Series 7 All Models: Understanding the WiFi issue

UPDATE: So, I went into my network connections and clicked "properties" for my wireless connection. Under "Connection" I enabled Intel connection settings (this was previously unchecked). Under configuration I set it to "Mixed band (default)." My speeds improved slightly but not much. I then tried "5.2 GHz band" and the speeds shot up to around 1MBps...at first I thought, "Success!"

Not so. The connection bars for my wireless connection constantly shift from one bar to all bars (like, every few seconds it fluctuates) and my speeds have settled around 500kpbs give or take, but my connection still says it's weak. When I click on "Status"for the connection, it says:

IPv4 Connection: Internet
IPv6 Connection: No Internet access

and further down under speed it constantly shifts between 20 and 50 Mbps. (Although, obviously, these are not my actual download speeds. I'm still getting around 500 - 800kbps when downloading.)

When I change connection to 2.4GHz my speeds drop almost entirely and under Properties -> Speed it tells me I'm getting 4MBps then will suddenly jump up to like 60. (EDIT: Just now for example it jumped to 81 and then back down to 24, now up to 30.)

Signal quality is 2 bars at the moment. When I have it on 5.2GHz (which is currently providing me the fastest speeds) and run a diagnostic test on the connection, it gives me this message:

your computer appears to be correctly cofigured but the device or resource (DNSserver)is not responding


When I set it to 2.4GHz i do not get this DNS error, but my overall speeds are terrible.

I am seriously at a loss. I'm keeping it on 5.2GHz just to keep my speeds up, but the fluctuating signal bars and being told that there's an error with my DNS settings is making me feel less confident.

 

Your DNS needs to be set properly at the router configuration page. Call up your ISP support if you require assistance on configuration. I guarantee the wrong DNS servers configuration is costing you the fast speeds.

 

Why would this not be affecting any of the other devices on the network? Or my previous laptop? Nothing has changed in the router's settings, and I don't want my housemate to have to change stuff and mess it up for everyone else.

EDIT: Just ran the "diagnose problem" test on the connection again and this time it said it was fine. Seems to be going back-and-forth. I think the issue is hardware-related, frankly.

 

It could be the wifi chip itself going bad or the drivers not installed properly in your case. Reinstall your driver and try again.

 

sorry to be a pain but how exactly do you reinstall a wifi driver from scratch? i googled but the instructions weren't too clear to be honest...

 

update: i rolled back the driver, then updated it again.

i'm getting fast speeds, but it still shows one bar as signal strength, and when i ran the diagnosis it brought up that DNS error again. even though i seem to be getting faster speeds than ever before.

when my housemate gets backi i'm going to take it to his room and see if the bars increase. but considering i'm only 100 feet away or so i doubt it will make a difference.

 

"Only 100 feet"?!?!

You need a pretty serious wifi router to get good connection at 100 feet, especially when considering walls aswell etc.

 

it's probably closer actually to around 50 feet. it's right down the hall. i'm not very good at guesstimating.

 

Still, 50 feet on a crowded channel can lead to very poor performance, if the laptop has "bad" reception. Make sure to check your channels in your area with some program and switch if needed. Most people never do that so they all run at the crowded default channels. (Usually 7 I think.)

Here is a page from Lifehacker I just googled up for you:
Find the Best Broadcast Channel for a Stronger Wi-Fi Connection

And a link to a tool:
http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

 

You do know that the Series 7 has poor range, don't you?

 

Run Inssider 2.0 and look at the signal in terms of dBm. It should be less than 60 to work optimally.

 

I have a couple of Asus netbooks which came with aluminum LCD shells with plastic front bezels - and they had only 1 antenna wire leading up to the top of the screen. I found a how-to article on the www for building whip antennas with 5dB gain and built two. Next I opened up the netbooks and found some places where I could mount these whips inside the netbook base near the outer shell. Then I bought some pigtails (eBay) with WiFi card connectors on 1 end and cut them down so they reached the whips but didn't have excess slack. Stripped and tinned the ends, attached the center conductors to the whips and the braided shield to Gnd. (I left the old antenna in for fallback/factory restoration.)

Now the netbooks have much better signals than my 17-inch Dell laptops (which always had outstanding wifi performance and range). In fact, they compete favorably with one of those Hawking mini dish USB wifi adapters. Now I can saturate my "budget" cable at 7 - 7.5 Mbps with either netbook from anywhere in the house and even "roaming" across the street hits 4 Mbps and my front yard's 200 feet deep.

I've just gotten a N700Z5B with 8GB RAM, 1TB HD. Then I saw this thread and started to get worried - I'll "mod" the antenna array inside this unit of I experience any of these problems because, actually, the hardest part was finding a spot for each whip. If I'd used patch or those OEM-style laptop micro antennas it would have been much easier - but then I wouldn't have the outstanding wifi performance that I now enjoy.

Still, Samsung should address this issue.

PS: This poll is a good idea, but anyone s/b allowed to participate - the forum won't allow me to vote since I haven't (I guess) posted enough. This is a somewhat poorly thought-out restriction that often has undesirable, unintended consequences.

 

Interesting post ace_g, do let us know how you got on with modding the Samsung if you attempted it in the end..

Also I'd be interested in reading the initial how-to article on building the antennas as I'm considering doing the same for my 700Z5C

Just got one a couple of days ago and I've been struggling with the wireless since, I was tempted to assume it was a hardware problem until I came across this thread. The strange thing about the wireless performance is that with inSSIDer I get ~ -70dBm with both the Samsung and my old Acer (TimelineX w/ Atheros AR5B97 Adapter) but the Samsung seems to drop connections far more frequently (ie. webpages half-loading, downloads stalling) and get much slower transfer rates despite having very similar signal..

