Aspire A514-52 wifi speed problem

I have had problems for the past couple of weeks with wifi speeds to my laptop being very slow.
With a cable, I can get 200mbps, but on wifi (2.4GHz or 5 GHz) I get 20mbps.
I had a problem with my Virgin Media router, which their engineer fixed a couple of days ago, so I can now get wifi at 200mbps to my iPhone, but the wifi to the laptop is still only 20mbps in the same location.
The big problem is that moving from the room where the router is to my office reduces the wifi further, to only 2mbps, which is utterly useless.
Since the phone has a strong and stable connection to the router, this problem seems to be purely down to the laptop.
How can I fix this please?

Stephen.

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JackE

Open Device Manager. Click network adapters folder. Right click wifi card. Click properties. Click advanced tab. Click Preferred Band option. Change no preference to 5GHz.

SJ300361

Thanks for your suggestion Jack. However, it doesn't matter if I choose 2.4 or 5GHz, the speed is lamentable and 5 is slightly worse than 2.4.
I have rigged up a temporary powerline network extender to the office today and am able to use a stable wired connection.
This has confirmed that it is the laptop's wifi connection that is broken, as the power line extender dramatically improved the iPhone's network speed but not the laptop's on wifi in the same location.

Regards,
Stephen.

JackE

The tech probably changed router's channel to accomodate the phone. Open the wifi advanced tab again in Device Manager. Click wireless mode. What channel is it set for? Usually 12. There should be other channel options but it would be nice to know what the router is now set to if possible. Otherwise you'll have to try each option.

SJ300361

The 802.11 a/b/g Wireless Mode is set as 6. Dual Band. The options are only 1-6.

JackE

No channels with /n or /ac?

SJ300361

The 802.11 n/ac/ax Wireless Mode is set as Disabled

JackE

Can you enable it?

StevenGen

SJ300361 said:

I have had problems for the past couple of weeks with wifi speeds to my laptop being very slow.
With a cable, I can get 200mbps, but on wifi (2.4GHz or 5 GHz) I get 20mbps.
I had a problem with my Virgin Media router, which their engineer fixed a couple of days ago, so I can now get wifi at 200mbps to my iPhone, but the wifi to the laptop is still only 20mbps in the same location.
The big problem is that moving from the room where the router is to my office reduces the wifi further, to only 2mbps, which is utterly useless.
Since the phone has a strong and stable connection to the router, this problem seems to be purely down to the laptop.
How can I fix this please?

Stephen.

The WiFi/BT combo card fitted to your A514-52 very rarely go wrong, the only possibilities that could affect the speed of your WiFi functions are due to either a faulty card, card corrosion at the connecting pins or the antenna wires (that are black and white and connected to the top of the card) are lose and not giving you the full WiFi signal to the card. Check the actual card and make sure that the antenna wires pins are connected fully and the card is properly seated into its slot and there is no corrosion.

Also, the OEM WiFi/BT cards fitted to your A514-52 is either the Intel 9560 or the Qualcomm QCA NFA A344A MU (which is the QCA9733 Qualcomm) so If you have the Intel WiFi /BT card install the Intel® Driver & Support Assistant first while you still have a WiFi connection(no matter how slow it is) and run a scan to get the latest driver and see if that fixes the problem? If not then, download the drivers from Intel and then completely uninstall all the old Intel drivers thorough "Device Manager" manually and reboot then install the latest drivers!

If you have the Qualcomm QCA NFA A344A MU WiFi/BT (which this card is really the QCA9733 Qualcomm) first download the last WiFi driver for Win-10 of this card which is the version 12.0.0.1016 file: "win10-12.0.0.1016-whql.zip" and the last BT driver for Win-10 is the version 10.0.0.714 file: "bt-10.0.0.714-win10.zip" and then completely uninstall the old drivers and reinstall the new drivers.

A514-52 Acer OEM WiFi/BT cards

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/et/jn11yk8wf6fb.jpg

SJ300361

JackE said:

Can you enable it?

Yes. I changed the setting to n (the other options were ac and ax)
The wifi speed has not changed.

BTW, on the Virgin router / Wireless Settings, the 2.4 GHz band is set to Channel 1 and the 5GHz to Channel 44.
(But 5GHz band is a disaster, once I move away from the room that has the router, so I can only connect to the internet via the 2.4 GHz band in the office.)

SJ300361

StevenGen said:

SJ300361 said:

I have had problems for the past couple of weeks with wifi speeds to my laptop being very slow.
With a cable, I can get 200mbps, but on wifi (2.4GHz or 5 GHz) I get 20mbps.
I had a problem with my Virgin Media router, which their engineer fixed a couple of days ago, so I can now get wifi at 200mbps to my iPhone, but the wifi to the laptop is still only 20mbps in the same location.
The big problem is that moving from the room where the router is to my office reduces the wifi further, to only 2mbps, which is utterly useless.
Since the phone has a strong and stable connection to the router, this problem seems to be purely down to the laptop.
How can I fix this please?

Stephen.

The WiFi/BT combo card fitted to your A514-52 very rarely go wrong, the only possibilities that could affect the speed of your WiFi functions are due to either a faulty card, card corrosion at the connecting pins or the antenna wires (that are black and white and connected to the top of the card) are lose and not giving you the full WiFi signal to the card. Check the actual card and make sure that the antenna wires pins are connected fully and the card is properly seated into its slot and there is no corrosion.

Also, the OEM WiFi/BT cards fitted to your A514-52 is either the Intel 9560 or the Qualcomm QCA NFA A344A MU (which is the QCA9733 Qualcomm) so If you have the Intel WiFi /BT card install the Intel® Driver & Support Assistant first while you still have a WiFi connection(no matter how slow it is) and run a scan to get the latest driver and see if that fixes the problem? If not then, download the drivers from Intel and then completely uninstall all the old Intel drivers thorough "Device Manager" manually and reboot then install the latest drivers!

If you have the Qualcomm QCA NFA A344A MU WiFi/BT (which this card is really the QCA9733 Qualcomm) first download the last WiFi driver for Win-10 of this card which is the version 12.0.0.1016 file: "win10-12.0.0.1016-whql.zip" and the last BT driver for Win-10 is the version 10.0.0.714 file: "bt-10.0.0.714-win10.zip" and then completely uninstall the old drivers and reinstall the new drivers.

A514-52 Acer OEM WiFi/BT cards

Hi - thanks for your suggestions.

Sadly, I'm afraid I am not technically competent to access the WiFi/BT card you mention.
On the laptop Device Manager / Wi-Fi / Driver tab, the reference is Intel(R) Wi-Fi 6 AX201 160 MHz. I can't find any other references to a card.
I used the Update Driver option to look on the laptop and on the Windows Updates site for available drivers, but was told I had the latest one.

Regards,
Stephen.

JackE

>>>BTW, on the Virgin router / Wireless Settings, the 2.4 GHz band is set to Channel 1>>>

Go back to the advanced tab in Device Manager, set the preferred band to 2.4GHz and mode to channel 1. You're gonna have to play around with these setttings since the router settings are obviously involved. Reboots may be necessary to see if changes affect anything. Can you get any assistance whatsoever from your ISP. Afterall, you're paying them for this connection to work correctly. Also it would be interesting to see if your laptop has any signal strength and speed issues with connecting to any local hotspots like a Starbucks or other nearby coffee shops.

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