Laptop wireless connection SLOW with network accounting system.

Very simple, text based, accounting system, written in BASIS ("business") Basic, BBx, Visual PRO/5.
(Server, if you will, based, with my computer <XP, Intel E4300, 2 GB RAM>, a bit dated but acceptable, being the server. Connected machines are essentially "dumb terminals" (to the accounting system).)


First (now second, 1st returned) Win8 machine.
All others that connect to the accounting system are mostly XP (desktops), or Win7 (laptops).

The Win7 machine, an older Dell laptop, which is the one to be replaced by this Win8 Dell laptop, works fine - wirelessly.

Any other laptops that were ever brought in & connected to the network (LAN) accounting system, have worked fine.

My brothers Lenovo, Yagi or something or the other, Win8, works fine (though there was 1 time where it too went SLOW).



1st:
Inspiron 15 5000 Series, Inspiron ####, Win 8.1 (64Bit)
4th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4030U processor (3M Cache, 1.9 GHz)
1000GB HDD, 4 GB RAM
Intel(R) HD Graphics

2nd:
Inspiron 15 5000 Series, Inspiron 5547, Win 8.1 (64Bit)
4th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4030U processor (3M Cache, 1.9 GHz)
500GB HDD, 6 GB RAM
Intel(R) HD Graphics


I'm on my second Dell laptop now.
(Earlier one, while also an Inspiron 15 5000 series, was different; battery, DVD, bottom case design, wireless card...)
(Earlier was returned for this very reason. At first Dell was going to send, supposedly, a different wireless card for me to try, but then they changed their story & wanted me to ship, a brand new computer back to "depot". So I just returned it & got this other one, because it had a different wireless card & hoping that the different card would act differently. It does not.)

Two different wireless cards.

1st was a 1507 1705.
2nd is an Intel Centrino Wireless-AC 3160


1st only connected 2.4 (SLOW).
2nd will connect with 2.4 or 5.0 (& both SLOW).


Wired works fine.
Wireless is SLOW, think 1200 baud modem, drawing the screen line by line.

Windows Safe Mode with Networking (heh) is nothing but BS, cause there is no network to be seen in Windows Safe Mode with Networking.

Removed McAfee.
Disabled (I believe) "Windows Defender" (aka some sort of A/V like thing, as it seems to be in Win8).

Reviewed (Device Manager) Wireless settings.
There are a ton, none of which are meaningful to me, so I just left it all as it was.

Updated (from Window Updates) the (Intel) wireless card driver.

Installed 44 or some such of the 90 or so Windows updates (this on a brand new machine, heh!).

Set System Properties | Settings -> Performance, to 'best performance'.

Reviewed/changed Power Options | Advanced settings, wireless, to no avail.

Plugged in or running on battery makes no difference.

Comcast ("business") Internet connection (& modem/router).

Internet connection speeds are not an issue.
Wire is a bit faster, lower ping times.
5.0 a bit slower, 2.4 a bit slower again, but fine.

AFAICT, network file transfers are also "*fine". 1st (returned) Dell only had 10/100 wired, & I'm guessing that is the same with this newer one too. ("*fine" in that because only 10/100, they are slow, & wireless, slower yet, but I'm suspecting nothing out of the ordinary in that regard.)



Ideas as to what else I can look at?

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Behind every good computer... is a jumble of wires 'n stuff.

> Have you compared results from speedtest.net between wired and wireless connections?

Yes, they're fine.

http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/:

2.4            5.0            NIC
Ping 34-58ms   Ping 31-54ms   Ping 19-40ms
20 Down 7 Up   26 Down 8 Up   21 Down 8 Up

2.4            5.0            NIC
30 Mbps        40 Mbps        70 Mbps
 3 MB/s         4 MB/s         7 MB/s

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I had an old Compaq Notebook V600 that had a wireless connection problem so I went to a USB wireless adapter and I am satisfied with the results. That computer is used mainly for Email and non cpu intensve games like Mahjong, Solitaire etc. Look around a see if you can find a US wireless adapter that has a higher speed. I am using both a netgear and a medialink wireless adapter. The medialink seems to be faster although I havent run a speed test to get the actual numbers. The netgear seems a bit slower on downloads.
Both satisfy my needs. at 82 years of age, the need for speed seems to diminish. Patience is a virtue, grasshopper. (:-)




ed


OS - Windows XP Personal PS3
DELL DIM 4500 - Intel P4 2.25 GHZ
Memory - 2X512 PC 3200 133-200Mhz
Graphics

Patience is fine, but when the screen draws line bye line, that is simply, fail, & patience at that point doesn't enter into the equation.


