SteveBorough
Member
Speed tests show that my phone (HTC One) is at least double the WiFi speed of my SP2 with Bluetooth on...sad, very sad
speed of wifi is slow all of a sudden?
- Thread starter starstreak
- Start date
CrippsCorner
Well-Known Member
Yup Bluetooth is a killer 
they really need to change the damn chip come Surface Pro 3...
they really need to change the damn chip come Surface Pro 3...Yup Bluetooth is a killer
I have 120 Mbs internet. My router is a a Cisco dual band running Tomato firmware. I ran a speed test and discovered that my SP2 was only able to achieve 15 to 20 Mbs download speeds. Digging into this I found that the SP2 was connecting via the 2.4 GHz connection rather than the 5 GHz connection. There needs to be a driver option to have the wireless chip to prefer the 5 GHz band but there is none for this chip but that is only half of the problem. As others have mentioned there is severe 2.4 GHz interference when bluetooth is running because it also operates on 2.4 GHz frequencies, although other chip manufactures seem to have worked out the issues because my other computers do not suffer from this problem. The work around for me (in my home at least) was to have the 5 GHz channel on a unique SSID thereby forcing the SP2 to use a 5 GHz channel. This is not ideal because I am now not able to seamlessly roam to a 2.4 GHz channel when the 5 GHz channel becomes weak (5 GHz channels do not carry as far as 2.4 GHz do). I do now have 120 Mbs speeds however. This doesn't help me much when I travel as most hotels and hotspots are 2.4 GHz only.
I hope this is an issue that Marvell and Microsoft can work out by improving the driver. If the hardware design is flawed, I am afraid we are hosed.
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kundas1
Well-Known Member
^^^Exactly, same situation as myself and with the 5GHz I can achieve my full broadband speeds which is 64mbt down. With 2.4GHz its only 24mbt...
I've also noticed mediocre, and inconsistent, WiFi performance with the built adapter. Typically, at home, the status dialog says 65mbps, but occasionally will show 130mbps or something in between. Sometimes, it will get "stuck" with "limited" connection and refuse to reconnect normally. Not much to do except reboot, then it will usually work. The SP2 is such a mysterious beast.
Interestingly, I've also used a USB D-Link WiFi adapter (to have a second channel for VMs under Hyper-V). The D-Link (DWA-171, a low-priced model) nearly always shows 150mbps, about the max my old router can muster.
Sad that a cheap, low-end WiFi adapter is so much better than the onboard chip. Though hardly preferable, in a pinch, may be an option for SP2 WiFi problems.
BTW, the Marvell driver is 14.69.24044.150 from 2013-09-19. I gather it's best to stick with that driver version. According to Update History no "update" to the driver was ever offered.
Interestingly, I've also used a USB D-Link WiFi adapter (to have a second channel for VMs under Hyper-V). The D-Link (DWA-171, a low-priced model) nearly always shows 150mbps, about the max my old router can muster.
Sad that a cheap, low-end WiFi adapter is so much better than the onboard chip. Though hardly preferable, in a pinch, may be an option for SP2 WiFi problems.
BTW, the Marvell driver is 14.69.24044.150 from 2013-09-19. I gather it's best to stick with that driver version. According to Update History no "update" to the driver was ever offered.
CrippsCorner
Well-Known Member
Paul T recently mentioned the latest update contains something new for the Surface Pro network drivers, has anyone had a chance to try this out yet? My maximum speed on broadband is 14Mb/s and to be fair I do get that on my Surface. I've given up with the bluetooth conflict and am going to purchase an AirPort Express to try using Wi-Fi instead, although it's still 2.4GHz I have more confidence this will work. Actually whilst I'm talking about it, I thought I'd ask... it says on the AirPort Express website that it 'transmits' at both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, but I guess that doesn't mean I can use 5GHz when my router is only 2.4GHz? i.e. I'm presuming it's only an 'extender' as such, and not a router itself. It's just the word transmits that confuses me a bit!
lparsons21
Active Member
With the Airport Express you can configure it to be an extender or as a full router. It has some user count limits but I'm not sure exactly what the count is. It is quite flexible to configure it in different ways.
I have the Airport Extreme, well actually the Time Capsule which is an Extreme with internal hard drive.
I have the Airport Extreme, well actually the Time Capsule which is an Extreme with internal hard drive.
I found something that moved the needle from 65mb/s on up to 270, which is what I would expect for a dual channel N class connection.
First the bad news, your battery life might suffer if you do this. But the good news is that it was instantaneous - night and day improvement.
Wifi Properties
Configure
Advanced
Selective Suspend ---> turn it to "disable"
Now go look at your connection speed...
For me it was an instant win. Now to measure just how much I care about the impact to battery life
First the bad news, your battery life might suffer if you do this. But the good news is that it was instantaneous - night and day improvement.
Wifi Properties
Configure
Advanced
Selective Suspend ---> turn it to "disable"
Now go look at your connection speed...
For me it was an instant win. Now to measure just how much I care about the impact to battery life
I found something that moved the needle from 65mb/s on up to 270, which is what I would expect for a dual channel N class connection.
First the bad news, your battery life might suffer if you do this. But the good news is that it was instantaneous - night and day improvement.
Wifi Properties
Configure
Advanced
Selective Suspend ---> turn it to "disable"
Now go look at your connection speed...
For me it was an instant win. Now to measure just how much I care about the impact to battery life
Didn't work for me.
CrippsCorner
Well-Known Member
2.4GHz Wi-Fi = Slow...
5GHz Wi-Fi = Fast...
5GHz Wi-Fi = Fast...
