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

Yeah, I may be bringing in some points of view from the many other threads out there on the interwebs on this topic.  The numbers that people are quoting did make it sound like they were just looking at link speed though.

I may not have been clear, but yeah, I agree the overall throughput it bad - I did say I wasn't comparing to other devices.  However, I was trying to make some way to clearing up that the driver versions really don't make much difference.  Not in my case anyway.

That may be the issue if you have wireless N, however if you use wireless AC is different story. Usually wireless ac on my end transfer at 15MB/s average if you transfer a big file even if the connection speed runs between 300 mbps-800 mbps at the 5ghz band on my surface pro 3. If it always connect at the 2.4ghz band because is not auto-selecting you are doomed at 2.4 ghz band wireless N if there is no other way to use separate ssid. Also a 2.5MB/s on wireless N is kind of slow...it shall be at least about 6 MB/s.

Yeah, I may be bringing in some points of view from the many other threads out there on the interwebs on this topic.  The numbers that people are quoting did make it sound like they were just looking at link speed though.

I may not have been clear, but yeah, I agree the overall throughput it bad - I did say I wasn't comparing to other devices.  However, I was trying to make some way to clearing up that the driver versions really don't make much difference.  Not in my case anyway.

On Thu, 25 Sep 2014 10:16:43 +0000, SteveInsley wrote:

>> I think the latest edition of the drivers has addressed an issue that people are mistaking for a regression.  I think that MS is favouring stability rather than (ineffectively) boosting link speed just for the sake of making people happy looking at their link-speed stats.

It isn't the link speed that people are concerned about, it is the throughput,

as in the amount of time it takes to transfer a 2 gig file over the Internet.

This is the kind of speed measured by the various Oookla servers like

speedtest.net. I've tested the throughput both by downloading large ISO's from

MSDN and using the speedtest servers.

See

http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2014/09/22/real-world-data-points-on-slow-wifi-on-surface-pro-3-using-2-4-ghz/

then take the speedtest yourself on 2.4/5 GHz and post your info here.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barb

Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

Please mark as answered if this answers your question

Hi everyone

Don't just look at link speed - look at throughput...

I bought my SP3 a couple of weeks ago and immediately updated to all latest drivers.  I too had intermittent slow Wifi issues after updates - I got an average 74Mbs connection to my AP.  I factory restored the SP3 yesterday and, yes, I connected at 300Mbs to my Airport Extreme AP as many people have stated.  "The new drivers suck, etc!!" I cried.  However, it got me thinking - is the difference between the "old" and "new" firmware/drivers just the algorithm for deciding whether to connect over 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz?

For reference, my SP3 is about 20 feet from my AP, with the signal passing through a desk, a floor and a wall.

With all the latest drivers/firmware, I did some testing by creating a separate 5Ghz SSID on my AP, manually connecting to each frequency and transferring a large (350MB) file from my Gbit LAN cabled server on the same network - here's the result:

• On 2.4Ghz, link speed was between 54Mbs and 108Mbs.  Actual throughout:  2.5MB/s
• On 5Ghz, link speed was 300Mbs solid.  Actual throughout:  2.5MB/s

I restored again and repeated the test with the original release drivers/firmware.  The result?  Exactly the same!!  However, when I reverted to a single SSID and let the SP3 choose what frequency to connect to, it always chose 5GHz at 300Mbs.

I think (in my case at least) the old drivers simply gave the illusion of better speed, but the reality was that it was simply making a "poor" choice of which frequency to use when connecting.  While 300Mbs looks great in my status window, in reality, the connection quality is poorer (as confirmed by another tool) and so would drop more frequently as I moved around the house.  With the latest firmware/drivers, sure, 54Mbs - 108Mbs looks bad, but actually it has been more stable and the real-world throughput is the same!

Weird huh?  Well, no, not really.  I think the latest edition of the drivers has addressed an issue that people are mistaking for a regression.  I think that MS is favouring stability rather than (ineffectively) boosting link speed just for the sake of making people happy looking at their link-speed stats.

YMMV yada-yada.  This is just my explanation after a couple of hours testing in my specific scenario - in my house with an Apple APE router in Bridged mode.  Note that I'm not comparing the SP3 to other devices, my only aim with this post is to make people think and what's going on with their SP3 before jumping to conclusions.  Test the "real-world" throughput folks, don't just look at link speed to judge what's going on with your connection.  I'd like to see MS come out and settle this for its customers once and for all.

Try this one

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-surfnetwork/surface-pro-3-limited-wifi-problem/bd17691d-f00d-491c-a65e-fcd77a304b3a?page=41&msgId=47e4fbee-b56a-4248-98b1-c1ea1318b994

Thanks, but I wasn't asking how to do it; I posted a solution. The one you referenced is about the same, but mine uses PowerShell (better) and doesn't require an external script.

I prefer the one I linked 😉