: PC gets faster upload speeds with wifi than ethernet cable
: PC gets faster upload speeds with wifi than ethernet cable
I own a Netgear 1900 c7000v2 router/modem that I put into my house in April 2019. My computer was already connected to it back in March 2019. Usually, I get about 280 megabytes per second downloading and only 10 megabytes per second uploading. But lately, my upload speed has dropped to just 0.6 megabytes per second. After resetting the router, changing the network port, plugging things in differently, checking for updates, and even turning off Wi-Fi on other devices in the house to see what was happening, I ended up using just Wi-Fi again and got 230 megabytes per second down and only 10.8 megabytes per second up. That is pretty normal since my other computers and laptops around here use Wi-Fi too. So, what's wrong? Maybe I have a broken part in the modem or router, or maybe something is wrong with my computer?
I have a Dell XPS computer that came out in April of 2019. It has an Intel i7 processor running at 3.2 ghz and comes with 16 gigabytes of RAM on Windows 10 version 22H2. There is also a specific Ethernet controller called Killer E2400 and a wireless adapter named Qualcomm QCA 9377 using the Wi-Fi standard 802.11ac, along with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti card on the baseboard. The model number for this part is ODF425 A00.
I think the trick here is to plug in the ethernet cable but keep the WiFi on. This makes two ways for your computer to talk to your router instead of just one. It creates a loop that fills up with network traffic. Your problem sounds like this, though it might not be as bad. Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liRdZ5p1Xp4
Windows actually knows what it's doing here. The two interfaces are not connected together, so a loop won't happen. It just picks one port over the other based on how fast it thinks they are. Usually, that means the ethernet. If you have both ethernet and wifi at the same time, it's hard for Windows to decide which is better because both could be running. All ports can start up together, but the computer will choose one path using its speed metric. Most of the time if you unplug the ethernet cable, it smoothly switches to wifi without much notice. This kind of extra layer of safety is called redundancy, but changing paths takes a bit of time. However, this fix doesn't actually solve why the problem started in the first place. Usually, the issue comes from software slowing things down, like QoS tools or gamer apps that are bundled with motherboards and video cards. Even though these effects aren't as bad as you described, I didn't suggest changing things yet because they might not be the cause of your specific trouble.
I think I have no idea where I should go next to fix this problem. I'm pretty bad with PC stuff by nature. I actually have a Killer processor built into my PC, but honestly, I don't know what it does or if I need it at all. Do you think upgrading to Windows 11 would help? Maybe I can leave things alone right now. If I ever move something really big that takes time (like the file upload I just did), then I'll switch to WiFi and get back my usual speed. My computer hasn't changed much lately, so why does the internet connection suddenly slow down so much without any clear reason?
I don't even know which program is causing my problems right now, since Intel got it installed. Before, this was one of the messiest things you could have found and fixing it was a big headache because part of it came built into the device drivers. When I used to look for computer parts, if they had that killer chipset, I would just skip them entirely. I don't think Intel is being stupid, but I still guess this is mostly useless software sitting around doing nothing. There isn't any program running on your computer that affects traffic outside your machine or even the internet. It can only control how apps talk to each other on your network, and if you have a slow internet connection inside your machine, fixing it with junk software won't help much. I'd try uninstalling it just to see if my issue goes away. I wouldn't switch over to Windows 11 right because of this alone; Windows 11 comes with way more unnecessary stuff built in that you can't take out on its own.