> wireless adapter that has a higher speed

A different wireless adapter is fine too.
That is what I did, by virtue of returning one computer & getting a different one.
As it is, neither worked, correctly, for me.

And it's not a "higher speed" issue, just probably more junk wireless "cards" that they're using, & they have "issues".

And then there is the point too, that there shouldn't be issues, much less having an adapter hanging out of your new laptop...

--------------------------------------
BANK OF AMERICA.COM ONLINE BANKING SUCKS IN THE HUGEST WAY IMAGINABLE

Newegg.com's new image gallery layout sucks in the hugest way imaginable too !
And now they're using JavaScript to "turn" pages to boot ! SUCKS

Behind every good computer... is a jumble of wires 'n stuff.

(Updated LAN/WAN speed tests, above.)


> Compatibility Mode

XP SP3, XP SP2, Reduced color, as Admin, 640x480, disable high DPI...
No difference.

> So what software is running on the client to provide the terminal?

It's not really a "terminal", just more that there is nothing "local" on the client computers. They run the basic program, vpro5.exe, directly from the server. Desktop shortcut uses a mapped drive letter to access, G: as it is, so it runs G:\BASIS\VPRO5\vpro5.exe. Or it could be something like \\rubenxp43\C\BASIS\VPRO5\vpro5.exe (& again making no difference).

--------------------------------------
BANK OF AMERICA.COM ONLINE BANKING SUCKS IN THE HUGEST WAY IMAGINABLE

Newegg.com's new image gallery layout sucks in the hugest way imaginable too !
And now they're using JavaScript to "turn" pages to boot ! SUCKS

Brother's old lady's laptop.

Dell Inspiron 17 7000 Series
Win 8.1
Intel Dual Band Wireless-N 7260

Works fine.


(A HUGE PITA to get it to see the network & then getting it working, but once I finally figured that out, the accounting system ran just fine. Had to change the WORKGROUP (to our LAN's name). Then it saw the Win7 machines but not the XP machines. Then messed with Advanced Sharing settings. And then it saw the XP machines, but then I got a "Error code: 0x80070035 The network path was not found" when trying to access them. (It connected to the Win7 machine just fine.) So I did something else, don't recall what & finally got it to actually be able to access the XP machines. Set up a mapped drive letter. Double-clicked on vpro5.exe, up it came & everything ran as expected. What a foreakin' PITA windows sharing is. What a foreakin' POS OS Win8 is.)

--------------------------------------
BANK OF AMERICA.COM ONLINE BANKING SUCKS IN THE HUGEST WAY IMAGINABLE

Newegg.com's new image gallery layout sucks in the hugest way imaginable too !
And now they're using JavaScript to "turn" pages to boot ! SUCKS

Spoke with Dell Tech Support & they were great.
Did a remote hook up.
The fellow completely understood the problem.
I could understand him.
Support was great. Can't say enough about that.
(I'd venture to say that would not be the case with most other "manufacturers".)

Unfortunately, that said, what was done, what was offered has not affected a solution.

--------------------------------------
BANK OF AMERICA.COM ONLINE BANKING SUCKS IN THE HUGEST WAY IMAGINABLE

Newegg.com's new image gallery layout sucks in the hugest way imaginable too !
And now they're using JavaScript to "turn" pages to boot ! SUCKS

Downloaded the last (for XP) version of VPRO5, version 13.0, with no change, still dog slow . (Latest version, for any OS, is 14.0 - Vista & up.)

"VPRO5 Platform Availability"
http://www.basis.com/availability

Version 14 (states) support for:

Microsoft Windows (Fully Functional Client)
Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.x, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 and R2, and 2012 and R2

--------------------------------------
BANK OF AMERICA.COM ONLINE BANKING SUCKS IN THE HUGEST WAY IMAGINABLE

Newegg.com's new image gallery layout sucks in the hugest way imaginable too !
And now they're using JavaScript to "turn" pages to boot ! SUCKS

Downloaded the latest version of VPRO5, version 14.0.
Installed on XP, even though that may not be "officially sanctioned".

Still dog slow.

