Internet speed throttle problem

[Jack Kraut]

Hello all,

I'm having an issue with the internet speed on my desktop computer that runs Windows is going much slower (as measured by FTP downloads) than my Mac laptop.

Both are wireless. When I download a large file, the mac computer will routinely go significantly faster (4-5x) what the Windows computer will do. The Windows computer seems to have a cap at about 200-250kbytes/sec.

Now, I just reinstalled my O/S and so I'm on a clean reinstall of Windows, and it's *still* happening, and I'm puzzled.

A few things I think it might be:

- My Macbook wireless is integrated, whereas the Windows wireless is through a Belkin F5D9050 USB connector ("Wireless G Plus MIMO")
- Perhaps there's a limiting issue on the Windows motherboard?
- Maybe something limiting within the Windows firewall or registry settings.

Any suggestions to fix this?

Thanks!

Jack

 

[SNGX1275]

I don't know, so take my comments with a grain of salt until someone else replies..

Try switching the wireless channel on the router.. For an N router (perhaps others) there are typically 11 channels. Try 1 or 11, something on the ends.

Does your windows machine have a better transfer if you bring it really close to the router?

 

[Jack Kraut]

I'm in the same room as the router... I mean we're talking about a matter of feet here -- the Windows 7 computer is maybe 20 feet away.

Some more data that may help or may confuse things more --

Last night I was downloading on my Windows PC from Firefox, a file at about 800-900KB/sec. However my FTP program (FlashFXP) would not go that high. Those were different servers.

However my test server for this is a seed box which pretty much maxes out whatever bandwidth is there; and when downloading on the Macbook, last night I got speeds of 1.8MB/sec. The Windows transferred the exact same file, from the same server, at about 300KB/sec. My speeds are all in "bytes" by the way, not "bits."

When my current download finishes, I'll test out another FTP client. The two computers are connected to the same router, on the same port / protocol, so I can't see where it would be a router / QoS problem. Checking that as well though.