internet or from a local computer of your LAN/PAN? How far is the router from the atheros? More than one computer is downloading data from Internet? Information needed!

kabo
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Joined: 09/05/2015

I was downloading the same file from my NAS on both computers. Both computers approx 3 meters from the router. The file was traveling from my NAS, cat6 cable, Asus RT-AC68U, WiFi, to laptop, in both cases. Transfer was over SMB.

I'm at work now, but when I get home I do a better test for the actual speeds. My thinking is that I can set up my home server like this:
$ cat /dev/urandom | nc -l 1234
and then on my laptop
$ nc server.ip 1234 > /dev/null

That should be a better indicator for actual max speeds. I'll try to get that done tonight.

Is anybody else using an X200 with Atheros AR9285? What kind of speeds are you getting?

moxalt
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Joined: 06/19/2015

> 11 megabytes/second

You lucky people- I consider 300kb/s fast. 500 tops. Usually around 120.

Calinou
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Joined: 03/08/2014

I think they are talking about local copying speeds. With Gigabit Ethernet, you can reach up to ~120 MB/s (megabytes, not megabits). With Fast Ethernet, ~12 MB/s.

davidnotcoulthard (not verified)
davidnotcoulthard

Metoo - I consider 40kb/s as decent (I usually get around 120 too though)!

kabo
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Joined: 09/05/2015

OK, I did the test with urandom described above. My MacBook is stable at 16 megabyte/s. My X200 is fluctuating wildly but seems to average around 500 kilobyte/s.

The Bit Rate from iwconfig says 65 Mb/s but the card is capable of 150 Mb/s (to my understanding). Nobody else here running a libreboot X200 with an atheros card? Does the transfer speeds not get any better that this?

Chris

I am a member!

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Joined: 04/23/2011

You won't be able to get 150 Mb/s. That's more a theoretical maximum.

antiesnob
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Joined: 08/22/2013

What happens if u switch the pcs places? atheros to the mac and vice versa?
Don0t have a x200, sorry

kabo
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Joined: 09/05/2015

The machines are sitting next to each other. Or do you mean switch the network cards of the computers? I don't think that's going to work...

antiesnob
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Joined: 08/22/2013

The first

kabo
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Joined: 09/05/2015

I've bought a AR9280, a AR9281 and a AR9287 to see if they are any better. Will be back with results when I get them in the mail :)

antiesnob
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Joined: 08/22/2013

See u r plenty of money to give. Any litecoins 4 the poor?? LOL

kabo
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Joined: 09/05/2015

It's $25 for three cards, shipping included. That kind of money I can afford to spend :)

antiesnob
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Joined: 08/22/2013

Have u read the first review in da amazon link?

What happens if u move the NB to 7 meters from the router? Without the mac?

Try check the router settings: set to only /n instead of backwards compatibility and reboot it.

Also why don't you put the output:

lshw -C network

kabo
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Joined: 09/05/2015

My router is already set to only n. It doesn't make any difference if the Mac is present or not or if I move the thinkpad around.

output:

$ sudo lshw -C network
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 19
bus info: pci@0000:00:19.0
logical name: eth0
version: 03
serial: 00:1f:16:11:72:ba
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=2.3.2-k firmware=1.8-3 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
resources: irq:44 memory:e1700000-e171ffff memory:e1724000-e1724fff ioport:4000(size=32)
*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 01
serial: 74:f0:6d:0d:6f:bb
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=3.13.0-63-generic firmware=N/A ip=172.27.27.172 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bgn
resources: irq:17 memory:e1500000-e150ffff

Chris

I am a member!

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Joined: 04/23/2011

What you need to do is go get a dual-band card. Your speeds you can get should improve.

kabo
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Joined: 09/05/2015

Yup, that's what I'm hoping for. Hopefully I'll be able to give a good review on which of the four cards I'll have in total works best for me.

kabo
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Joined: 09/05/2015

OK, the results are in!

Here's how I tested:
On my local server (connected with gigabit tp to my Asus RT-AC68U) I ran
$ cat /dev/urandom | nc -l 1234
and on my X200 I ran
$ nc server.ip 1234 > /dev/null
I then monitored the speeds with conky and estimated the average speed I was getting.

Here's what I got
ar5b91 5.5-6 mb/s
ar5b92 12.5-13 mb/s
ar5b97 11.5-12 mb/s

So now I'm using the ar5b92 card and it seems to be performing nicely :)

EDIT: clarification
ar5b91 => ar9281
ar5b92 => ar9280 (actually ar5bhb92?)
ar5b97 => ar9287

antiesnob
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Joined: 08/22/2013

Thanks 4 the feedback :D