Networking & Wi-Fi

[KAG]

I just received my new laptop on Monday (9/24/12), a Toshiba Satellite S875-S7242.

This computer is a I-7 with all the bells & whistles, and costs about $900 with tax.

This laptop is nice except for the poor reception of the subject RealTek wireless card.

Problem:  The signal strength indicator of the NEW Toshiba S875-S7242 in the lower right corner of the screen shows that I have 5 full bars, even at 200 feet away.  When the laptop is placed within 10' of the router, it gets a 45-50mbps transfer rate.  When moving the laptop to my living room sofa (50' from the router), the transfer rate drops to 5-10mpbs.  When moving the laptop to my master bedroom (80' from the router), the transfer rate drops to 1mpbs (yes-that is one megabits per second).  Not much better than dial-up by today's standards.

I am using a Dlink DIR-655 router which is located in my back bedroom/office and have a 50mbps connection with Charter Communications.

As a comparison:

My 6 year old Toshiba Laptop using a USB Cisco N plug-in device gets 40-45mbps transfer @ 50' distance.

My husbands 2 year old Acer laptop using a Broadcom N internal card gets 45-50mbps transfer @ 50' distance.

I have downloaded the latest driver from the Toshiba dated 7/12/12, version 2002.5.712.2012

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/modelContent.jsp?modelFilter=S875-S7242&rpn=PSKB...

What are my options with this unit?  This type of wireless reception is totally unacceptable.

Any suggestions or help will be greatly appreciated. 

Otherwise, Bestbuy will be getting a returned unit this week...

[cbwilsha]

The first thing to try is download the latest RealTek WLAN Driver V2.00.0020 dated 9/18/12 which is just 8 days ago.

C.B.

[KAG]

Thank you for your reply.

The driver update you suggested was posted and relesed by Toshiba on 9/18/12.

I have installed this updated driver. 

When viewing the new driver details, it reports version 2002.5.712.2012, dated 7/12/12.

There are no newer drivers on the Toshiba site.

When doing a search on the RealTek site, they do not even show a response for a RealTek RTL8723AE.

[KAG]

UPDATE:

I spent an hour on the phone with Toshiba technical support (from Israel, of all places).

The tech guy did a direct link to my laptop via the internet and finally said the Realtek wireles card was defective or incompatible with my Dlink DIR-655 router. He also told me to return the laptop to Best Buy and make absolutely sure that I only purchase a laptop with an Intel wireless card!

I wanted to know if my router was a problem, so I ran down to Best Buy and purchased a new Netgear 900N router.  No improvement, in fact the Netgear provided a slightly slower transfer rate than may 2 year old Dlink DIR-655.  Now I have to return the router too.

I wrote Realtek technical support about the problem and they responded with an updated driver.  I installed the new driver, but no difference in the transfer speed.

Conclusion from this excercise - The Realtek wireless card is either defective or complete trash.

[cbwilsha]

You are spending entirely too much of your time to get a NEW computer to work as it is supposed to, KAG. I do agree that is probably a defective wireless card but I would want a NEW computer, not a repaired one.  Good Luck!

C.B.

[Jerry_Lippey]

If you use wireless N, the security chosen often interferes. See especially Fix 4 here:

   5 Ways To Fix Slow 802.11n Speed

[KAG]

10/2/12 - Just received another NEW Toshiba Satellite S875-S7242 (i7) with the same RealTek RTL8723AE Wireless Lan 802.11n PCI-E NIC card.  I installed all of the Windows updates and then installed the latest Toshiba driver for the RealTek card, directly from the Toshiba support website.  I was hoping that the first laptop just received a "one-in-a-million" defective wireless card.

Unfortunately, I got the EXACT same results as the first laptop. Terrible!

The previous RealTek card was not defective at all!  This brand (RealTek) card is just complete trash!

One might ask, doesn't Toshiba test their products before bringing them to market?  Or do they just count on the majority of consumers not being able to test the performance themselves?

I would suggest that you DO NOT BUY A COMPUTER WITH A REALTEK WIRELESS CARD INSTALLED.

[KAG]

Here are some sites to test your wireless speed.

Charter Communications

http://forums.toshiba.com/t5/forums/replypage/board-id/brd_network/message-id/15176

ATT

http://www.att.com/speedtest/

Xfinity (Comcast)

http://speedtest.comcast.net/

[Lex521]

KAG, Did you ever find a solution to your problem with the Realtek RTL8723A?  I just purchased a Toshiba Satellite S855-S5381 on 12-14-12 at a local COSTCO.  Same wireless card, same problem, its running windows 8.  My 3 year old Toshiba Satellite sitting next to the new one, usually gets at least twice the download speed.  Next to my  wireless router, I can get up to 25Mbps, same as if hardwired.  Take it into my kitchen, with 5 bars of signal strength, I get a download speed of 3.5 to 6 Mbps. Older Toshiba shows 13Mbps.  Driver date 8-12-12.  Nothing newer shown.  Anyone find a solution?  Tried different power settings, turned off Bluetooth, even does it when powered by ac adapter with settings set for max performance.  My Netgear wirless router has the latest update.

[KAG]

I had to purchase a replacement WiFi card.

You have two good choices -

1. Intel 6235AN.HMWWB (WiFi and Bluetooth) $30 at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-6235AN-HMWWB-Centrino-Advanced-N-Bluetooth/dp/B007QXLIWI

2. Intel Wimax 6250 622anxhmw (WiFi only / No Bluetooth) $10 at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Advanced-n-Wimax-6250-622anxhmw/dp/B004M9NZIO

Good Luck

[xtyn83]

Wow. Thanks for this post. I am havivng exactly the same issue at the moment.

I just purchased a new Toshiba laptop with the same wireless card. The computer connected fine for one week in both our office (upstairs) and in the lounge next to the router. But, all of a sudden on Thursday the connection kept dropping in the office. Thinking it was a Windows8 issue, I followed some tutorials to change some of the settings, but no reprieve. Glad to know that it is the garbage card and I can make some headway in getting this sorted.