# WiFi 6 slow



## Alleyman1 (Mar 4, 2021)

I have an Intel AX200 160mhz wifi card. My internet 1gig fiber. The router is wifi 6 from AT&T. It's showing 1gb up and down from ISP. My WIFI connection is showing half that. Any suggestion?


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## jboydgolfer (Mar 4, 2021)

you will never get Gig speeds on wifi IME. youre getting 500+mb/s . thats about 70MB/s, its not remotely close to half Gig speed


try TestMy.net Internet Speed Test & see what speeds you get using a custom DL/Upload size.
ISP internet speed tests tend to use internal servers , which gives you a good speed test result, but much of your internet activity isnt done on your ISP's servers.

EDIT:
i find using Steam game download can give a good idea of actual internet speed. make sure you dont have any bandwidth limiters set, & see what you average DL speed is. Keep in mind Steam uses MB/s, not mb/s theres a large difference


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## jsfitz54 (Mar 4, 2021)

Try doing the following:

*Newest driver, 22.30.xx :* https://www.google.com/search?clien...hUKEwikvoresJfvAhXPEVkFHVMKA7YQ4dUDCAw&uact=5

*Reset Network Stack:* https://support.killernetworking.com/knowledge-base/resetting-network-devices-and-network-stack/


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## dirtyferret (Mar 4, 2021)

my guess is the router is using the 80mhz channel which tops out around 600Mbps for a 2x2 client (or the link rate you are seeing) but I would say @TheLostSwede would be the one to know exactly


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## Deleted member 202104 (Mar 4, 2021)

jboydgolfer said:


> you will never get Gig speeds on wifi IME. youre getting 500+mb/s . thats about 70MB/s, its not remotely close to half Gig speed



1 Gigabit/Second = 125 Megabytes/Second


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## TheLostSwede (Mar 5, 2021)

A few things here.

Based on the sync speed, you're using a 160MHz channel.

How far away from the router are you?
Your sync speed suggests you're quite far from the router and not line of sight.

WiFi sync speed ≠ actual WiFi speed. You'll never actually get the actual sync speed, it's just a feel good number, as WiFi has massive overheads.

As pointed out, you "only" have a 2x2 card, but at 160MHz you could in theory sync at 1,200Mbps.

Can you change the guard interval in the router? As you're using a very long guard interval right now, which further reduces the speed.

Also, your WiFi connection never ever has any correlation to your line speed.

Why are you using WiFi on a Gigabit internet connection?


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## xrobwx71 (Mar 5, 2021)

Getting half of the wired speed on WiFi is pretty good IMO.


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## Zareek (Mar 5, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> A few things here.
> 
> Based on the sync speed, you're using a 160MHz channel.
> 
> ...



1200mbps peak rating, but isn't that the sum of ingress and egress? In other words you can theoretically pull down 600mbps and send out 600mbps.

I'm not sure what that number Windows shows is good for. I know it is something related to the negotiated wireless link speed but is it also a half duplex rating on the sum of the full duplex bandwidth?


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## newtekie1 (Mar 5, 2021)

Zareek said:


> 1200mbps peak rating, but isn't that the sum of ingress and egress? In other words you can theoretically pull down 600mbps and send out 600mbps.
> 
> I'm not sure what that number Windows shows is good for. I know it is something related to the negotiated wireless link speed but is it also a half duplex rating on the sum of the full duplex bandwidth?



That isn't how it works. WiFi is half-duplex, but half duplex just means you can only send or received at one time not both. So if you have a 1200Mbps connection, you can receive at 1200Mbps but then can't send anything or you can send at 1200Mbps but then can't receive anything. Yes, this effectively means that if you are sending and receiving at the same time, it can only do 600Mbps in each direction.  However, most traffic is mostly one directional. So if you try to, for example, copy a large file from your home NAS. It will transfer to your computer at near 1200Mbps, it won't be limited to 600Mbps.

