802.11n performance (5100 vs 5300)

[CrunchDude]

Yea, and under both bands, select Auto. One of them has a default value of "20MHz only".

Speaking of the 40MHz issue. If you look at the language, it says "Fat Channel Intolerant" with a value of either Disabled (default) or Enabled. Intolerant? What's that about? lol...That's gotta be confusing for a lot of folks.

[lgsshedden]

Yea, and under both bands, select Auto. One of them has a default value of "20MHz only".

Speaking of the 40MHz issue. If you look at the language, it says "Fat Channel Intolerant" with a value of either Disabled (default) or Enabled. Intolerant? What's that about? lol...That's gotta be confusing for a lot of folks.

count me as confused: so to optimize the card do I leave the fat channel intolerant in default disabled mode, or enable it?

I also have the dlink 655 and intel 5300: the dlink is single band 2.4 and my problem has been the 5300 will not pick up the 40 mhz unless its on the 5.4 band which the dlink does not have -- the dlink will broadcast in 20 and 40, how do I set the intel to pick up both? is this possible?

[jonlumpkin]

count me as confused: so to optimize the card do I leave the fat channel intolerant in default disabled mode, or enable it?

I also have the dlink 655 and intel 5300: the dlink is single band 2.4 and my problem has been the 5300 will not pick up the 40 mhz unless its on the 5.4 band which the dlink does not have -- the dlink will broadcast in 20 and 40, how do I set the intel to pick up both? is this possible?

Open Device Manager and locate the 5300.
Advanced Tab:
802.11n Channel Width for Band 2.4 - Auto
Fat Channel Intolerant - Leave at Disable (I'm not really sure what this does either).

You also need to enable 40MHz mode in the configuration page for your DIR-655 (forget the exact option, but it's definitely in there somewhere).

[lgsshedden]

thanks for the clarification and the actual numbers to go with the varying settings. It's always frustrating when all the manual does is describe the setting without also adding the benefits and costs of changing the settings: effectively we are left with trial and error experimentation, so thanks for doing this!

[hceuterpe]

Guys, 802.11n on 2.4Ghz is junk. The only reason why you would want that is for backwards compatibility with b/g equipment.
Why doesn't 40Mhz work in 2.4Ghz with any decent speed? The 2.4Ghz spectrum has only 3 non-overlapping channels, each only being 22Mhz wide. You can at most get a single 40Mhz channel in 2.4Ghz, and you kill the rest of the spectrum--the entire spectrum. So this could have issues with b/g clients. That's why Intel limits it. If I understand the standard enough, MIMO would be more effective in the 5Ghz band because every FCC legal 5Ghz is non-overlapping in 20Mhz.

A lot of tech jargon, but the bottom line is, you really need 5Ghz for 802.11n to see a sigificant performance increase. You are likely only getting 2 spatial streams with your D-Link. The 5300 can do three spatial streams, but you only see the diff if your AP is up to the task. You'll notice the 5300 also has an extra antenna. 802.11n has some big gains, but you gotta spend moola to really see it. That standard also is the most different among types of products. The max you can really get now is 300Mbps, as they are 2 stream APs. This is achieved with 40Mhz channels, 5Ghz, etc.. 3x3 APs, in which the 5300 will see a performance boost, is currently in the pipeline it seems.