[Solved] Wi fi card playing up?

[joddle]

I have a Realtek RTL8192CE wi fi card in my Dell OptiPlex and for some reason it has started running very slowly. My internet connection seems fine and on a lan cable runs at around 12mbps and about the same on wi-fi from my windows tablet and ipad.I am pretty close to the router and have good signal strength.

 

I tried reinstalling the card and for about 5 minutes it was running at full speed again - but later had reverted back to just 1mbps - so I tried uninstalling again and reinstalling it and again it was fine for a few minutes than after a while reverted to slow.

 

In desperation I bought a cheap usb wifi dongle and installed that and it works just fine - full speed on wifi !!! - also then I reverted to old card and again full speed - but again only for a short while and now its back to 1mbps

 

Can anyone offer a solution to this or do I simply have a duff wifi card?

[KenB]

Hi,

 

I suspect that the card is on its way out.

If another card runs at full speed with no problems then the fault lies with your Realtek card.

Time for a new one I think.

[joddle]

That's what I thought - but am waiting a bit linger as I discovered the original installation disk and the drivers ae different than those W10 loaded when it upgraded. Currently the card is running OK so will wait and see what happens. If no go will invest in a new card although at the moment am using a cheapo powerline adapter which is working really well so no actual need for wi fi at the moment on this particular PC!!!

[joddle]

That's what I thought - but am waiting a bit linger as I discovered the original installation disk and the drivers ae different than those W10 loaded when it upgraded. Currently the card is running OK so will wait and see what happens. If no go will invest in a new card although at the moment am using a cheapo powerline adapter which is working really well so no actual need for wi fi at the moment on this particular PC!!!

 

Just to add the card has been running just fine for several hours now without any relapse and is in fact now faster then my cheapo talk-talk power-line adaptors which were already giving me 12 mbps - and I am about the same as the direct lan cable now at almost 15mbps which is about as fast as you can get around this area without going to fibre!

[joddle]

Now things are really odd - after a few hours of normal speed it dropped back to below 1mbps BUT when I tried to hook up to my next door neighbour's wifi I get fantastic speed from the same card? It seems only when my pc is talking to my router via wifi this problem occurs. Its fine on a lan cable and using a powerline - and if I reinstall the card then its fine for a only a while on wifi and yet fine all the time when connected to my neighbours wifi !!!! I've tried simply swapping from one wifi network to the other and on my own it's slow and on my neighbour's - (whose router is much much further away and through the brick walls) it full speed all the time!!!

[KenB]

Very odd !

 

I wonder if you are getting radio interference at times which affects the speed of your card.

 

Do you know how to change the channel that your router broadcasts on?

 

Normally the channel is either 1 - 6 - 11

Try a different channel and see how it goes.

 

If not - let me know the make and model number of your router.

[joddle]

I had thought of RFI but seems strange itaffects only one of the routers - unless there is something close to that one, but in my house there is nothing close to it . I have now reset the router channel - it was on auto and now set to 11 - currently working OK -so we will see !!!!

[KenB]

Let's hope it was as simple as that :)

[joddle]

Seems so - now a whole day at full speed with no interruptions or slow down at all - in the end seemingly a very simple thing. Thanks once again for the guidance and help.

[KenB]

You are welcome :)