Wifi 6 Adaptor Slower then Older Wifi 5 Adaptor?

[Brandon_Byrnes]

I just purchased a WiFi 6 USB adapter for my PC thinking it would maybe give me better speeds but it turns out that it is actually about 25% slower then the Netgear Nighthawk AC1900 WiFi adapter I currently have been using. The new WiFi adapter is a Wavlink WiFi 6 ax1800 dual band adapter. Both the designs of the antennas are almost identical. One thing I noticed in the product description of the Wavlink adapter was a 3dBi high gain antenna. I’m not sure what the Nighthawk is, but am i correct in assuming that the higher the gain of the antenna the better the connection strength will be to my router? I am returning the wavlink adapter and I’m going to purchase a TP-Link AX1800 adapter instead which says it has dual 5dBi antennas. Do you think that will work better then the Nighthawk? I’ve included pictures of all three including the dual antenna adapter i plan on getting.

[ATTACH alt=“netgear.jpg”]11261[/ATTACH][ATTACH alt=“wavlink.jpg”]11262[/ATTACH][ATTACH alt=“tp-link.jpg”]11263[/ATTACH]

[Bruce]

hmmm… wifi network can easily be a trial and error exercise.
I’ve always found more antennas are better than fewer.
and yes, the higher the dB the better.

also remember, no good having a super sexy PC adapter if the modem/router doesn’t support those functions.
it’s like buying a 4G smartphone but living in a 3G area.

[Brandon_Byrnes]

Okay, that’s what I was thinking about the antennas. I was going to purchase a asus antenna with a pcie 1x card but unfortunately all i have open on my mobo is a 16x slot. My pcie 1x slot is blocked by my gpu and the other one is occupied by a USB 3.0 expansion card. I currently do have wifi-6 through spectrum but I’m switching to ATT fiber next week becuase its cheaper and it’ll be 100mbps faster so I figured I should actually get a wifi-6 antenna. The netgear nighthawk has been great for the 5yrs I’ve been using it but I figure it’s time to upgrade. Unfortunately, atleast on Amazon, Netgear doesn’t sell a wifi-6 antenna. They sell one on their site but it’s $100 which is a bit pricey for me.

[Bruce]

running an ethernet cable isn’t viable?
have you switched over to the new provider yet?

[PeterOz]

does your router do wifi 6

[Brandon_Byrnes]

running an ethernet cable isn’t viable?
have you switched over to the new provider yet?

I am actually think of maybe doing that. My current router is in the living room but I’m thinking of having them install the new one in my room that way I can just hook my PC directly up to it via ethernet cable. They are coming to do the install on Friday. Oh also I got the new antenna and it works just as well as the NetGear antenna, I just did 6 speed tests on different sites and I’m averaging 450mbps download and about 21mbps upload. I can’t wait for that fiber connection where I’ll get around 500mbps upload.

[Brandon_Byrnes]

does your router do wifi 6

Yes my current router does and the new router will also be a wifi-6 router.

[Bruce]

how did the change-over go?

[Brandon_Byrnes]

it’s great. And actually my wifi and wired ethernet speeds are almost exactly the same, but I’m gonna keep it wired. I’m getting on average 620mbps which is great considering I signed up and am paying for 500mbps plan. Upload is a tab bit slower it’s around 550mbps but a HUGE improvement over the 20mbps I was getting with Spectrum. i was going to return the wifi-6 antenna usb adapter but I figure I’ll keep it for if I move and can’t have a wired connection.

[Bruce]

agreed - I always go ethenet when/where possible.
glad to hear it was such a massive improvement, although you may notice the speed drop as more people in the area jump onboard the Provider.

good luck.
I’ll close this now as solved!