The shop is crazy cheap, so I think I'll go that route. Just about guaranteed, they'll find some other cleanups, upgrades, and optimizations that are being cried out for after 3 1/2 years. And always happy to support local business, and then by an even more huge factor with COVID-19 leaving so many good businesses struggling.
I will post however this shakes out, which might be more than a week including part ordering and diagnosis.
ALWAYS "one more thing."
I noticed that I can configure the 2.4 band on the router to be "802.11b+g+n" (exact what it's presented in the choices). So I changed that.
How would you recommend I set this:
Remember, the choices are:
- 802.11b Only
- 54g Auto
- 54g Performance
When I made the change to b+g+n, the signal rate of the PC, as viewed from the router, jumped up to 53, from the 11 it had been.
There's always one more thing, that's something I consider as more brain food, LOL.
I noticed that I can configure the 2.4 band on the router to be "802.11b+g+n" (exact what it's presented in the choices). So I changed that.
How would you recommend I set this:
Remember, the choices are:
- 802.11b Only
- 54g Auto
- 54g Performance
When I made the change to b+g+n, the signal rate of the PC, as viewed from the router, jumped up to 53, from the 11 it had been.
I think you've already answered that question yourself. If it works better set to b+g+n, that must be the best setting.
Some blog posts I read suggested 'g only' worked best for the 1397 but if your's prefers b+g+n, go for it.
You might test setting at b+g+n for a week and then switch to g only for another period. I'm not that familiar with the card but I'd be curious about 54g Auto versus 54g Performance and b Only. You never know with using Legacy devices on a newer OS.
Sorry - I was referring to the IBSS 54g Mode setting on the 1397 card. Which choice would you recommend, form the three I cited (the only three available)?
Test them all, the 1397 likely predates Windows 10 and you just never know. Please update this thread if you learn that one is better than the other.
Another question.
Sorry, I may have missed this tidbit. Did you ever manage to run the TCP/IP analyzer with the problem PC? This would be most informative about the PC configurations related directly to speed and performance.
Whoops, so much software, so little time - or brains - to remember and use it all...
For whatever reason, the computer, while not exactly lighting up the packet flow, is at least now connecting to web sites more often than not. I ran the analyzer - it was of course really easy, as long as the internet worked - then raced to take screen shots and email them back to my computer for posting, before the performance returned to awful.
So here are the shots - what do they tell you?
You have to take some of these results with a grain of salt. I've taken the time in past to fiddle with all these settings and on an older PC I did make several gains. Apparently, a router could introduce limitations on some of these settings as well.
On this MSI PC, I did find that reducing the MTU a slight bit provided less fragmentation and faster downloads. I'll dig for notes although I'm not certain if they're on this PC or another older one.
Speedguide used to provide all the manual directions for all these tweaks, it might still be hidden somewhere on their site.
The optimizer is still easily downloadable from the Speedguide site. I ran it (just used the easy "optimize" setting), calibrated for 16 Mbps, then restarted to save the registry changes. That yielded nothing. Connecting to the internet was an awful struggle, even by the compromised standards.
So I ran it again, optimized for 8 Mbps, and restarted. Here are the outputs I got:
From a quick glance, I see no differences. Although the first run of the optimizer changed a LOT of settings.
"Signal rate" to the slow PC, read from the router, is 54. Slightly up from last time I looked.
Noteworthy to me is that today, speedtest.net from Ookla does not work on that computer, whether off the web (where IF the page loads and gets to "go," then just sits there saying "connecting" but never acting like it succeeded), or from the desktop app (where it tells me it can't connect to the internet, even though web sites are loading).
I've been messing about with my own PC and router. I'm beginning to think newer computers are much more versatile than the older versions and these settings may no longer be that relevant on the computer end. I'm still testing some theories and will update when I have something noteworthy.
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