However, don't expect 1200Mbps over even WiFi 6. It's better than AC but not a miracle. A ~500Mbps connection with a 2x2 internal card is about average from my experience and then your actual speed is going to be about 80% of that.

As for the number in Windows, that is the negotiated link speed between the computer and the router. It is based on signal quality. The two devices handshake and decide what the highest reliable connection speed is. It also isn't a fixed number, it will change every few seconds. If you connect to the router with your laptop in the same room as the router, it might negotiate a link speed of ~500Mbps. But if you move to the other side of the house you'll probably find that link speed has re-negotiated down to something like ~200Mbps.


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## Zareek (Mar 5, 2021)

newtekie1 said:


> That isn't how it works. WiFi is half-duplex, but half duplex just means you can only send or received at one time not both. So if you have a 1200Mbps connection, you can receive at 1200Mbps but then can't send anything or you can send at 1200Mbps but then can't receive anything. Yes, this effectively means that if you are sending and receiving at the same time, it can only do 600Mbps in each direction.  However, most traffic is mostly one directional. So if you try to, for example, copy a large file from your home NAS. It will transfer to your computer at near 1200Mbps, it won't be limited to 600Mbps.
> 
> However, don't expect 1200Mbps over even WiFi 6. It's better than AC but not a miracle. A ~500Mbps connection with a 2x2 internal card is about average from my experience and then your actual speed is going to be about 80% of that.
> 
> As for the number in Windows, that is the negotiated link speed between the computer and the router. It is based on signal quality. The two devices handshake and decide what the highest reliable connection speed is. It also isn't a fixed number, it will change every few seconds. If you connect to the router with your laptop in the same room as the router, it might negotiate a link speed of ~500Mbps. But if you move to the other side of the house you'll probably find that link speed has re-negotiated down to something like ~200Mbps.


Thanks for the clarification. I had read the half duplex part before but a former colleague of mine who was a networking engineer said it was more like it split bandwidth. He said that's why they break it up into send and receive antennae. Whatever it is you will never ever see close to a full gigabit on a 1200mbps 2x2 wifi6 connection. If you actually get 500mbps you are doing really well.


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## jboydgolfer (Mar 5, 2021)

weekendgeek said:


> 1 Gigabit/Second = 125 Megabytes/Second


i know
and? noone is getting Gig speeds on wifi imo


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## TheLostSwede (Mar 5, 2021)

Zareek said:


> 1200mbps peak rating, but isn't that the sum of ingress and egress? In other words you can theoretically pull down 600mbps and send out 600mbps.
> 
> I'm not sure what that number Windows shows is good for. I know it is something related to the negotiated wireless link speed but is it also a half duplex rating on the sum of the full duplex bandwidth?


No, that's not how Wi-Fi works.

The number in Windows is the PHY sync rate. No it's not half duplex in the way you're thinking of it. Data over Wi-Fi is sent in packets and after one packet has been sent, technically one can be received and then the next one sent. So as far as the user experience goes, it shouldn't be noticeable as a half-duplex connection, as all this obviously goes rather fast. I'm sure it would be possible to coax a Wi-Fi connection into stalling one or the other way, but it's not something I've ever experienced, unless it's a really terrible Wi-Fi signal.
If you're really interested, have a read here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11
Also, check out SmallNetBuilder, he writes some great articles about Wi-Fi.


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## kapone32 (Mar 5, 2021)

The best you are going to get with WIFI 6 is about 75% of you ISP real performance. As most of us have 1Gb internet solutions in North America (consumer anyway) you should see a max throughput in the range of 7 mb/s download which is pretty fast for Wifi. Even a WIFI 6 router will not give you a noted increase in speed. Where WIFI 6 shines is multi-plexing even on one machine. You should be able to watch Youtube HD and stream Disney+ at the same time.


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## dirtyferret (Mar 5, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> A few things here.
> 
> Based on the sync speed, you're using a 160MHz channel.
> 
> ...



