WiFi running slower than expected

[desdby]

Hello, my regular WiFi connection is supposed to be around 500 mb/s. Usually, my computer run it at around 200 mb/s. My antenna is facing right towards the satellite (I have a mesh system).

Here's what I've tried:
 

• Force link speed to be higher than 100 mb/s.
• Restart the computer.
• Remove background apps.

Help.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

21 minutes ago, desdby said:

Hello, my regular WiFi connection is supposed to be around 500 mb/s. Usually, my computer run it at around 200 mb/s. My antenna is facing right towards the satellite (I have a mesh system).

Here's what I've tried:
 

• Force link speed to be higher than 100 mb/s.
• Restart the computer.
• Remove background apps.

Help.

 

Firstly, there is no such thing as "supposed to be" on WiFi, conditions change all the time.

 

What do you even mean by "force link speed"?  You can't force the link speed on WiFi and clearly if you're getting 233Mbit the speed between the mesh nodes is already over 100Mbit.

 

Does the satellite have ethernet ports you can temporarily plugging into to see if the problem is between the mesh nodes?

 

Are the mesh modes connected wirelessly and do they have a dedicated backhaul channel?  If not, the connection from the second node will be half of what you get from the main node as they will be sharing the same channel to both talk to the main node and send data to your PC.

[DrMacintosh]

55 minutes ago, desdby said:

(I have a mesh system)

What make and model is your mesh network comprised of?

 

Keep in mind that using wireless back haul will adversely affect the speed of your client devices as some of that bandwidth is used for connecting the nodes together. This is especially noticeable on dual band mesh systems. On tri-band mesh systems, this effect is hardly noticeable.

 

What you can do is try taking all child nodes offline and then running a speed test connected to just the main node. If your speeds improve, you can safely say that the slowdown is due to the wireless connection between your other nodes.

[Alex Atkin UK]

18 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

On tri-band mesh systems, this effect is hardly noticeable.

Its not even that simple, as WiFi 6e is tri-band but unless one of those is dedicated to backhaul, you're still sharing one of those bands.  You generally need two 5Ghz radios so you can dedicate one of those to backhaul, as while 6Ghz is more ideal, the shorter range may be a problem in using it for that.

This is why wiring your nodes if possible will always be the best option.

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

as WiFi 6e is tri-band but unless one of those is dedicated to backhaul, you're still sharing one of those bands.

I believe, at least with Linksys Products, their 6e devices will use the 6GHz band as their back haul. Their Wifi 6 devices should favor the second 5Ghz band (if available) but can allegedly dynamically use bits of all available bands.

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

I believe, at least with Linksys Products, their 6e devices will use the 6GHz band as their back haul. Their Wifi 6 devices should favor the second 5Ghz band (if available) but can allegedly dynamically use bits of all available bands.

It will be interesting to see how WiFi 7 changes this, given all bands can dynamically be used and each band can be split into smaller components.

[desdby]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Firstly, there is no such thing as "supposed to be" on WiFi, conditions change all the time.

 

What do you even mean by "force link speed"?  You can't force the link speed on WiFi and clearly if you're getting 233Mbit the speed between the mesh nodes is already over 100Mbit.

 

Does the satellite have ethernet ports you can temporarily plugging into to see if the problem is between the mesh nodes?

 

Are the mesh modes connected wirelessly and do they have a dedicated backhaul channel?  If not, the connection from the second node will be half of what you get from the main node as they will be sharing the same channel to both talk to the main node and send data to your PC.

My computer has gotten 500 mb/s before, once I restarted it something happened & it became much slower.

[desdby]

36 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

What make and model is your mesh network comprised of?

 

Keep in mind that using wireless back haul will adversely affect the speed of your client devices as some of that bandwidth is used for connecting the nodes together. This is especially noticeable on dual band mesh systems. On tri-band mesh systems, this effect is hardly noticeable.

 

What you can do is try taking all child nodes offline and then running a speed test connected to just the main node. If your speeds improve, you can safely say that the slowdown is due to the wireless connection between your other nodes.

It's a Eero system, WiFi 6. One router, one satellite.