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Surface pro 4 Slow Wifi issues

Seneleron

Active Member
I hope I'm in a vastly smaller minority than the SP3 issues, but it looks like the dreaded "slow WiFi" bug has tracked me down. When I move from my office [where my router is situated] to the back of the house the WiFi signal speed goes down [totally understandable] and then seems to get "stuck". Originally it would drop down to 39 Mbps and then sit there, even when moved back within a foot of the router. I did some googling, tried the regedit change [which capped speeds at 140] Tried reinstalling drivers, etc.

[For clarity: Signal strength goes down as distance from the router increases, but does not get stronger when you move back towards the router]

So at this point I've gotten it to where it seems to stick between 104Mbps and 140 Mbps until I disable/re-enable the driver, at which point it returns to a solid 866Mbps +/-.

I know it sounds like a bit of a nitpick, but I actually have the fortune of having 300Mbps synchronous internet, and during initial setup it was REALLY noticable when timers would say 2 hours instead of 1 minute. Of course once I realized what was going on disable/enable wasn't a HUGE deal. . .but it's still something I shouldn't HAVE to do.

Just thought I'd put my experience here, see if anyone else has seen anything like this?

Edit: this is the regedit fix I attempted:

Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book having slow Wi-Fi: How to fix
 
Last edited:

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
I seem to have better response on 2.4ghz than 5. Haven't done any sleuthing on it yet to see what's what. It's not the desirable solution but might get you up to dog slow anyway if you have that option.
 

gtmead09

Member
I seem to be having this issue as well. Its like it drops for a 5 seconds or so but by the time I start to run a network test it comes back. I have the AC 1750 with the newest firmware from TP-Link
 

Garyjk

Member
there have been posts about a fix, try it and see if it helps:

  • Press the Windows key and R at the same time, type regedit and press Enter to launch the Registry Editor.
  • Navigate to KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ ControlSet001\Services\mrvlpcie8897.
  • Locate the key named TXAMSDU.
  • Double click it, and change its value to 0.
  • Restart your computer.
 

gtmead09

Member
there have been posts about a fix, try it and see if it helps:

  • Press the Windows key and R at the same time, type regedit and press Enter to launch the Registry Editor.
  • Navigate to KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ ControlSet001\Services\mrvlpcie8897.
  • Locate the key named TXAMSDU.
  • Double click it, and change its value to 0.
  • Restart your computer.

Before I add this, should this key already be present? I don't see if on my machine and wanted to ask before I create it. Thanks
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
there have been posts about a fix, try it and see if it helps:

  • Press the Windows key and R at the same time, type regedit and press Enter to launch the Registry Editor.
  • Navigate to KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ ControlSet001\Services\mrvlpcie8897.
  • Locate the key named TXAMSDU.
  • Double click it, and change its value to 0.
  • Restart your computer.
This fix did the trick for me.

Microsoft:
The issue is specific to MAC layer aggregation (AMSDU over AMPDU) and only impacts a small subset of access points. We are working on a fix for an upcoming update. Until the fix is available, please update the registry key setting to work around this issue."

users have reported that when connected to Wi-Fi, web pages do not load, and the connection keeps getting disconnected. It also shows "limited" connectivity. For some, this leads to continuous power consumption, reducing the battery life of the device.​
 

Slider4105

New Member
Wow thank you for this. I was having trouble connecting my WiFi printer, but was not experiencing the slow browsing speeds. Did this trick and it completely fixed my issue with detecting the printer on my network! Thanks again so much
 

Planetbrian

New Member
Wireless range is not very good.... my wife's new Dell E7450 has great connection in the other room while my SP4 connection is almost non-existent and drops. I ended up buying a second Netgear R7000, both configured as access points in our house configured with the same SSID's, same passwords, different channels and my wife's laptop will switch automatically between the two AP's for the strongest signal....the SP4 just stays connected at 40 Mbps to the weakest AP...won't automatically switch. I guess that's what we get with the horrible and cheap Marvel wireless chipset. For MS flagship they should be using Intel.

I will try the fix, but this POS is going back...I need something that works especially for $1600.
 

bluegrass

Well-Known Member
I hope I'm in a vastly smaller minority than the SP3 issues, but it looks like the dreaded "slow WiFi" bug has tracked me down. When I move from my office [where my router is situated] to the back of the house the WiFi signal speed goes down [totally understandable] and then seems to get "stuck". Originally it would drop down to 39 Mbps and then sit there, even when moved back within a foot of the router. I did some googling, tried the regedit change [which capped speeds at 140] Tried reinstalling drivers, etc.

[For clarity: Signal strength goes down as distance from the router increases, but does not get stronger when you move back towards the router]

So at this point I've gotten it to where it seems to stick between 104Mbps and 140 Mbps until I disable/re-enable the driver, at which point it returns to a solid 866Mbps +/-.

I know it sounds like a bit of a nitpick, but I actually have the fortune of having 300Mbps synchronous internet, and during initial setup it was REALLY noticable when timers would say 2 hours instead of 1 minute. Of course once I realized what was going on disable/enable wasn't a HUGE deal. . .but it's still something I shouldn't HAVE to do.

Just thought I'd put my experience here, see if anyone else has seen anything like this?

Edit: this is the regedit fix I attempted:

Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book having slow Wi-Fi: How to fix

I wouldn't rely on the speeds to update dynamically correctly. We've been doing similar testing around the building where I work and it seems to be a more reliable speed figure by disconnecting and reconnecting the Wi-Fi between speed checks.
 
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