Hey swede quick question; even if the client supports 160mhz channels, would the AT&T router necessarily default to 160mhz (if even available on it) or 80mhz? If the router's channel is at 80mhz then "slowest man wins rule" would make the client operate in 80mhz?


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## TheLostSwede (Mar 5, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> Hey swede quick question; even if the client supports 160mhz channels, would the AT&T router necessarily default to 160mhz (if even available on it) or 80mhz? If the router's channel is at 80mhz then "slowest man wins rule" would make the client operate in 80mhz?


From what I have seen, most routers don't, but based on the sync speed, he's using 160MHz channel width.
You can have a look in the rate set table here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ax
544Mbps is only available under the long guard interval on a 160MHz channel.
It's possible 802.11ax routers ships with 160MHz channel width enabled as default, but it's still considered "rude" to use that large chunk of spectrum if you have a lot of neighbours.
I should add that even with my phone, I sync at 866MHz on an 80MHz channel, assuming I'm within a reasonable distance from one of routers or APs.
I have one of the few 802.11ac routers that can do 160MHz channel width, but I didn't really see any performance benefit from going to 80 to 160MHz.





I have a Wi-Fi card in my desktop PC, but don't normally have it connect to anything.
Just to show that my PC also syncs at 866Mbps. Note that the Netgear router is one floor down, so I can really test if 160MHz would sync at a higher speed.







kapone32 said:


> The best you are going to get with WIFI 6 is about 75% of you ISP real performance. As most of us have 1Gb internet solutions in North America (consumer anyway) you should see a max throughput in the range of 7 mb/s download which is pretty fast for Wifi. Even a WIFI 6 router will not give you a noted increase in speed. Where WIFI 6 shines is multi-plexing even on one machine. You should be able to watch Youtube HD and stream Disney+ at the same time.


And how did you conclude this? Again, what does Wi-Fi has to do with the internet line speed?
How is it that most Americans have Gigabit internet connections? This is news to me. Did tRump give everyone a fibre connection?
And why in the name of Cthulhu would you limited your Wi-Fi connection to 7 (I presume Megabytes per second)?
802.11ax routers aren't the limiting factor here, as there are 8x8 routers that can sync at 4,800Mbps. Sure, you'd most likely need at least four clients to make proper use of the router, but that's because most clients are either 1x1 or 2x2 today, as 3x3 produces too much heat and I haven't single a single 4x4 client solution for 802.11ax. Note that this is on a single Wi-Fi radio and not a router using two 5GHz radios.
Even a 1,200Mbps sync rate 802.11ax client should be able to pull in excess of 700Mbps, which is around 88MB/s. So again, why limit things to 7MB/s?
Every single one of your statements are just mindboggling.
Look at that, on my "old" 802.11ac setup, I can stream two 4K YouTube streams just fine


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## dirtyferret (Mar 5, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> How is it that most Americans have Gigabit internet connections? This is news to me. Did tRump give everyone a fibre connection?



lol, yeah and a state of the art router from trump ISP to deliver it for a bargain price of $300, I just got mine below





the vast majority of people get their home wi-fi via cable operators with speeds of 300 Mbps down or below at high end tiers.  Most people are still around 100 Mbps down and you don't want to know the prices especially once you get past the "entry" period.


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## TheLostSwede (Mar 5, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> lol, yeah and a state of the art router from trump ISP to deliver it for a bargain price of $300, I just got mine below
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Love that Democratic blue it comes in.

