Why is Wi-Fi Speed Slow on my PC but not Mac?

I have a 5+ year old AirPort Extreme Wireless Station (Model A1301, 3rd Generation, Early 2009), and 2 year old MacBook Pro, and a 2 year old home made gaming PC running Windows 8.1.

On my Mac, I get 50Mbps+ download (As confirmed by SpeedTest.net) but on my PC, I can’t get above 15Mbps. This is more of a recent phenomenon, because I never noticed slow ping while playing online games until a couple months ago.

I thought maybe it was the router, so I purchased a Netgear N600. My PC has a Medialink 802.11n USB wireless dongle. I plugged it in and nothing, still the same speeds.

I also tried changing my DNS (to Google’s at 8.8.8.8) but that didn’t help.

My PC is on the other side of the room, but not more than 15 feet away with a direct line of sight. I also tried moving my MacBook Pro right next to the PC and I was still able to get fast speeds on my Mac.

I just ordered another Wi-Fi dongle for my PC, thinking 802.11ac might do the trick.

What else could this be? It is weird because I usually get 30ms ping on my online games but now I’m getting 80ms.

SOLUTION: A new Wi-Fi dongle (dual band) for my PC did the trick. I purchased the Netgear A6200. The funny thing is, I get 50+Mbps with the new dongle + AirPort Extreme but with the Netgear N600 router + Netgear A6200 dongle, I only get 25Mbps using either 2.4GHz or 5GHz.

Matthew Berman

Posted 2015-09-21T00:54:35.200

Reputation: 143

1Why'd you buy an 802.11ac dongle for your Mac if your Mac was already fast? Did you mean to say you bought it for your PC? Did you know that your AP needs to support the same flavor in order to get the higher data rate? So upgrading your PC's dongle to 802.11ac doesn't help until you upgrade your AP to 802.11ac. – Spiff – 2015-09-21T01:42:00.990

Yes, I meant I purchased another dongle for my PC. It is dual band so will hopefully be fast on 5ghz – Matthew Berman – 2015-09-21T03:45:47.703

Answers

The Early 2009 AirPort Extreme was a simultaneous dual-band 2x2:2 N device, which did 300Mbps in 5GHz, simultaneous with 144Mbps in 2.4GHz (when operating in 2.4GHz, Apple limits its radios to only use 20MHz-wide channels, to leave room for Bluetooth and other users of the band).

Your PC's Medialink dongle you linked to is 2x2:2, but 2.4GHz only, which means it would only be able to do up to the 144Mbps PHY rate with your AirPort Extreme. Your Netgear N600 AP would have allowed that to go up to 300Mbps max PHY rate, assuming you configured it for 40MHz-wide channels in 2.4GHz, and assuming there wasn't 2.4GHz interference that was killing you.

Overall, based on the information you've provided so far, I would guess that you've got more 2.4GHz interference than before (perhaps from neighbors), and that's killing your 2.4GHz-only Medialink dongle on your PC, but not your 5GHz-capable Mac. It would be interesting to know which band your Mac is connecting on.

It's also possible that one way or another, 802.11 power save mode recently got enabled on your PC, and maybe your PC isn't dealing with 802.11 power save mode well. Check your advanced properties of your Wi-Fi driver on your PC.

Oh, also make sure your AP is set for WPA2-only (AES-CCMP only, no original WPA/TKIP). The RC4 encryption hardware engines underlying WEP and WPA/TKIP can't keep up with 802.11n data rates, so 802.11n requires AES-CCMP encryption or no encryption at all. If you leave old WPA/TKIP enabled, you might accidentally tell your client to join using that kind of encryption, which can force it to use A/B/G data rates because it can't keep up with N, and 15Mbps is a decent real-world throughput when you're limited to A/B/G rates.

Spiff

Posted 2015-09-21T00:54:35.200

Reputation: 84 656

+1 You see! This is why getting exact model numbers on key parts is helpful. Excellent summary, Spiff! – JakeGould – 2015-09-21T02:03:11.277

@spiff just checked and i'm using 5ghz on my mac...so it looks like I was right to upgrade my dongle? – Matthew Berman – 2015-09-21T02:16:08.423

@MatthewBerman I think part of the issue here is which dongle for what machine? Since you are having issues with the PC I assume you mean the PC, correct? – JakeGould – 2015-09-21T02:24:06.340

@spiff Yes, the Medialink Dongle is connected to the PC – Matthew Berman – 2015-09-21T02:42:14.877

Also, I purchased: http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-AC1200-WiFi-USB-Adapter/dp/B00UA98HS8/ will this be better?

– Matthew Berman – 2015-09-21T03:35:54.243

1@MatthewBerman You're not going to get 802.11ac rates with that adapter unless you also upgrade your AP to a model that does 802.11ac. However, since that adapter is dual-band, you'll be able to connect in 5GHz and get up to the 300Mbps PHY rate. – Spiff – 2015-09-21T09:16:58.510

@spiff updated my question with more info. Do you think it's worth buying an 802.11AC router? Will it make a big difference? – Matthew Berman – 2015-09-22T02:30:52.843

@MatthewBerman Well, if you have a "MacBookPro11,x" (mid-2013 Retina MacBook Pro) or later, you've got a 3x3:3 802.11ac radio in it that can hit a max PHY rate of 1300Mbps. So you could get up to 4x the speed you're getting right now, at least within your LAN, if you get a 3x3:3 802.11ac AP. Your PC's new dongle will be limited by USB 2's 480Mbps (minus lots of USB overhead) limit, so it won't see those kinds of rates. If it's a desktop, and it's not too late to return that new dongle for a refund, I recommend an ASUS PCE-AC68, which gives you 3x3:3 802.11ac like your Retina MacBook Pro has. – Spiff – 2015-09-22T04:15:57.923

@spiff thanks that's a great suggestion. I just tried to play the online game I talked about in the original post, and I'm still getting 65-95ms ping when I was getting 30-35ms a few months ago. Looks like the issue wasn't fully resolved. Any ideas? – Matthew Berman – 2015-09-22T04:35:29.503

@spiff also, will getting the ASUS 3x3:3 802.11ac card make a significant difference in ping for my games? – Matthew Berman – 2015-09-22T05:17:54.933

@MatthewBerman, nope, if all you care about is latency, don't use Wi-Fi at all, and learn to troubleshoot bufferbloat issues. – Spiff – 2015-09-22T05:45:43.973

@spiff what if there's no way to get a cord across the room? also, previously i was getting great ping using wifi. I'll look into the bufferbloat issue. – Matthew Berman – 2015-09-22T16:41:26.120

@spiff I bought a long cat5 cord and ran it across the room from the airport extreme to my pc. before plugging it in, i tried pingtest.net and it says my grade was a B. then, I plugged in the cord and removed the wifi receiver and ran it again...still a B. I'm not sure that made a difference. Any advice? – Matthew Berman – 2015-09-23T01:34:04.450

To add to the solution above...I'm on a dell Laptop, wifi connecting to Netgear Cable Modem on 5ghz, Speedtest ran at 25mbps. Same network on macbook air yielded 50+ mbps! Based on answer above regarding power saving while using wifi, on Windows 10 I went to Power Options > Change Plan Settings (to right of "Balanced") > Change Advanced Settings > Wireless Adapter Settings > Power Saving Mode > On Battery: Maximum Performance.

Speedtest.net instantly doubled!!!

Michael Fleming

Posted 2015-09-21T00:54:35.200

Reputation: 11