Surface Pro 3 Slow WiFi - 72Mbps Max (driver)

Sigh. This is so frustrating. I've had my SP3 (256GB / i7) for about two months now and none of the updates MS has pushed through have helped the wifi issue.

People here are complaining about getting 40 - 50 MB/s throughput, yet when I transfer files to my SP3 from my desktop (on the same network, over 5 GHz wifi), I'm lucky if I see 4 - 5 MB/s transfer speeds.

I've got a TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 Dual Band router that has separate SSIDs for 2.4 and 5 GHz. I'm using only the 5 GHz band for the SP3, and the router is set to N-only for the 5 GHz.

My SP3 consistently:

• Won't reconnect to wifi after being asleep (wifi shows up as "Limited" with no internet connection). I have to either disconnect from the wifi network and reconnect, or since that doesn't always work either (!!), restart the machine.
• Transfer & throughput speeds are terrible.
• AND wifi drops! Will be fine for X amount of time, while in use, and then randomly drop to Limited / no internet connection. Not anything related to coming out of sleep, during actual use. Will have to restart or disconnect from wifi then reconnect.

All of this while: fully up to date on all updates and drivers and connected to a 5 GHz N-only dual band router (that is not sharing an SSID with 2.4 GHz).

What prompted me to post here today was that last night my SP3 completely stopped connecting to ANY 5 GHz signal. I restarted. I toggled the wifi. As many out there have suggested: I enabled Hyper-V, restarted, adjusted the wireless adapter power settings, disabled Hyper-V, restarted... and it still wouldn't connect to the 5 GHz wifi. It would only connect to the 2.4 GHz SSID. And the speeds were obviously atrocious compared to even the not great 5 GHz speed. Out of desperation I started playing with the router settings and changed the 5 GHz band from "11an mixed" to "11n only" and finally that allowed me to reconnect to the 5 GHz band with the SP3. Ugh!

Incredible that this hasn't been fixed since the release of the SP3. My wife's Macbook Air that is a year and a half old has zero issues on our 5 GHz wifi. My WP (a Lumia 920, two years old, which I love) has zero issues on our 5 GHz wifi.... yet a brand new SP3, which wasn't cheap, is terrible on wifi!

What is causing this? The Marvell adapter drivers? Why hasn't this been fixed!

On Tue, 4 Nov 2014 17:03:16 +0000, SurfaceNut wrote:

>>Sorry, it's impossible to chage the channel on a router at work and at the public places where I use this device.

Yup, that is very true.

I can only tell you that my solution

http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2014/09/21/a-40-fix-for-surface-pro-3-slow-wifi/

gets me past the issues cause by using the Marvell wifi. There's no indication

of exactly what scenarios Microsoft thinks they've fixed (only the broadest

general terms) and there is no specific acknowledgement of what issues they are

aware of AND working on. It's been mostly generalities written by marketing

folks and not engineering here.

I know how frustrating this has been for folks afflicted with one or more of the

issues.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barb

Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

Please mark as answered if this answers your question

Sorry, it's impossible to chage the channel on a router at work and at the public places where I use this device.

On Tue, 4 Nov 2014 02:19:40 +0000, SurfaceNut wrote:

>>This update has still not helped with the Bluetooth interference.

>>

>>

>>

>>I've recently noticed that when I don't have a full signal and enable a bluetooth mouse, my wireless link speed decreases to 1Mbps.    For example, a 26Mbps link with the Mouse turned off turns into a 1Mbps link when the mouse is turned on.

>>

>>

>>

>>When I have a strong signal it typically gets cut in half 144 (mouse off) turns into 72 when I turn the mouse on.

you could try changing the 802.11 2.4GHz channel on your router. or if you

have/purchase a dual band router, connect to the 5 GHz channel.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barb

Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

Please mark as answered if this answers your question

This update has still not helped with the Bluetooth interference.  

I've recently noticed that when I don't have a full signal and enable a bluetooth mouse, my wireless link speed decreases to 1Mbps.    For example, a 26Mbps link with the Mouse turned off turns into a 1Mbps link when the mouse is turned on.

When I have a strong signal it typically gets cut in half 144 (mouse off) turns into 72 when I turn the mouse on.