Here you get long term customer discounts. We've been with the same ISP for 11+ years and we called them up last year I think, as we were considering changing to something else, but they gave us a discount on what we were paying to keep us as a customer. So we're paying less than $29 a month for 200/30Mbps connection. At that price, it's not worth going with someone else, as it would cost a lot more.
Oh and I was having some problems with their provided cable gateway/router thingie, had an engineer turn up same day who tested it and then swapped it for their latest model and set it up in bridge mode for me, as I really don't trust their routers. Total cost, zero.
Love the ISPs here, but don't get me started on the archaic banks.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 5, 2021)

Zareek said:


> Thanks for the clarification. I had read the half duplex part before but a former colleague of mine who was a networking engineer said it was more like it split bandwidth. He said that's why they break it up into send and receive antennae. Whatever it is you will never ever see close to a full gigabit on a 1200mbps 2x2 wifi6 connection. If you actually get 500mbps you are doing really well.


I see that confusion all the time, even from people in the networking industry. It's been a misunderstanding that people have had going all the way back to when half-duplex was common even in wired connections.



dirtyferret said:


> Hey swede quick question; even if the client supports 160mhz channels, would the AT&T router necessarily default to 160mhz (if even available on it) or 80mhz? If the router's channel is at 80mhz then "slowest man wins rule" would make the client operate in 80mhz?


The router is going to run at whatever it is set to. However, it is also "backwards" compatible. So if the router is running at 160MHz, then a client running at 80MHz can still connect to it, the client will only be able to communicate with the router at 80MHz. However, if the router is running at 80MHz, and a160MHz client connects to the router, then the client is limited to 80MHz.

Think of the channel MHz width as a maximum set by the router. Clients can go lower than what the router it set at, but never higher.  From what I've seen most WiFi6/AX routers are set to 160MHz on the 5GHz band out of the box.



TheLostSwede said:


> Love that Democratic blue it comes in.
> 
> Here you get long term customer discounts. We've been with the same ISP for 11+ years and we called them up last year I think, as we were considering changing to something else, but they gave us a discount on what we were paying to keep us as a customer. So we're paying less than $29 a month for 200/30Mbps connection. At that price, it's not worth going with someone else, as it would cost a lot more.
> Oh and I was having some problems with their provided cable gateway/router thingie, had an engineer turn up same day who tested it and then swapped it for their latest model and set it up in bridge mode for me, as I really don't trust their routers. Total cost, zero.
> Love the ISPs here, but don't get me started on the archaic banks.


Internet in the US is pretty terrible for various reasons.  But where I live I have a choice of 2 ISPs, AT&T and Comcast.

AT&T offers fiber(yay!), but they oversell their nodes so badly that the speeds are shit. The highest fiber plan available to me is 100/100. And that isn't guaranteed speed, when the neighbors are on during busy times the download speed regularly drops to half that.  PLUS, the TV uses the same fiber node. So something as simple as turning on your TV, or your neighbor turning on their TV, can drop your internet bandwidth.  But they come into a neighborhood with a single fiber drop, sell it to everyone as "Fiber optic is the latest tech and therefor so much better than Cable Interent" and oversell the shit out of the one node.

Comcast on the other hand offers up to 1000/50.  Yeah...only 50Mbps upload.  But really, for most homes the upload is more than enough, the download is what matters more. For whatever stupid reason, they enabled DOCSIS 3.1 on the download side of their connections but not the upload. So while each node has 10Gbps of download bandwidth to hand out, it only has 200Mbps of upload. And yeah, they are definitely overselling that upload capacity.  But most people go for the lower plans which give about 10-20Mbps.  Which still oversells the node if everyone was to start uploading at the same time, but the reality is that doesn't happen so it works out for them.


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## dirtyferret (Mar 5, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> Love that Democratic blue it comes in.


For an extra $500, you can get MAGA in gold lettering on it


TheLostSwede said:


> Here you get long term customer discounts. We've been with the same ISP for 11+ years and we called them up last year I think, as we were considering changing to something else, but they gave us a discount on what we were paying to keep us as a customer. So we're paying less than $29 a month for 200/30Mbps connection. At that price, it's not worth going with someone else, as it would cost a lot more.


