Different download speeds on two machines side by side

I have a 60mb fibre broadband – on my old laptop (Win 8.1)with no external antenna, only what is built into the machine – I am getting over 62mb on several tests. My desktop – fourcore intel i5, 8mb ram on Win8 has no antenna either so I have an Alfa (AWUS036NH) with a 6db gain aerial attached, is struggling to reach 20mb. They are located side by side. Can anybody suggest as to what is likely to be wrong with the desktop setup? Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks

Hi there telboy and welcome to Eight Forums,

Ok...I understand you want to know why your laptop can download faster then the desktop machine. Well, there is no easy answer because there can be a lot of reasons why this difference occurs. In example: drivers, installed software, hdd, memory, active programs, network setup etc.

My advice for you would be to trail and error. First I'd start by connection the desktop to a wired network and check the downloadspeed. If that's way higher you found the bottleneck, the wireless reciever. If not...you would have to do more trail and error.

Sorry I can't help you any further right now. But there are just to many reasons why this problem can occur.

Goodluck with the trail and error! And please post back your results.

Greetz,

Rover

Der Snoober thanks for your reply. I did wonder about that but thought it wouldn't account for such a drop. As it is difficult for me to get the laptop near the router to use a cable, without a lot of work, I am going to give it a week or two. My reason is that I have been thinking about updating my desktop with an update to 8.1 and fitting a ssd drive. I will also be taking a lot of stuff off it that I no longer use. I will do speed tests again then and will post my results.
Thanks again

Just a thought, to be able to reach those speeds, your WiFi adapter has to be 802.11 "N" compatible, B and G can not reach those speeds.

CountMike said:

Just a thought, to be able to reach those speeds, your WiFi adapter has to be 802.11 "N" compatible, B and G can not reach those speeds.

Click to expand...

Indeed. Good suggestions. But then there is also the way the adapter is connected to the pc. USB/ internal card etc. That also can influence the speed. I think trail and error, changing one setting at a time, is the best way to find the bottleneck.

Greetz,

Rover