[?]Dual-band Wireless N adapter help

[silentbogo]

... really sick and tired of my ASUS PCE-N53 and horrendous platform/driver support from ASUS.

I am looking for a decent replacement, so if you have any suggestions, then please let me know what you have in mind.

My current router is ASUS RT-N66U

What am I looking for:
1) Dual-band adapter with at least 450Mbit/s support on 5GHz band
At this point I am limited to 300Mbit/s @2.4GHz only.

2) Linux support!
My old asus natively works with kernel 2.6, and the rest is community patched. Every time there is a critical update, I have to recompile and reinstall RaLink driver. Takes only 1-2 minutes, but still frustrates me. Plus it only can handle 2.4 GHz with max speed of 144Mbit/s (usually much less).

3) Windows 10 support
Right now I am sitting on Mediatek driver and this whole time I've only seen my 5GHz hotspot once. Asus updated Win10 driver works almost as bad as community-fixed Linux driver - no 5GHz, less than half of potential speed.

4) As cheap as possible: preferably a mainstream model, so I can look for used unit in the neighborhood. The most I can spend is ~$30.

Additional details: I am from Ukraine and my router is ASUS RT-N66U (black knight ).

 

[eidairaman1]

5GHz range doesnt go that far no matter what Router you have. Id suggest a Nighthawk from netgear honestly. http://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/R8500.aspx

http://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-routers/R8000.aspx

 

[silentbogo]

5GHz range doesnt go that far no matter what Router you have.

My router is about 2m away from me. The positioning kinda sucks to mess with wires. At the same time my phone and iPad receive excellent signal in the same spot and even downstairs in the kitchen (~5m, 3 walls away), so it is definitely not the router issue.

All I am looking for is a wireless adapter to connect to my router and utilize at least 50% of the connection potential. Right now I have a 100Mbit/s internet connection and it works faster on my phone than on my PC-monstrosity.

 

[newtekie1]

You can try the TP-LINK TL-WDN4800. Though I'd try to find something that supports Wireless AC. It won't help now, but it probably will in the future if you get an AC router.

 

[silentbogo]

You can try the TP-LINK TL-WDN4800. Though I'd try to find something that supports Wireless AC. It won't help now, but it probably will in the future if you get an AC router.

I was just looking at that one: less than $20 locally [used]. It seems like linux support is excellent, the only issue is Win10 drivers.
I guess I'll go with it and see if it's working with Atheros latest drivers.

In case of emergency I can always revert to Win7 and wait until I make enough cash for a complete Wireless AC upgrade.

 

[remixedcat]

Ugh no TP links mine was melty when I bought it and got meltier when I used it with kali linux.

it was hot oven like on regular networky stuffs and flaming hot when it was using commview on windows 7 and molten lava on kali linux.

It was so hot I had a burn mark on my hand. my middle finger if still messed up from it.

i lost melty tho.

 

[Mussels]

As someone running an AC3200 router, i've got a lot of direct experience here.

1. You wont get 450Mb easily on anything but AC. Even when specs claim its a real thing, it often requires matching chipsets which is just a nightmare to deal with. Case in point, an N900 (450+450) dual band netgear here last night, got 180-200Mb a mere 2 meters from the router. Find a dual band AC adaptor that does the full 866Mb on 5GHz AC, and you'll find it has full speed support for N as well.

2. Cant help for linux.

3. Again with AC - all the chipsets are new, so W10 has support. No outdated or dead hardware to stress about being discontinued.

4. Look up these two models that i own:
Netcomm NP930 (has no native W10 drivers, works great)
D-link DWA-180A1 (has native W10 driver, but updated driver manually gives better speeds)

Personally i love TP link hardware, and have the same model as remixedcat is talking about as her 'melty' - she got a dud, the brands generally quite good value.

 

[silentbogo]

Thanks, guys!

I have a little update:
When I just started this thread, I installed a new Mediatek driver for Win10 and somehow only yesterday[!] a 5GHz band appeared (after at least 5-6 reboots).
I guess my ASUS adapter got really scared and decided to work.

I'm still going to roll with TP-Link WND4800 (unfortunately neither NP930, nor DWA-180A1 are available here and I don't have USB3.0 for Archer T4UH).