It's the exact opposite here.  I'm in a relatively urban area outside of NYC and all our ISP across the country are pretty much monopolies.  You used to be able to call them up once your contract ran out out to get a new deal as otherwise they would raise prices on you.  They caught on and told people to go ahead and leave as they know there is no competition other than cell phone companies.  I pay 4x what you pay for 100Mbps down/35 up even though my ISP is offering 300Mbps for $40 which I'm not eligible for as an existing customer.  Even on my bill they charge me an extra $10 beyond my contract fee for "improvements to the network" 



newtekie1 said:


> The router is going to run at whatever it is set to. However, it is also "backwards" compatible. So if the router is running at 160MHz, then a client running at 80MHz can still connect to it, the client will only be able to communicate with the router at 80MHz. However, if the router is running at 80MHz, and a160MHz client connects to the router, then the client is limited to 80MHz.


yes, thank you for repeating my entire point as I clearly understood that when I stated "slowest man wins rule".  My question to Swede was; is channel width causing the issue not how it operates.


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## kapone32 (Mar 5, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> From what I have seen, most routers don't, but based on the sync speed, he's using 160MHz channel width.
> You can have a look in the rate set table here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ax
> 544Mbps is only available under the long guard interval on a 160MHz channel.
> It's possible 802.11ax routers ships with 160MHz channel width enabled as default, but it's still considered "rude" to use that large chunk of spectrum if you have a lot of neighbours.
> ...


I am only using my own experience. Even though my ISP is rated a 1Gib. I have never seen more than 8.5 MB/s download speed on Steam. That is with a WIFI 6 adapter and router. When I run AC I get around 5 mb/s downloads and with an older adapter 3.5 mb/s. As I said before the thing with WIFI 6 is not speed but how many things you can do at once. Before WIFI 6 I could not download a Steam Game and watch Youtube at 1440P at the same time. Now both are happy to do their thing. My WiFi 6 router right now is mining on Nice Hash, running my Gaming PC downloading KOA Re-reckoning and typing on my work laptop as I send this response to you but my workstation is playing DAZN.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 5, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> yes, thank you for repeating my entire point as I clearly understood that when I stated "slowest man wins rule". My question to Swede was; is channel width causing the issue not how it operates.


And I answered your question. Did you not see the part about the router running at whatever it is set at and the part about how most WiFi6 routers I've seen are set to 160MHz on the 5GHz band? There is no answering what the router defaults to, it varies by model and what the manufacturer decides. But a 160MHz client is not going to force the router to run at 160MHz if the router is set to 80MHz.


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## TheLostSwede (Mar 5, 2021)

1Gib is 1 Gibibyte, not 1 Gigabit, just FYI.

You might want to have a look in your steam setting and change the download server. I pull 23-ish MB/s on my 200Mbps connection. Go to Settings, Downloads and Download Region. Also check that you don't have any speed restrictions in place.

You might also be really far from your router or have multiple walls between your PC and router, which would degrade the signal quality.
Sorry to say, but you're getting awful speeds overall. I can max out my 200Mbps download speed on any and all devices in my home, except the crappy Samsung TV which is slow regardless of if I use the Wi-Fi or wired interface.

Why are you using your router for mining


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## DeathtoGnomes (Mar 5, 2021)

Alleyman1 said:


> I have an Intel AX200 160mhz wifi card. My internet 1gig fiber. The router is wifi 6 from AT&T. It's showing 1gb up and down from ISP. My WIFI connection is showing half that. Any suggestion?


Sounds like you need to feed the hamsters to get them to run faster on the wheel. 

jokes aside, I wonder if its being split between streams.


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## dirtyferret (Mar 5, 2021)

newtekie1 said:


> But a 160MHz client is not going to force the router to run at 160MHz if the router is set to 80MHz.


Yes I know, I already established that with my question



newtekie1 said:


> And I answered your question.


