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Help! Acer A0522 rubbish wireless performance

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  • Apr 8th, 2011 1:15 am
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Apr 16, 2001
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Help! Acer A0522 rubbish wireless performance

So I'm configuring my brand-new Acer A0522 I got today, and the wireless on this is just crap.

The netbook has an integrated Broadcom 802.11N wireless chip. The router is a Linksys WRT54GL running Tomato.

Also connected to the router is a Wii and a PC with a Linksys-G wireless card. Neither of those has wireless issues.

If I run speedtest from right next to the router, I get 10Mbps, which is rubbish. I should be getting 15Mbps+ with Rogers Speedboost. If I move the netbook upstairs, I'm lucky if the page even loads.

I've tried wireless channels 1,6 and 11. I've increaed by router broadcast power from 40-60-80. I have the latest Broadcom drivers from Acer.

Is the problem between wireless-N and my G router? Or is the netbook defective?
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Dec 12, 2009
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I can tell you this much, it is not surprising that when you are right next to the router that you could suffer performance issues, especially if your transmit power is ramped up too high. The connection saturates and so throughput actually drops. If you were to chart throughput with distance, you will find that optimum performance is some distance away from the router. Of course if you move too far then signal strength becomes an issue and performance once again drops off. I suggest that you go into the device manager and look at the settings on the wireless card and make sure settings are correct. My acer as1410 uses an intel wifilink 1000 BGN. There are settings for channel width, transmit power, adhoc channel, throughput enhancement... Since your adapter is also N capable, it should allow for channel width of 20 Mhz and 40 Mhz. I think wireless G is only 20 Mhz only. So, this is something worth checking to make sure settings are compatible. Actually go through everything. On the router side, with the laptop connected, check connection attributes such as signal, noise, signal to noise ratio and see if there is anything unusual. For the transmit power, turn it down to 40 mW or less. Wireless G signal should work fine with power down to 20-30 mW. Do a site survey to see how crowded the various channels are and select one of channel 1, 6, or 11 that is least crowded.

I just completed a speed test on my as1410 with it sitting about 2 feet from the router and signal probably in saturated conditions, connection speed at 72 MB, S/N ratio at 80 (extremely high), 15.5 Mb with rogers speedboost.

Good luck.
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Turning off 40mhz tolerance seems to have done the trick. It's still not as fast as my PC upstairs, but it's quite usable. Thanks!
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Does tomato firmware offer S/N data? If it does, compare signal quality between each of the devices that are connected by wireless and see if the connection on your netbook is noisy. Is there a setting for the transmit power level on the adapter card, if so set it to a higher level. Try also using a fixed channel, one that is not crowded, instead of auto. With a wireless N, you should be able to top out your rogers internet connection no problem. Keep playing around with the settings until you hit optimum. Don't forget to tone down the router Tx power otherwise you may overheat it.
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Router is G, not N. Tomato offers RSSI and Quality. The connection quality of the netbook is roughly half that of my Linksys PCI wireless-G card with high gain antenna (which I would expect).

I suspect it's a combination of weak broadcast signal in the netbook and the Broadcom N not playing nicely with the Linksys G router.
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Deal Expert
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Dec 12, 2009
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Sorry I got mixed up, forgot that your router is only G. Still 54 Mb should be enough to top out the internet connection speed. Does the wireless adapter on the netbook have a power setting that you can crank up a bit? You may also try to set the adapter to work in G mode only if there is such a setting.
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No power adjustment, unfortunately, and I've set all the pertinent driver options for the adaptor.
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