Wifi adapter upgrade

[DrCanada]

Hello there!

 

I am a casual gamer with a brostrend AC1200 dual antenna USB wifi adapter and I am getting some noticeable lag in call of duty modern warfare and rainbow six siege. I don’t think my wifi itself is the problem(internet speed test says 61mbps on my pc)so I am thinking of upgrading my adapter to a TP-Link archer t6e so I was wondering if it was going to make the lag disappear and my connection faster.

[MartinKweh]

15 hours ago, DrCanada said:

Hello there!

 

I am a casual gamer with a brostrend AC1200 dual antenna USB wifi adapter and I am getting some noticeable lag in call of duty modern warfare and rainbow six siege. I don’t think my wifi itself is the problem(internet speed test says 61mbps)so I am thinking of upgrading my adapter to a TP-Link archer t6e so I was wondering if it was going to make the lag disappear and my connection faster.

it depends. last time I had one of those wasnt caused by the adapter but rather by the wifi router. 

[DrCanada]

8 hours ago, Martin2132 said:

it depends. last time I had one of those wasnt caused by the adapter but rather by the wifi router. 

There are 4 people in my house that use the wifi a lot

[sphbecker]

I bought a TP-Link T6E and was very disappointed. It worked, but the Windows 10 driver for that Broadcom chipset doesn't seem to support 802.11ac. I tried every driver I could find, all had the same issue. As far as Windows was concerned, it was an 802.11n device and performed as such.

 

I switched it out for the below Gigabyte card instead. It is basically just an adapter to allow a laptop style M.2 card (Intel AX200 card included). It works great, connecting at 802.11ac no problem and love that I also get Bluetooth and future support for 802.11ax for when I upgrade my router.

https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GC-Wbax200-802-11Ax-Bluetooth-Expansion/dp/B07VNBC5PS/ref=sr_1_8?keywords=ax200&qid=1574201346&sr=8-8

 

My only complaint is that due to a difference between M.2 and PCIe the card also needs USB connectivity for Bluetooth to function (plugs into an internal header on your motherboard). If you don't connect USB WiFI will still work, that part connects via PCIe.

 

As far as the question "will it fix lag"? Probably not. What it will do is move your WiFi traffic off your USB bus, which could lighten congestion on your motherboard's chipset, but that is unlikely your problem. The external antenna is much higher gain than what you have now and you should see 1 or 2 ms smaller pings, but the reality is that on a modem computer, the USB bus is more than capable of handling a WiFi connection. The lag you are seeing is unlikely related.

[DrCanada]

6 minutes ago, sphbecker said:

I bought a T6e and was very disappointed. It worked, but the Windows 10 driver for that Broadcom chipset doesn't seem to support 802.11ac. I tried every driver I could find, all had the same issue. As far as Windows was concerned, it was an 802.11n device and performed as such.

 

I switched it out for the below Gigabyte card instead. That is basically just an adapter to allow a laptop style M.2 card (Intel ax200 card included). It works great, connecting at 802.11ac no problem and love that I also get Bluetooth and future support for 802.11ax for when I upgrade my router.

https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GC-Wbax200-802-11Ax-Bluetooth-Expansion/dp/B07VNBC5PS/ref=sr_1_8?keywords=ax200&qid=1574201346&sr=8-8

 

My only complaint is that due to a difference between M.2 and PCIe the card also needs USB connectivity for Bluetooth to function (plugs into an internal header on your motherboard). If you don't connect USB WiFI will still work, that part connects via PCIe.

But will upgrading to the gigabyte one make me get faster internet speed?

[sphbecker]

I edited my post after you replied (sorry to make it confusion, I didn't see you already replied).

 

Short answer, it depends on a lot of things that I don't know. Here is what I can tell you.

• That PCIe Intel chipset is hands-down better than a USB attached wifi chip
• If you have an 802.11ac (WiFi 5) or better router, then upgrading your WiFi card will put you closer to parody with Ethernet connected devices
• A WiFi card can only improve the connection between your computer and the router. Test plugging into the router with an Ethernet cable to see what your best case speed is, if that is still 62, then upgrading the WiFi card will not give you anything
• The lag you see in game is unlikely related to the USB WiFi or Internet speeds.

[DrCanada]

8 minutes ago, sphbecker said:

I edited my post after you replied (sorry to make it confusion, I didn't see you already replied).

 

Short answer, it depends on a lot of things that I don't know. Here is what I can tell you.

• That PCIe Intel chipset is hands-down better than a USB attached wifi chip
• If you have an 802.11ac (WiFi 5) or better router, then upgrading your WiFi card will put you closer to parody with Ethernet connected devices
• A WiFi card can only improve the connection between your computer and the router. Test plugging into the router with an Ethernet cable to see what your best case speed is, if that is still 62, then upgrading the WiFi card will not give you anything
• The lag you see in game is unlikely related to the USB WiFi or Internet speeds.

Ok. So what is the lag related to then?

[sphbecker]

It is hard to say without having seen it myself. Is it just a slowed frame rate? Or does it freeze for extended amounts of time? One thing you could test is open a command prompt and type ping google.com -t and let that run while you game. After, press CTRL+C and look at the stats. What was the max ping time? (should be less than 150) Did you drop any packets? If the connection looks fine, then networking isn't your issue at all. If you are dropping packets, then try the same thing but pinging the IP address of your router. Router pings should be perfect, no drops, no pings above 10ms. If you see any bad pings pinging your router, then WiFi is your issue. If you don't, then call your ISP and have them check your line.

 

I hope that helps.

[sphbecker]

One more thing, if your PC is getting very hot (close to overheating) then USB will start to act strange and you could be dropping WiFi for that reason. If that is the case, then yes, a PCIe card will get around that issue, but you really need to look at better cooling if it is getting that hot.