I have a Linksys E2500 router that is resulting in terrible WiFi speed. With a wired connection, I have the following results (I pay for 50 Mbps speed):
With wireless, at best it reaches 20% on a good day:
Most of the time my speed barely reaches 6 Mbs. This is even when my device is the only device connected to the router (wireless and wired). Also note that my device has an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 Adapter.
I have tried many things to improve my wireless speed, most with little success, including:
- Changing the channel to an unused channel in my area (i.e. channel 2)
- Limiting the channel width (i.e. 20 MHz only)
- Enabling/Disabling QoS and WMM
- Finding and setting the optimal DNS server (using Namebench)
I can also confirm that there is only one wireless device near the router that could possibly interfere (an LG 47LN5700 TV). However the wireless feature is not being used; it is connected directly into the router with an Ethernet cable. Prior to the current location, the router was in a room with no other wireless devices with which it could interfere and I still experienced the same behaviors.
Beyond my experimenting, I am failing to find any reason why my router is producing awful WiFi speed when it can support up to 300 Mbs speeds. I appreciate any recommendations for improving my WiFi speed.
104 Answers
The WiFi signal is lossy, the distance between your machine and the access point greatly affects transfer speed. If you have another PC, you can find out by yourself by sending some files over ftp.
Furthermore, even though an ap is one one channel, the signal interferes with others. Its like a parabola. If you can, you should pick a channel that does not overlap. These are 1, 6, and 11.
If another ap is on channel 1, do not use channel 2, since there will be too many interferences. It is actually better to stay at channel 1 since there are collision prevention algorithms that are used.
10 mbps is not a good speed these days. Lets not confuse wifi connection with internet speed. I test 25 Mb with linksys E2500 with charter internet. Keep in mind your wifi speed is limited by the device, for example ios devices and android may not support higher wifi speeds. When signal is good I connect to my router at 52 mb with ios devices. With newer computer that support AC wifi I get as much as 100 mb. (again not internet but internal wifi speeds) so if yout router says it supports speeds up to 300 MBS you will not achieve that, divide that number by two and deduct additional 20 percent for headroom, so 100 mb is about as fast as a wireless n router will achieve. A newer wireless AC router will go faster provided you device can connect at that speed. Your only as fast as the weakest link in the chain.
Here is the RIGHT answer. I was experiencing the exact same problem with my linksys router. With just this one setting change I got back 80% of my internet speed back.
The solution
*Out of desperation, I started tweaking random settings on my router and stumbled across one that finally worked. The directions for other routers may be a little different, but here’s what I did:
Go to and login to your router. If you’ve never done this, look for instructions that came with your router or do a google search to find the default username and password.
Find a page that has QoS settings. For the E1200, you need to click on “Applications & Gaming” and select the “QoS” sub-menu.
Disable WMM Support.
Click save.
That’s it. The second I disabled WMM support, the download speeds for my laptop and iPhone both jumped to 24 Mbps, perfectly matching my desktop.*
Link:
In most routers disabling WMM with downgrade your router to G speed which actually probably does improve overall average but is not the correct solutions. The real problem with the E2500 is two fold. One is that its wifi chips are not very strong. They do not have extra amplifying power as some more expensive routers. The E2500 is really a short range small apartment/home router. The second problem is because its chips are weak it's far more susceptible to outside signal interference. This can reduce speed, cause dropped signals, and over active channel surfing especially on 2.4. I have this router and the noise levels go way up easily and the weak signal output is easily overcome by these outside signals from other routers, or 2.4 devices.
