Win10 Wifi slow and erratic, IOS and Droid devices OK

Ken -- Thanks very much for the reply, that was very educational. I downloaded Inssider, what a great tool. I did not know anything about Channels. I found the router was set to Channel "auto", and it had selected Channel 11 as best. That was in fact validated by the Inssider scores. I tested Channels 1 and 6, and they scored lower than Channel 11. Also the really poor internet speeds did not change on my Win 10 device on Channels 1 or 6. (And the speeds stayed very good on my IOS and Droid devices on those Channels.)

In using Inssider I saw another network coming from the router. I found out from google that Comcast by default forces users to broadcast an "open" Xfinity hotspot, which they market as a "feature"-- nearby Comcast users can connect through the hotspot -- and suck up some of your bandwidth. You can turn the hotspot off, but not in the router (for which I have admin access). Instead you have to contact Comcast or use their customer portal. I cannot do this because I don't have that P/W, and I don't want to bother my landlord about it since I'm only here for a few more weeks.

But I notice on Inssider that the hotspot is broadcasting on the same channel as the "Private" wifi that I use here in the house. I'm wondering if somehow my Surface is confused or slowed by this, whereas the IOS and Droid network adaptors are not? I will attempt to insert an Inssider screen shot below. The "SUNSET HOUSE" ssid is the private wifi I connect to. The "xfinitywifi" ssid is the hotspot. I don't know what the third one is (the blank ssid). I note the MACs are identical for all three except for the first 2 characters. Fyi and fwiw, I have tried connecting my Surface to the hotspot -- no improvement, no change from the private wifi.

In any event, thanks again, I really appreciate the suggestions.

I would disable IPv6 to see if it improves your connectivity.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/...nts-in-windows

I uncheck all IPv6 associated protocols in my adapters and reset my wifi for highest roaming sensitivity (which Windows persists in returning to the default, 3. medium, )



Very little of the internet uses IPv6 yet (16%), and that is on top of the IPv4 background which is the protocol that runs almost all of the consumer internet.

You don't need any of the protocols that depend on IPv6 for private home networks, which run fine with IPv4, except homegroups, which are incompatible rubbish IMO.

I had bad connectivity, but Windows said I had Internet access, wifi and ethernet. I pinged several well known sites - BBC.co.uk, Google.com, etc., and they all returned IPv6 addresses, in fact the same one - that I think was my Router's IPv6 address. My router has not had the firmware upgrade supplied by BT (my ISP) to make it fully IPv6 compliant - I expect they want me to pay for a new router - so disabling IPv6 in Windows seemed to make the problem go away.

Fafhrd -- thanks for the suggestion. I disabled IPv6 and re-booted the Surface. At first I thought BINGO, because on re-conection the speed was the best I've seen -- 40 mbps download. It stayed that way for maybe an hour or so, then deteriorated (getting maybe 10 - 15 mbps), then went back to dead (.2 mbps, or perhaps 1 mbps at times). So no joy. But thanks again for the info and suggestion. As I note below, it goes unpredictably from dead (.2 mbps) to OK (10 mbps and above).

Ken -- Thank you very much for the follow up. Not sure about "shut off everything below WI-Fi sense" -- I do not see anything similar to "wifi sense". Below is a screen shot of my wifi adaptor settings. It is unchanged from what I started with, except I have disabled IPv6, per Fafhrd's suggestion (see above).

Yes, the IOS and Droid devices are connecting to the exact same SSID (SUNSET HOUSE).

I cannot find a free Inssider for Droid, and I'd rather not pay the $10 for something that may or may not solve the problem. I am about ready to admit defeat, and just continue using my iPhone hotspot.

I find the wholly erratic nature of this to be maddening -- I will think I've fixed it, then back to molasses. Even from click-to-click I can tell the speed is varying dramatically. Something is "confusing" Windows. Perhaps it is some sort of transient interference as you first suggested. I would think the adapter itself is bad, but it is fine with the iPhone hotspot (and it was fine when I left home). And the router itself must be fundamentally ok since the IOS and Droids are fine.

Two last items I will toss out:
1. When the speed is dead, I cannot even get to the local router url (10.0.0.1). In other words, even response time here locally, what I think of as the WAN, is bad. Its not just to/from the wider web. When I'm in "molasses mode", I have to log into the Router Admin from my Droid. Whatever is causing the slow response is affecting access to the router just 30 feet away. Maybe I just don't understand how urls like 10.0.0.1 are resolved -- maybe they still have to go to "the internet".

2. I keep looking at what is different between the way the iPhone hotspot shows up, versus the router. Below is a screen shot from another wifi analyzer (called WifiInfoView). The security for the router says "WPA-PSK + WPA2-PSK", with a "Cipher" (whatever that is) of "TKIP+CCMP". That is different from the iPhone hotspot, and it is different from every other network that shows up on the analyzers (I did not include them in the screen shots). The iPhone and all the other access points show security of "WPA-PSK" or "WPA2-PSK", but not both. And all the others show Ciphers of either TKIP or CCMP, but not both. I wonder if this is a difference in this router that is ok with IOS/Droid, but confuses Windows.
In any event, thanks again for your time and help.

Ken -- very sorry for the delayed response, I really appreciate your efforts to help.

Inssider is now available on the droid PlayStore, but it costs $9.99. I did download the free Wifi Analyser and also the free Wifi Analyzer to my droid (LG 7 tablet LTE). They showed similar info to what I saw on Inssider on Windows. They seem to show fewer details about the networks, but for the data they do display, I could see no material differences between them and Inssider on Windows.

And of course you are correct about Wifi Sense -- another real learning for me. I was going into Control Panel --> Networking. And in there I could not find Wifi Sense. But when I use Start --> Settings --> Networking, then I see it as you said. It was enabled, I disabled it. (Everything below it was already disabled.) Right now everything seems to be working, but the real test is over time (over say an hour or so). Who knows, maybe Wifi Sense will prove to be the problem cause.

I did not change the router channel width to 40 --- I am hesitant to tinker with my landlord's router. And frankly I'm giving up. If speed deteriorates again I will just reconcile myself to using my phone's hotspot while I'm here for the next two weeks. If speed stays good, I think that will mean that Wifi Sense made a difference, since it is the only change of late -- I will post a followup just fyi in a week or so.

Again I really appreciate your help. The problem may not have been fixed, but I learned a great deal.

It has now been a week since I turned off Wifi Sense, and the problem has not recurred. Sounds like that was the issue. I don't understand very much about Wifi Sense, but I'm wondering if the Comcast router public hotspot "feature" (!) was confusing Windows Wifi Sense.

Thanks again Ken for your help.