Wireless being rather... odd.

[luke127]

Hi guys, here's a problem I haven't been able to solve for the last few hours.

So I had a mate's laptop over here, and I was doing some general repair work on it (He'd somehow ****ed his boot config file? :? ) Anyways, so I checked the wifi connection strength to my router before I started doing updates for it, bla bla bla. It had 5 bars and 10 mbps down, (which is my max speed).

Go to my desktop, which is running in the exact same room, hell, even facing the same way that the laptop was, and I get anywhere from 3-6 mbps, and some horrible packet loss occasionally when I play Battlefield 4. I'd love to know how a laptop that cost LESS than my desktop, is somehow able to get a stronger wifi signal to the same router, over the same distance, and through the same number of walls? I mean really.

Running ethernet is not an option, as that would require running a 20m cable under the house, and that's been veto'd by my parents. So I'm stuck with wifi. I'm considering seeing if reinstalling Windows helps, (I need to do it anyway, attempted a slight hack to give myself free windows 10, since my OS is not officially eligible for the upgrade, and that went sideways). But if that doesn't, then why the fek is it doing this?

Cheers,
Luke

Note: The desktop is custom, I built it. Here's the wireless adapter I am using:
https://www.pccasegear.com/products/19577

Note 2: This is not malware related, I've checked it with malwarebytes, among other things, and there's nothing on the system that shouldn't be here.

 

[carnageX]

Most likely has bad reception. Use a utility to view the signal strength in actual dBm to see what signal strength you're getting compared to your friend's laptop.

If a straight run of ethernet isn't an option...what about looking into a PowerLine adapter to hardwire into the router?

 

[luke127]

RSSI is -79. From what I can gather, that's pretty crap.

The other problem is that powerline adapters require a wall socket on their own, and also that I'm unsure if they'll work in this house due to them needing to be on the same circuit as the router's wall socket, which I'm unsure if they will be.

 

[carnageX]

-79 isn't all that bad.

Ask your parents if you have a single circuit in your house...I would almost guarantee that you do (do you have multiple fuse boxes in your house? if not, it's usually a single circuit). Usually the only time you have separate circuits is if you have multiple buildings (i.e. a separate garage).