X220 with Ultimate-N 6300

I ordered my X220 with the Ultimate-N 6300 3+3 option because I wanted the best possible wifi connection, and working at home I have quite a lot of the 2.4GHz band free. It's pretty good, and within reasonable range of the router I get a solid 130Mb/s connection.
But my router is capable of 300Mb/s using two bonded channels, and if the Intel chip in the X220 was capable of this I would naturally like to use it. Being the top of the range it thought the 6300 might do it, but so far it doesn't seem to. The Intel spec seems rather unclear, and I'm not getting any answer in the Intel forum. Has anyone tried using the same chip with a similar router?

PS Yes I know I can get greater bandwidth using 5GHz, but my router doesn't do that.

 

What make/model of router do you have?

 

It's a Cisco WAP 4410N, operating on channels 13 + 9

 

Those are pretty good numbers. I have a x220 with 6300N connected to a linksys e4200 via 5ghz (top of the line linksys router with 3 antennas) and the highest rate I've gotten is 150 Mb/s.

There's also some numbers from smallnetbuilder.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...performance-wireless-n-router-review-followup

 

That's the headline connection speed I quoted of course, not the actual data throughput which will be much lower.

 

150 mb/s is the actual max throughput I'm getting.

Whats the actual numbers you getting from the cisco WAP 4410N?

 

My understanding is that you need to use non-overlapping channels for bonding, which in 2.4GHz range means you only have three options: Channels, 1, 6, or 11.

Intel Wireless Networking — What is channel bonding?

 

Pretty much the only way I have seen to get full 300 out of N is in enterprise level wireless gear. For home crap to even come close your going to have to turn off your security and run open. Most doesn't find it worth it nor do they want to invest in 1400 dollar wireless gear.

ym

 

802.11 channel width for 2.4ghz has to be set to Auto instead of 20hz in advanced settings of the wifi card. Dunno why it's not set like that default. Router should be set be set to 40hz.

This is how I have it set to get 300mbps with my cheap Asus RT-N12 router running Tomato f/w with the 6205. The 3x3 routers can do 450mbps in conjunction with the 6300 Sally has.

 

I'm getting 300 at connection. I have a Buffalo WZR-HP G300NH; it cost me about $90 at purchase. Management interface is a bit clunky, but the high-power radio is a bonus.

I will say that some routers can be really tricky though. From what I'm reading, the WAP 4410N has been a really uneven experience for a lot of users. v1 had hardware issues, necessitating a v2 redesign by Cisco. A number of owners are still dissatisfied with the newer one, evidenced on Cisco's forums as well as NewEgg reviews of the router.

 

Another decent choice is the Gentlemen, Start Your Buying: NETGEAR WNDR3700 RangeMax Dual Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router Reviewed - SmallNetBuilder

 

I've only had the WAP 4410N for a couple of months but it's done everything I asked of it and has better range than any other router I've tried (and I have access to many different models). It's currently set to 13 + 9 which are correct adjacent channels. I'm not familiar with how the bonding process works but I understand that channel 13 is the primary one, and all the laptops and mobiles I have tried with it have connected on channel 13. InSSIDer shows it as a 300MHz link and it covers the whole band from 9 - 13.

I'm reasonably happy with the 130 Mb/s connection since it's way faster than my internet connection, and even my wired file server couldn't deal with anything faster. The 300Mb/s is really just a nice-to-have.

 

Sally4, I'll say that I used its predecessor, the WAP 4400N, without issue in several scenarios. If the 4410N works for you, great; I'm just relaying what I have read.

Getting 300Mbps can be a trick of router pairing, configuration settings, and firmware. As others have said, SmallNetBuilder is a great resource for what has worked for others. In fact, your thread made me check my own setup; I found that the newest firmware for my Buffalo router throttles to 130Mbps very quickly if there are neighboring wireless networks. I backed down one firmware revision, which brought me back up to 300Mbps.

 

Actually the open recommendation is probably wrong. Many of the current wireless chipsets / firmwares only work at full speed with WPA2 enabled. They were optimized for that path. Using WEP or WPA1 is worst with open in the middle and WPA2 being the fastest. The encryption code path is the fastest. More details Full Speed 802.11n Needs WPA2 + AES | Boydo's Tech Talk.

 

I've got a Linksys E4200 at home and I've got a solid 450mbps connection on my work laptop (Thinkpad W510) with the Intel 6300. You just have to make sure your router is running on 40mhz channels, not 20 (and on the 5ghz band) 2.4 ghz kills the reception due to interference.


So it is possible to get 450mbps at home.

 

what is your actual throughput? I get 450mbps connection status with my linksys e4200 and intel 6300, but my actual throughput tops out at 150 mbps.

Not complaining, my sony z with intel 5100 topped out at 65mbps.

 

I'm curious --What have your experiences been with this router? Are you using any advanced configurations (e.g., dynamic dns, port forwarding, etc.) and if so, how well do they work? How's the UI for configuring the unit?

 

Right now I'm using dyndns and dhcp reservation (static dhcp) and they both work well. Haven't used any of the features yet.

The UI is typical linksys. If you've used previous linksys routers, its basically the same.

My previous router was the wrt54g running ddwrt image.

 

Well I fixed my problem. Found another Intel driver and my 6300N is now connecting at 300MB/s to the Cisco 4410.
Yet another reason to be delighted with the X220!

@dadoes - I don't know the actual throughput as I don't have the means to check it. Not tht I'm too bothered - it's enough for me to know that I'm running the link at its maximum capacity.