No you did not because...



newtekie1 said:


> how most WiFi6 routers I've seen are set to 160MHz on the 5GHz band?


is contradicted by



TheLostSwede said:


> From what I have seen, most routers don't,...It's possible 802.11ax routers ships with 160MHz channel width enabled as default, but it's still considered "rude" to use that large chunk of spectrum if you have a lot of neighbours.



who by the way was the person I asked the question to when I said



dirtyferret said:


> Hey swede quick question;


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## kapone32 (Mar 5, 2021)

TheLostSwede said:


> 1Gib is 1 Gibibyte, not 1 Gigabit, just FYI.
> 
> You might want to have a look in your steam setting and change the download server. I pull 23-ish MB/s on my 200Mbps connection. Go to Settings, Downloads and Download Region. Also check that you don't have any speed restrictions in place.
> 
> ...


The funny thing is I don't have anything to compare but does it suck if I started downloading KOA Re-reckoning at 9:54 and it has downloaded 28.3 of 34 GB? Honest question. The main router is on the main floor. My computer room is upstairs. Using Wifi I get 60 mh/s with my 6800XT. I thought that was about the max throughput for that card?


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## TheLostSwede (Mar 5, 2021)

So yeah, as to the 160MHz question, having checked a few router emulators, it seems like Auto is the default setting, which would then allow the router to select. How this is implemented I'm not 100% certain, but 160MHz is obviously an option and I guess if there's a 160MHz client, the router might opt to go into 160MHz mode. That said, there's also Airtime Fairness, which for some reason isn't enabled by default, which would automagically switch down the router to a narrower channel width if it senses there are other routers sharing the same channel range. How well some of these things work is a different matter, although at least from what I have seen, Airtime Fairness works quite well on the 2.4GHz band on most routers that has that feature on the 2.4GHz band.



kapone32 said:


> The funny thing is I don't have anything to compare but does it suck if I started downloading KOA Re-reckoning at 9:54 and it has downloaded 28.3 of 34 GB? Honest question. The main router is on the main floor. My computer room is upstairs. Using Wifi I get 60 mh/s with my 6800XT. I thought that was about the max throughput for that card?


I'm sorry, I'm not even sure how to answer this.
I don't know in what time zone you live for starters. 
What does Wi-Fi has to do with how many megahashes per second your graphics cards can do?
And if your router is on a different floor, that's going to affect your Wi-Fi speed, most likely by a lot.


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## newtekie1 (Mar 5, 2021)

dirtyferret said:


> who by the way was the person I asked the question to when I said


And you are asking it to a person that doesn't know the answer because they've never owned an AX router. So, yeah, go ahead and trust his answer.


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## dirtyferret (Mar 5, 2021)

newtekie1 said:


> And you are asking it to a person that doesn't know the answer because they've never owned an AX router. So, yeah, go ahead and trust his answer.


I'm not trying to go ten rounds with you newtekie but lostswede worked as a reviewer of network devices and I've always found his posts informative; so yes I trust his answers and and they carry weight with me.  You can ignore them if you like.


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## Durvelle27 (Mar 6, 2021)

OP how far is the device from the router

I have a 1GB connection and over Wi-Fi I can pull up to 800Mbps


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## Flak (Mar 29, 2021)

There is some bad information in this thread.
Airtime fairness does not change channel width.  Airtime fairness is a queueing system.  It allows the router or AP to give every device an equal amount of transmit/receive time.  Rather than letting slow devices slow the entire network.

Also, there's no way to tell what his channel width is based on his connection link rate, there's too many variables including distance from the router or  ap.  Just saying he's on 160mhz channel width based off a 566Mbs link rate is complete shit.  On WiFi  6 and 80mhz channel width a 2x2 client connects at a max link rate of 1200Mbps, 160mhz is 2400Mbps and just for kicks 40mhz is 574Mbps.  So given his link rate of 566 his router could be setting channel width to 40mhz.  If it's an ATT controlled router, they are known to set channel width to 40mhz in congested areas to give more channel options.


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