Member Avatar for Leo G

Recently our cable provider boosted the internet speed to 15Mb/s down and 2Mb/s up. My son is connected to a desktop through the Cisco router and gets the stated speed. My wife has a newer Dell laptop and she also gets the stated speed.

My laptop is much older. I have a Dell Inspiron 9400 running WinXP and it has a WLAN 1390 card that doesn't have 5GHz capabilities.

The fastest speed I have been able to get out of the wirless card is 7Mb/s down and 2Mb/s up.

Is this the limitation of my 1390 mini card or is something else going on here.

Thanks.

Edited by Leo G
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Because showed the wired feed can deliver the ISP bandwidth, the fault is almost certainly in the radio path (adapter, driver, router settings, or local RF). The thread already touched on the right directions — hardware replacement and position tests — so below are concise, practical checks and a short test plan to isolate the cause before buying parts.

First-level checklist (do these in order): confirm the adapter’s negotiated "link speed" in the OS and the router’s client list to see what PHY rate the radio negotiated; update the wireless driver with the vendor’s release (not the generic Windows driver); disable any NIC power‑saving features and set adapter power to maximum performance; enable the adapter’s high‑throughput/HT or "n mode" options and set channel width to the widest reasonable setting on the router (but avoid 40MHz in very crowded 2.4GHz environments); make sure the AP is using WPA2‑AES (TKIP will typically force legacy rates); scan for local Wi‑Fi congestion with a mobile Wi‑Fi scanner and pick a less crowded channel; temporarily move the laptop next to the AP and re-test.

Useful hardware checks and notes: verify both mini‑card antenna leads are securely snapped onto the card — a missing lead often cuts MIMO performance in half. Check whether the card is a single‑stream or dual‑stream device (1x1 vs 2x2); single‑stream cards will never match multi‑antenna clients. On older laptops investigate BIOS/card compatibility or vendor whitelists before buying a replacement internal card.

Measurement tips: separate LAN vs Internet bottlenecks — test LAN throughput (file copy or iperf to another LAN machine) then repeat an Internet speed test. Run multiple tests with the laptop in different positions to see whether routing/negotiation or simple RF attenuation is the limiter.

This approach follows the practical suggestions in the thread from , and while emphasizing driver/settings checks and basic RF diagnostics before committing to new hardware or OS changes.

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Member Avatar for Slavi

Is there a significant distance between your laptop's physical location and your wife's one? The signal gets weaker the further you are .. also, try with a cable as suggested, if the cable doesn't provide more than what your wifi has then it could the issue with the card

Member Avatar for rubberman

If you are running WiFi 802.11b (probably) then you are getting about the max your wireless can provide (between 1 and 11 mbps), depending upon signal strength and distance from the access point.

According to the Dell user docs, the specs say that it should be able to support 802.11g (still 2.4GHz) which should provide up to 54mbps data rates, but I'm not sure your XP driver would support that. It also depends upon the access point.

Edited by rubberman
Member Avatar for Leo G

I tried it connected directly to the router and got 16Mb/s down. A little bit faster then it's suppose to be.

When I tried the wireless it hit about 10.5Mb/s down. That was closer to the transmitter (-35dBm) vs me sitting in my chair (-47dBm). But I was getting 9Mb/s down then. That's the fastest I've seen it go.

The last fastest was a bit over 7, but mostly sticks between 5 and 6Mb/s.

Anyone think if I put a newer mini card in there (http://www.amazon.com/Dell-BCM94321MC-MX846-DW1500-NJ449/dp/B00FA3NR3E) I might get a faster connection? They're relatively inexpensive so if it didn't work it's not going to break the bank.

Member Avatar for rubberman

You can try an 802.11n card and see if that helps. The one you provided the link to does support 802.11n, but you may need a driver for XP, and since XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, you may only get 802.11g/b speeds (no better than you get now). My advice would be to upgrade your OS to Win7 at least, unless the card has an XP driver that supports 802.11n as well.

Member Avatar for mike_2000_17

I think the real question here is: Why are you connecting to the internet with a Win XP computer? Do you like playing with fire?

XP is no longer supported by Microsoft and it no longer gets any security updates or patches. I would not recommend that you continue to use it to connect to the internet. For an older computer, you could replace it with a lightweight Linux distribution, like Lubuntu, which will be new, fast and secure, and free!

Member Avatar for Leo G

Not worried about it. The computer has nothing vitally important. I have backups. And the protection I have on it has served me well. If something happens then maybe, I might think about doing something new. Right now funds are tight and until they're not, this is what I have.

Member Avatar for kevsam

If your Cisco router has a 5ghz frequency it should also have a 2.4ghz frequency which would support a higher speed for older devices. I recommend connecting to that frequency and your speed should be higher and your encryption should be tkip/aes. You also received a recommendation to upgrade to windows 7 which I also endorse.

Member Avatar for Leo G

The router does, but the card I had in there (1390) doesn't.

I have replace the card with a Dell 1500 802.11n card and got a driver for it to work in XP. I have speeds that have reached 16.5Mb/s.

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