X220 w/ Intel 6205 advanced N, and speed issues

Hi all,
Long time lurker and first time questioner, I felt like this was best way to go. I have a flashed WRT54GL (two antennae) with Tomato. I've increased the transmit power a little bit, but I'm having a real problem getting good speeds on wireless. When my laptop is connected directly to the modem, I get 14.5MBPS.. With wireless, even with laptop 2 feet away, I get no more than 12x, usually around 9x. Likewise I can NNTP 1.7MB a sec on cable, and 500k on wireless. I have checked for throttling and that's not the problem, so its either my router - which is brand new! - or my X220, Intel 6205 advanced N. Does anyone know where I could begin debugging and how I could find out the next steps, to at least isolate the problem to a router, to my laptop, anything? Thanks so much!

 

I run TomatoVPN 1.27 on a WRT54GSv2. One of my notebooks on this network is a T420s with the 6205. I can pull my full pipe downstream on a 10-connection NNTPS or fast CDN downloads.

Have you checked the basics like changing to a cleaner 802.11 frequency or moving the notebook in relation to the router to see if it is a range/obstruction issue?

 

jashu - I tried with two different notebooks so I am assuming its not with my adapter, though I'm not sure. Can you explain the cleaner 802.11 frequency bit?

 

Tried Control Panel -> Power Options -> Change Plan Settings -> Change advanced power settings -> and there turn wireless adapter to maximum performance?

 

Simply, try changing your WiFi channel to a different channel that may have lower interference. If you are on ch 6, try 1 or 11.

Have you tried restoring the router to default settings and seeing what the baseline performance level is there? From that point then you can go into the wireless settings and tweak as necessary. My settings in Advanced > Wireless is everything at default (should have an asterisk if its a drop down option) except Frame Burst is Enabled.

 

well i changed to channel 11, moved my router and changed the power settings and yes, i have MUCH better connection! thanks everyone. the question, what would Frame Burst do for me?

 

If you have a poorly shielded microwave oven in the LOS between your router and wireless device, changing to channel 1 can really help too. Microwave ovens in my experience tend to interfere around the frequency corresponding to channel 8-9.

On frame burst:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame-bursting

 

Thanks for the help everyone, looking muuuuch better. Now if i could only fix the touchpad to not be a piece of s&^@#@, all would be perfect with the x220...