How to improve the speed of TP-Link wireless adapters

Some customers may wonder why their TP-Link wireless adapters get much slower speed than other wireless devices connecting to the same wireless network. This article will guide you how to improve the speed of TP-Link wireless adapters from different aspects.

Before we start, let us make it clear that there are many factors affecting the speed of a wireless adapter, including the location of the adapter, the interference from other devices, the association speed between the adapter and the router, the driver of the adapter, the firmware of the router, and the computer itself. We will introduce some solutions to improve the speed of TP-Link wireless adapters based on these six factors.

I. The Location of the Adapter

1).The distance and obstacles between adapter and router. As we know, each wall or ceiling will have a negative effect on wireless radio particularly the ones built by solid metal material. So, please keep the path between wireless router and TP-Link adapter as clear as possible.

2).The direction and angle of antenna on TP-Link wireless adapter and main router. Antenna on wireless devices are used to receive and send wireless signal. To have a stronger wireless signal, we recommend to place antennas at 45 degrees (diagonally) or 0 degrees (straight out parallel to the floor) which will be more effective, as the picture below.

Note: for PCIE adapters, please take the location of the computer main board into your consideration, and make sure the computer main board not interfere the transmission of antenna on TP-Link wireless adapters.

II. The Interference from Other Devices on 2.4G

Nowadays, more and more network devices take 2.4G frequency to transmit signals, and various electromagnetic uses 2.4G frequency to work, which makes 2.4G frequency becomes too crowed to convey signals. Thus, we do suggest our customers to use 5G frequency for network activities to have the best network experience.

III. The Association Speed between the Adapter and the Router

Slow association speed will affect the internet speed as well. According to the working features on Wi-Fi, normally download speed of 5G would be around 50% of wireless association speed and download speed of 2.4G would be around 30% - 50% of wireless link speed.

To guarantee that your TP-Link wireless adapter gets better speed, we need to let the wireless association speed archive to the highest value. Please change the wireless channel and channel bandwidth of your router. Different channels will have different performance. The more crowded the channel is, the poorer performance it will get. Channel Bandwidth is also important to the wireless connection, make sure it is set to the best or biggest value for your router.

IV. The Driver of the Adapter

Our TP-Link always releases new drivers for our wireless adapters to improve their working performance when any issues found and needed to be solved. To ensure a better performance and reliability, please update the wireless adapter’s driver to the latest one released by TP-Link. You can download the latest driver from our official web site.

V. The Computer Itself

As our experience, some anti-virus software installed on the computer would have a great impact on the download speed of the adapter, such as SmartByte, Avast and so on. Please uninstall these kinds of software temporarily to test the download speed.

VI. The Firmware of the Router

Please do the comparison test using your other wireless devices in the same location as TP-Link wireless adapter. If they all have the same speed as TP-Link adapter, please make sure your router is running the latest firmware. Also you may contact the support of your router to figure it out since they are more professional and familiar with your router.

Please contact TP-Link support with the following information after trying above solutions but all to no avail.

1). the download speed on your other wireless devices in the same location as TP-Link adapter.

2). the wireless association speed of TP-Link adapter. Please refer to the following instruction to check the wireless association speed: How to check the associated/link speed on a wireless client.

3). the driver version and computer system information by referring to How to check driver version of TP-Link adapters and system information of your computer?

4). the model number of your router.

Get to know more details of each function and configuration please go to Download Center to download the manual of your product.