Wireless download speed problems

[Themer]

I've looked everywhere for a solution to this problem, and actually found countless reports of its existence, but not a single solution! Hopefully we can come up with a solution once and for all.

The problem:
This is a weird one. I connect to my router using a wireless card (as many people do, I'm sure), BUT, for some very strange and unknown reason, the download speeds I'm getting are WAY lower than they should be theoretically. The router is setup to limit to ~5.5 MBits/s, meaning I should get roughly half a megabyte per second, give or take, right? On Windows XP (sorry ) on the same computer, that is exactly what I get. On Ubuntu (10.10 64 bit) however, it is never more than 30 to 40 kilobytes per second! For those of you wanting an easy solution , yes, it is set to 54M, not 1M, (which is weird in itself, because it should be like 5.5, or 11 or something, but that's beside the point), and yet the problem persists. Even more strange, I seem to be able to upload (if I remember correctly) at the ~60 kilobytes per second I would expect from my ISP/router/computer (regardless of OS).

Now that I think about it, I may have been experiencing this problem (though perhaps in less severity) for years now and not realized it. For the longest time, I could have sworn that every now and then (when the router was not limited and thus providing up to 54 MBits/s, and the ~7.5MBits/s from my ISP), it would get "stuck" at a download rate cap of about 100 kilobytes/s, give or take ~10. This would often not last long enough to notice/care, and could be corrected by disabling and re-enabling the wireless (a couple second procedure at the worst). Perhaps this (my current issue) is a related problem, but just harder to "break" and restricting tighter due to lower rates?

So, to sum up...

Despite my wireless card being configured and apparently functioning perfectly, I can only download at speeds under one tenth what I would expect, and yet I can upload properly. Not to mention everything it perfect under Windows on the same computer.

Surely someone has a brilliant solution? I would be happy to provide detailed info on my setup/card, but I doubt it will make any difference...

[Kloschüssel]

*hm*

There are several things that affect the download speed. But I am likely to believe that wireless is not the problem. I would therefore recommend to test if it is surely the wireless which brakes out the speed. To test it you would need test the transfer speed between you and the router and here's how I would test that:

1] connect your laptop/pc that shows the symptoms with wireless and make sure to have a signal quality of 90% and above (i.e. place it nearby the router)
2] use another laptop/pc and connect that one to the router with a cable (that should give him at least a 100mbit connection)
3] transfer files from one laptop/pc to the other and observe the speed

if it speeds beyond 100kb/s for more than half an hour it is not the wireless of your laptop/pc and you can try the same thing from where you sit normally. the wireless signal strength there could be worse and slow down the overall speed - but at least you then would know the source of problem.

in case this test does show your speed is still slow I have some other ideas that we could try.

let us know!

[Themer]

First, may I just refine what I said I believe to be the problem:

It must be a configuration problem/bug in Linux (or one of it's components) affecting the wireless. (not the wireless itself)

Why?

There is no problem on Windows, and when cabling it in to the router in the past*, it has always been fine.
(*This is no longer possible - the super long cable has gone to the TV permanently)

The fact that it works perfectly on Windows must mean 2 things:

1. The problem is not hardware, but instead relating to Linux somehow (configuration, drivers, etc.)
2. It could not be signal strength, because, as I said, it works fine on Windows (and this is a PC that does not move (not a laptop)), and since logically both OSs would have the same strength, this could not be the issue, right?

I appreciate the suggestion, but would be more interested in your other ideas.

Just a side note, I have transfered files between computers on the LAN in the past (from where they sit), mine being the wireless (as it is now, both physically and "tech-wise"), the other being wired in, and it would always average just over 2 megabytes per second.

Just to sum up, I feel the issue must be the way Linux is utilizing the network card, and not the hardware/connection itself, seeing as how physically, the card and router, and connection between them has been proven to be fine.

[Kloschüssel]

Then we should take a look at the wireless chip and the driver in use. There may be known issues with the chip or unsupported / lacking drivers / ndiswrapper problems.

[Themer]

I'm on windows now so I'll get the full details later, but for now I remember off the top of my head I have the rt2500pci driver on a linksys card, W...something, and the router is a WRT54GL, but that shouldn't matter