Thanks for all of your suggestions!

 

[Mussels]

i just dealt with a USB wifi that was playing up in W10, similar to what you describe. I had to manually install the drivers via device manager, as it wasnt automatically changing to the ones the 'setup' programs installed to the system.

 

[remixedcat]

Win 10 is a nightmare specially with wifi drivers!

 

[Aquinus]

I like the Intel 7260 I put in my old Dell laptop. Works in Linux ootb and supports 802.11AC. You'll need an adapter to get it in a tower though or one that comes with the adapter.

 

[silentbogo]

i just dealt with a USB wifi that was playing up in W10, similar to what you describe. I had to manually install the drivers via device manager, as it wasnt automatically changing to the ones the 'setup' programs installed to the system.

I've disabled driver updates a long time ago, but ASUS drivers are also horrible at best.

On standard Win10 driver my adapter was pulling 144Mbit/s.
ASUS driver was just as bad on either OS, but I've managed to make it work on Win7 and Win10 : 270-300Mbit/s 2.4GHz band after manually correcting some settings in driver config file and adding power boost to TX line. 5GHz was still absent.

This mediatek driver seems to work good so far: 300+300 Mbit/s and my Internet connection is finally pushing close to its full potential (60/90 down/uplink out of 100/100 max).

 

[Aquinus]

This mediatek driver seems to work good so far: 300+300 Mbit/s and my Internet connection is finally pushing close to its full potential (60/90 down/uplink out of 100/100 max).

That isn't how wi-fi bandwidth is measured. Your router has 2.4 and 5Ghz 802.11N which is a max aggregate speed of 450MBit (MIMO 3x3,) or 300Mbit (MIMO 2x2). So if your adapter is claiming full speed, say 300Mbit that's really your total bandwidth in both directions, not total in one direction. Depending on the wi-fi signal, you could be connected at something like full speed (150Mbit up, 150Mbit down.) Or, if your AP has a really strong wi-fi signal but you're using something like a phone, you very well might have something like 15Mbit up, 100Mbit down, which would show up as being connected at 115Mbit which is misleading.

For example, I have something like ~172Mbit download on my internet but, my wi-fi adapter on my tower will run at full speed (2x2, 300Mbit (150Mbit/150<Mbit)) and if I speed test on my tower, I get ~150Mbit down but, if I plug in or use my laptop which has a 3x3 MIMO adapter, I will see 170.

Upstream and downstream rates don't need to be the same and probably won't be unless your signal (in both directions,) is pristine (and equal,) you probably won't see full speed but full speed is usually half of the reported bandwidth so long as signal strength (and quality,) from both devices are equal.

Just FYI as there tends to be a lot of misinformation about wi-fi bandwidth.

 

[silentbogo]

That isn't how wi-fi bandwidth is measured. Your router has 2.4 and 5Ghz 802.11N which is a max aggregate speed of 450MBit (MIMO 3x3,) or 300Mbit (MIMO 2x2). So if your adapter is claiming full speed, say 300Mbit that's really your total bandwidth in both directions, not total in one direction. Depending on the wi-fi signal, you could be connected at something like full speed (150Mbit up, 150Mbit down.) Or, if your AP has a really strong wi-fi signal but you're using something like a phone, you very well might have something like 15Mbit up, 100Mbit down, which would show up as being connected at 115Mbit which is misleading.

For example, I have something like ~172Mbit download on my internet but, my wi-fi adapter on my tower will run at full speed (2x2, 300Mbit (150Mbit/150<Mbit)) and if I speed test on my tower, I get ~150Mbit down but, if I plug in or use my laptop which has a 3x3 MIMO adapter, I will see 170.

Upstream and downstream rates don't need to be the same and probably won't be unless your signal (in both directions,) is pristine (and equal,) you probably won't see full speed but full speed is usually half of the reported bandwidth so long as signal strength (and quality,) from both devices are equal.

Just FYI as there tends to be a lot of misinformation about wi-fi bandwidth.

What I meant is 300Mbit/s on 2.4GHz band and 300MHz on 5GHz band. Just too many words to write.

