One laptop running slower than all others

[lolcomputers]

Hey guys, I am having an interesting issue with my Lenovo idea pad

I have an RCN cable connection that runs at 110mpbs, when running speedtest.net on my phone and work laptop I always land in the 105-115 range. However on my Lenovo ideapad it always falls in the 15-25 range, a fraction of the speed of the other devices on the network. I have narrowed it down to the wireless card, as when i connect the Lenovo to the internet with an ethernet cable, speedtest now falls in same range as the other devices. What gives? Why is the wireless card of the Lenovo running at 10-15% of the speed as the other devices?

The wireless card in the Lenovo is a qualcomm atheros ar9485wb-eg and i have made sure i have the most up to date drivers. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ketchup]

You may want to look at the Lenovo power settings on the laptop. As a test, have you tried running the test when plugged in vs on battery?

 

[lolcomputers]

For the battery power options on the laptop, using the icon by the clock, i always have it set to "high performance". Is there anywhere else where I can look at more specific power settings? The speedtest results are the same both plugged in and just running off the battery.

 

[Ketchup]

Unless they have changed the name, Lenovo Power Management. Should be in the control panel.

 

[lolcomputers]

When i purchased the laptop it came with windows 8 and i had since reformatted and installed windows 7. I did not have that utility on my laptop. I navigated through lenovo's website and searched power management and downloaded an "energy manager" tool which seemed the most similar thing to what you are describing, however once opening the tool I really dont see any options i can change that would have any effect on the wireless card.

 

[Ketchup]

Knowing that you replaced the original software would make a difference here. Did you ever look at the speed when the original OS was still on it? Is anything in device manager showing an error?

If you click on more power options from the battery icon and select change plan settings on the mode you are using, go down to wireless adapter settings and see what mode it is on. If not on maximum performance, try switching to that and see if it makes any difference.

 

[lolcomputers]

I unfortunately never checked the speed while on the original OS.
Nothing in device manager is showing an error.
When navigating through the power settings the mode was already set to maximum performance

 

[Ketchup]

Well, the only other thing I can think of would be to look for a newer driver on the Lenovo site.

You could go back to 8 and see if the speed is any better. With a good start menu replacement the OS really isn't that bad at all.

 

[VirtualLarry]

That's basically normal for that wifi card, more or less. You would have to replace it with something better, to get higher speeds. That's IF you can match the number and type of antennas, and your laptop doesn't BIOS-whitelist certain cards.

 

[azazel1024]

The ar9485wb-eg is single stream 11n, which means its max possible link rate is 150Mbps. With overhead and all that, figure at BEST 100Mbps under ideal circumstances, assuming you are using 40MHz channels and GOOD wifi NIC.

Knowing some of the crap products, especially among single stream 11n wifi NICs, I'd guess the card is at best capable of only 50-70Mbps and if you are running 20MHz wide, more like 20-30Mbps at best.

 

[lolcomputers]

Is there any simple fix? Are there any simple solutions like buying a usb wifi stick off of amazon or do all of those offer poor performance as well? Is switching out the wifi card of a laptop an easy process? Or is my current personal laptop always going to be slower than the other devices on my network?

 

[azazel1024]

Sure a USB wifi adapter should work well. What kind of wifi router is it? Do not get one of the micro USB wifi adapters (tiny adapter, tiny antenna). Replacing a wireless card in a laptop generally isn't hard at all. However, since it is a Lenovo laptop, it is almost 100% guaranteed to have a BIOS whitelist, which means you would ONLY be able to get a wireless adapter that is off the spec sheet for your laptop (check the laptop repair manual on Lenovo's website, it'll likely tell you the 2-4 Wifi adapter options that your model was spec'd with). Anything off that list and the laptop will refuse to boot.

Also other things you can do, like check to see if your adapter is running in 802.11n mode, if 20/40 coexistance is set to enabled or not, etc., etc. If you can, I'd screen shot the driver settings for the adapter and post them.