--------------------------------------
BANK OF AMERICA.COM ONLINE BANKING SUCKS IN THE HUGEST WAY IMAGINABLE

Newegg.com's new image gallery layout sucks in the hugest way imaginable too !
And now they're using JavaScript to "turn" pages to boot ! SUCKS

Installed the latest version of VPRO5, version 14.0 on the Win7 laptop.

Connected to it from the Win8 laptop, & that does work!

So, some sort of incompatibility between OS, software version, & particular wireless card, or so it seems.

Sucks, all in all.

--------------------------------------
BANK OF AMERICA.COM ONLINE BANKING SUCKS IN THE HUGEST WAY IMAGINABLE

Newegg.com's new image gallery layout sucks in the hugest way imaginable too !
And now they're using JavaScript to "turn" pages to boot ! SUCKS

Oh, & just to note...

THERE IS NO NETWORK WHEN YOU BOOT IN SAFE MODE *WITH NETWORKING* !!!
There is no LAN, there is no Internet.
"You're not connected to a network".

(Windows 8) "Safe Mode with Networking" is a misnomer, in this case, with these particular laptops.

--------------------------------------
BANK OF AMERICA.COM ONLINE BANKING SUCKS IN THE HUGEST WAY IMAGINABLE

Newegg.com's new image gallery layout sucks in the hugest way imaginable too !
And now they're using JavaScript to "turn" pages to boot ! SUCKS

How difficult and expensive would it be to hard wire connections to the problem computers? Would it be worth the cost?

Behind every good computer... is a jumble of wires 'n stuff.

Difficult is not the issue, the wire is already there.
It's the inconvenience factor.

(I've never understood when both were available, why anyone would deal with, slower, wireless. But then I'll never understand why one would use a laptop instead of a desktop. Or a laptop screen instead of attaching a monitor to it... But I'm not the user in this case.)

--------------------------------------
BANK OF AMERICA.COM ONLINE BANKING SUCKS IN THE HUGEST WAY IMAGINABLE

Newegg.com's new image gallery layout sucks in the hugest way imaginable too !
And now they're using JavaScript to "turn" pages to boot ! SUCKS

Oh, just a bit of an update.

Accounting software.

We have version 2.23.
Latest version for XP is 13.
Latest version at all is 14.

I don't believe the version numbers ran sequentially.
So while our 2.23 is "old", pretty sure there have not been a dozen intervening releases.

I don't really know if there is anything meaningful in more recent versions (except perhaps compatibility).


I can download trial versions, that will work, except for a nag.
I can also download a license manager, with a trial license, that would get rid of the nag. For my testing purposes, License Manager isn't needed to see if the software will work properly, so I skipped that.

-------

XP:


Since 13 is the last version "for" XP (I suppose that they certified "for"), tried that first.

Installed that on my computer, & everything ran fine, locally.
The Win8 laptop, wirelessly, dog slow.
So that didn't help.

Tried 14 on my XP machine, even though that is "for" Vista & up.
Everything ran fine, locally.
The Win8 laptop, wirelessly, dog slow.
So that didn't help.

---

Win8:


Installed all three version on Win8 & set it up to read data files locally.

All versions worked fine.

2.23 also automatically recognized our license from our LAN, so no nag for that.
We're not licensed for 13 or 14, so the nag persisted on that end (expected).


Then I tried accessing the data files across the network, stored on an XP machine.

With that, wirelessly, all versions were dog slow.
So that didn't help.

-------

Win7:


Then I thought, well if 13 or 14 are "good enough" for Win7, what if I install the programs on the Win7 laptop & placed that data files there too?

So did that, & with the Win8 laptop running the accounting software off the Win7 laptop, & accessing the data files across our LAN, also on the Win7 laptop, & the Win8 laptop, wireless, all versions ran fine.

So that worked, even if that isn't a "solution" either.

-------

So in the end, back where we started.

Know a little bit more about what might or might not work, how, & in what manner.

The "right" wireless card, might have been sufficient to avert all of this, but then what is "right"?

And all this time, wired has worked just fine.

So, for the limited time the particular laptop will actually be using the accounting software, it'll be plugged in, or that is the thought.

--------------------------------------
BANK OF AMERICA.COM ONLINE BANKING SUCKS IN THE HUGEST WAY IMAGINABLE

Newegg.com's new image gallery layout sucks in the hugest way imaginable too !
And now they're using JavaScript to "turn" pages to boot ! SUCKS