 

[Sasqui]

You wont get 450Mb easily on anything but AC. Even when specs claim its a real thing, it often requires matching chipsets which is just a nightmare to deal with. Case in point, an N900 (450+450) dual band netgear here last night, got 180-200Mb a mere 2 meters from the router. Find a dual band AC adaptor that does the full 866Mb on 5GHz AC, and you'll find it has full speed support for N as well.

I've got an AC-N66U ("N66R" model from Best Buy really). It says my 5Ghz connection is 450 mbps when I connect my Dell Precision M6700.

 

[95Viper]

I've got an AC-N66U ("N66R" model from Best Buy really). It says my 5Ghz connection is 450 mbps when I connect my Dell Precision M6700.

Could be showing that. You M6700 comes with these different cards as options:

Wireless LAN:
Intel Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 (802.11n 3x3 half Mini-Card)
Intel Centrino® Advanced-N 6205 (802.11n 2x2 half Mini-Card)
Dell Wireless 1540 (802.11 a/n dual band, high speed Wi-Fi half Mini-Card)
Dell Wireless 1504 (802.11 g/n single band Wi-Fi half Mini-Card)

You probably have this card installed --> Intel Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 (802.11n 3x3 half Mini-Card)

It is probably showing the negotiated speed.

 

[Sasqui]

Could be showing that. You M6700 comes with these different cards as options:

Wireless LAN:
Intel Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 (802.11n 3x3 half Mini-Card)
Intel Centrino® Advanced-N 6205 (802.11n 2x2 half Mini-Card)
Dell Wireless 1540 (802.11 a/n dual band, high speed Wi-Fi half Mini-Card)
Dell Wireless 1504 (802.11 g/n single band Wi-Fi half Mini-Card)

You probably have this card installed --> Intel Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 (802.11n 3x3 half Mini-Card)

It is probably showing the negotiated speed.

Yes, probably not the true speed, but it never is. I connected to a DLink 'N' router and could never get anything over 170 something.

I'll have to check later when I can grab Admin privs and run device manager

 

[95Viper]

It all depends on how many (and at which frequency they are for) transmitters (spatial streams) and the settings, modes, bands, etc. that each device on each end can handle, determines the speed the devices will negotiate

In your example, both, the router and the wireless card, are using 3x3 on wireless N; so, three transmitters, three antennas, three spatial streams at 40Mhz running each at 150Mbps gives you 450Mbps.
Just a simple explanation... does not include what goes on in the background, like the frequency variations on each spatial stream or the encoding/recoding, etc.
I have never been good explaining things; however, these two quotes put it into some perspective:


From "Everything you need to know about 802.11ac"

Tech corner:
To understand what’s changed with 802.11ac you really have to go back to the innovations that appeared in 802.11n. The big advancements we saw in 802.11n were multi-channel usage improved encoding and MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output).

The first one is easy to understand. The radio spectrum available for Wi-Fi communication is divided into 20MHz channels. Prior to 802.11n a single device was only permitted to use a single channel; with 802.11n a device could use two channels at once doubling the throughput.

MIMO is more complex. It allows a wireless transmitter to use multiple physically separated antennas to send multiple streams in the same frequency band using spatial division to keep the streams separate.

The number of antennas determines the number of spatial streams available and different encoding methods also support different data rates. As a result we ended up with a number of permutations of 802.11n: single spatial stream on a 20MHz channel (72Mbps commonly seen in mobiles) single spatial stream on a 40MHz channel (150Mbps) dual spatial streams on a 40MHz channel (300Mbps) and triple spatial streams on a 40MHz channel (450Mbps).

Simply put 802.11ac is 802.11n cranked up to the next level. Where 802.11n supported up to four spatial streams though we never saw more than three implemented 802.11ac supports up to eight. Where 802.11n was limited to 40MHz channels 802.11ac allows 80 and even 160MHz channels. Modulation encoding has also been upgraded from 64-QAM to 256-QAM to use the technical terms.

As with 802.11n we’re going to see multiple permutations depending on the capabilities of the access point or router. Indeed we already have: 867 and 1300Mbps devices are available right now. The 867Mbps devices use two spatial streams and 80MHz channels while the 1300Mbps devices use three. In the future we’ll likely see devices that support four spatial streams (1733Mbps) and possibly 160MHz channels for a total of 3466Mbps. Technically the specification goes even further – with eight spatial streams we could hit 6.93Gbps.