I've tried fiddling with different driver versions and enabling different wifi modes/settings on the adapter to no avail..

At the moment I'm thinking hardware modding will be the only solution, I like this laptop too much otherwise to let wireless get in my way
Anyone with any experience or who has come across any articles on this.. it would be very much appreciated.

Thanks, loz

 

Might you have the Intel 6235 WiFi? For reasons best known to Intel (or maybe they don't know) this seems to be a worse performance than the older 6230. I must have another attempt at installing the 6230 in my NP900X4C (which has the 6235). I tried swapping previously and the driver failed to detect the change and wouldn't work with the 6230.

John

 

Hey John,

Puzzling if 6235 is indeed weaker than 6230. Although vendors have been known to launch "new an improved" models of a successful product, when they simply found a cheaper way to manufacture it. Of course I have no idea if that is the case with the 6235, but it happens all the time. Must say 6230 has been fairly good for me, once I got the right drivers and the right settings.

Re the driver not detecting the changed card: Maybe the driver package contains different physical drivers and checks the card before installing the driver. In that case just uninstall and re-install would probably do it.

Why I am telling you this? You already knew

Have wonderful holidays!

 

Yes John, it is the 6235.
That is strange indeed.. I might look into a relatively compact external dongle, but with decent range and an areal..

Performance seems slightly better today which makes me think it might be interference with something, unfortunately my virgin router is refusing to reset password to default from the hard reset which is preventing from changing things from the router-side.

Getting about 4mbit at the moment, but considering I'm only 4 meters and a couple of walls away is appalling.

 

InSSIDer will tell you if there are other WiFi's fighting over the same channel.

Regarding the router reset, you may get better success with logging in if you use a wired connection. More here about logging in.

John

 

Just got one a couple of days ago and I've been struggling with the wireless since, I was tempted to assume it was a hardware problem until I came across this thread.

It may just be a hardware problem. Don't let Intel myths get in the way of that assumption. My first Series 5 had serious WiFi issues and Googling indicated that Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 based WiFi laptops can have a good amount of WiFi issues. I exchanged it and the replacement works fine...It was a hardware problem.

 

just thinking of the router are you using it? i suffered with the problem as well, tried to find the proper driver for my Intel 6235. Yesterday after played with my router settings ( Super hub from the " BEST AND FASTEST " Virgin fibre ) and restoring it to default settings it works absolutely fine all day today! Just changed the name of my Wifi and set up encryption, the other settings was left as original and it really works fine now!

 

I've got the Superhub but it just serves as the interface between the cable connection and the dlink router I already had set up. But I use a wired connection when my computer is on my desk. In fact there are various wires and sockets around the house that I put in before WiFi became commonplace.

John

 

Yesterday after played with my router settings ( Super hub from the " BEST AND FASTEST " Virgin fibre ) and restoring it to default settings it works absolutely fine all day today!

Just remember that nobody is going to play with the router settings at the hotel, mall, airport or wherever else you may want to use WiFi other than home. And chances are that most people with the same laptop never had to do anything special to get theirs working.

 

No useful wireless at home, which is a really annoying facet of Oceanic Time Warner. They want double or triple the price, maybe more, to insure that it works in our house, which is not that large. In terms of use outside home, which after all is one of the reasons for a laptop, most of the wireless cafes here are pretty small. So as long as I sit on the side near the router, it seems to work OK.. That said, for travel or the occassional use in a larger coffee shop, this still could be a problem, and travel functionality is definitely a big reason for choosing a laptop over a desktop in the first place. Tried it in outdoor seating and about 20-30' from the router and started to have connectivity issues. So there is a problem, and haven't decided whether to keep or return. Enjoying the computer in most other ways, so may keep it and accept that I have to buy another wireless card or an air card and take up a slot - - would definitely prefer a fix, but understand that it may be a good wireless card in a bad position - i.e. design issue.

 

So there is a problem, and haven't decided whether to keep or return.

Beware of threads that try to give the impression that all users of a particular item have the same problem. Misery loves company. I'm sure you can find at least one Series 7 user with no WiFi issues whatsoever. I wouldn't even wait for that before returning mine if I were you.

 

But it is also unreasonable to expect a very fast connection if the router is shared with many others whereas at home with a >10Mbs connection it's annoying to only get a fraction of the downlink speed.

One way to expand network coverage in a large house is to use a powerline network adapter into which you can plug in a second router configured as an access point.

The underlying problem is that it is difficult to get a good signal to/from the antennae in a metal-cased notebook. Many notebooks have the antennae along the top of the display but Samsung dropped this arrangement in order to reduce the display thickness. I think the Series 7 is like the Series 9 where the antennae are along the back edge of the chassis between the hinges where the casing is plastic, not metal. However, there's still a lot of metal in the vicinity.

John

 

But it is also unreasonable to expect a very fast connection if the router is shared with many others whereas at home with a >10Mbs connection it's annoying to only get a fraction of the downlink speed.

Until recently, I was paying for 15 Mbs and getting less than 5 Mbs during peak hours. And that was measured via both Ethernet and WiFi. The provider has since upgraded their equipment after endless complaints. Now it's 12-15 Mbs during peak hours and around 20 Mbs otherwise.

Just another possible troubleshooting wrinkle to deal with if all you're depending on is a single Series 7 laptop with a problem. Then there are the neighbors, microwave ovens, cordless phones, BT interference and a slew of other things that make WiFi usage look like push come to shove in the home when compared to Ethernet.