From a post at TH by Bob Silver

When you see ratings as N600 or N900 etc this is the total throughput of the router with all bands and radios being utilized. The differences between the bandwidth has to do with the number of radios per band that the router employs. In the N Wifi Standard each radio is capable of 150mbs. So if you put 2 radios you would get 300mbs in the band where they are employed. Now you only see these speeds if your client device has the equal number of radios. If you only have a single radio client then you will see a max speed of 150mbs regardless of the radios in the router. If you have 2 radio client device then you may see the 300mbs.

This is important to understand. When you look at routers and then the client connections you need to understand both. Unfortunately client device companies (laptops, smartphones, tablets , rokus etc) DON'T list their wifi specs clearly. The use adjectives like "extreme" etc that tell you nothing.

Also you need to look at router specs to understand where radios are placed. Example is in the Netgear 3700 N600 its 2 radios in the in the 2.4ghz band and 2 in the 5ghz band thus getting 300+300 = 600mbs potential. In a Netgear 4500 which lists it as N900 its 3 radios in the in the 2,4ghz and 3 in the 5ghz. If you see a router like the Netgear WNDR4300 its listed as N750. This has 2 radios in the 2.4ghz band and 3 in the 5ghz band. The maximum spec for N is 3 radios so a N900 router is the best you will see.

The AC spec is similar except that each radio is capable of approximately 450mbs (I think its like 433mbs). And this is only in the 5ghz band. The 2.4ghz band is the same as it is in the N spec. So when you see AC routers claiming AC1750 or so it is usually 3 radios in the 2.4ghz band for 450mbs and 3 radios in the the 5ghz band. But again you must have a matching client to access this. The new iphone 6 for example is a single radio AC device (all other iphones were single radio N devices where as iPads were 2 radios at least in the later models). So on a N network YOU'LL see 150mbs I believe and on AC you will see 450mbs. Again they DON'T list the specs as to what radio count they have. Just max throughput. This makes it very hard to know what you have.

Oh and there is NO bonding spec that I am aware of to use both bands simultaneously.

Hope this helps you understand the technology somewhat.

Bob Silver
NETGEAR Networking Assistant

 

[Mussels]

I've got an AC-N66U ("N66R" model from Best Buy really). It says my 5Ghz connection is 450 mbps when I connect my Dell Precision M6700.

if you have a 3x3 N setup, its possible - just extremely rare for compatible devices to actually negotiate it. AC can clearly go higher even at 2x2.

 

[newtekie1]

if you have a 3x3 N setup, its possible - just extremely rare for compatible devices to actually negotiate it. AC can clearly go higher even at 2x2.

In my experience, even a 1x1 AC connection is faster than a 3x3 N.

 

[Mussels]

In my experience, even a 1x1 AC connection is faster than a 3x3 N.

agreed. hence my push for AC hardware.

 

[Sasqui]

Intel Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 (802.11n 3x3 half Mini-Card)

Yes it is. What's the best way to test actual speed/throughput?

 

[95Viper]

What you want to do is test the WLAN speed and not the speed of your connection to the ISP... two different things.

I have used different things... Iperf & TamoSoft Throughput Test
To test you have to setup a server and client.

Tamosoft Throughput Test help & use web pages and the PDF file version

802.11ac and WLAN Throughput Testing Webinar <-- YouTube video, good info, skip through the advertising info at the beginning amd if you get bored with the discussion you can skip to 26:10 for using iperf and other software for testing.

Network throughput testing with iperf3

Iperf for Bandwidth Testing

Not as complicated as it sounds, after you do it a couple of times.

 

[Mussels]

or just do a file transfer, if you have a shared folder on your network.

 

[Sasqui]

or just do a file transfer, if you have a shared folder on your network.

Yes, hosted via QNap TS 253pro... what to measure file transfer? I'd like to test wired vs wireless. With speadtest, DL speeds were idrntical but that's capped by ISP bandwith. I was getting about 110 Mbps DL speeds