WiFi – Wireless Adapter Settings
It’s safe to say that we live in a world where every laptop has one and the number of desktop motherboards with them is increasing. WiFi adapters. But with the many WiFi standards the past years and the variety of WLAN Access Points you might need to change a setting to get a good WiFi connection. Here’s what the settings mean:
Use 802.11n channel width to set high throughput mode channel width in order to maximize performance.
- Auto (default): For band 5.2, this setting uses 20 or 40 MHz depending on the wireless access point or router
- 20 MHz
The 802.11n standard adds multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO). MIMO increases data throughput to improve the transfer rate. Use the setting to enable or disable high throughput mode support (MIMO – 802.11n).
Ad–hoc channel 802.11 b/g
Ad-hoc channel 802.11 b/g is the band and channel selection for device to device (ad-hoc) networks. You don’t need to change the channel unless the other computers in the ad-hoc network are not using the default channel.
If you must change the channel, select the allowed operating channel:
- 802.11b/g (Default): Select when using 802.11b and 802.11g (2.4 GHz) ad-hoc band frequency.
- 802.11a: Select when using 802.11a (5 GHz) ad-hoc band frequency.
Ad-hoc power management
Set power-saving features for device to device (ad-hoc) networks.
- Disabled: Select when connecting to ad-hoc networks with stations that don’t support ad-hoc power management.
- Maximum Power Savings: Select to optimize battery life.
- Noisy Environment: Select when connecting in a noisy environment to prevent performance degradation.
Ad-hoc QoS mode
The Quality of Service (QoS) control in ad-hoc networks prioritizes traffic from the access point over a Wi-Fi Local Area Network (LAN) based on traffic classification. WMM* (Wi-Fi Multimedia*) is the QoS certification of te Wi-Fi Alliance* (WFA). When WMM is enabled, the adapter uses WMM to support priority tagging and queuing capabilities for Wi-Fi networks.
Bluetooth® AMP
Enable or disable Bluetooth® AMP.
AMP stands for Alternate MAC/PHY and uses the 802.11(Wi-Fi) as the high-speed transport. If disabled, Bluetooth HS is turned off.
Fat channel intolerant
The setting communicates to surrounding networks that the Wi-Fi adapter is not tolerant of 40 MHz channels in the 2.4 GHz band. The setting’s default is disabled (turned off) so that the adapter does not send this notification.
Mixed mode protection
Use mixed mode protection to avoid data collisions in a mixed 802.11b and 802.11g environment. Use Request to Send/Clear to Send (RTS/CTS) in an environment where clients may not hear each other. Use CTS-to-self to gain more throughput in an environment where clients are within hearing proximity.
| Note | The setting is not valid when 802.11n mode is enabled. |
Roaming aggressiveness
Define how aggressively your Wi-Fi client roams to improve connection to an access point. Click Use default value to balance between not roaming and performance.
- Lowest: Your wireless client won’t roam. Only significant link quality degradation causes it to roam to another access point.
- Medium-Low/Medium-High: Allow roaming.
- Medium: Balanced setting between not roaming and performance.
- Highest: Your Wi-Fi client continuously tracks the link quality. If any degradation occurs, it tries to find and roam to a better access point.
Throughput Enhancement/Booster
Enhance the transmit throughput by enabling packet bursting. The default setting is Disable.
Transmit power
The optimal setting is to set the transmit power at the lowest possible level still compatible with communication quality. The setting allows the maximum number of wireless devices to operate in dense areas. It reduces interference with other devices that share the radio spectrum. If you decrease the transmit power, you reduce the radio coverage.
- Lowest: Sets the adapter to the lowest transmit power. Increase the number of coverage areas or confine a coverage area. You should reduce the coverage area in high traffic areas to improve overall transmission quality and avoid congestion or interference with other devices.
- Medium-low/Medium/Medium-high: Set by country requirements.
- Highest (Default): Sets the adapter to a maximum transmit power level. Use this setting for maximum performance and range in environments with limited radio devices.
Wake on magic packet
If enabled, the setting wakes the computer from a sleep state when it receives a “magic packet” from a sending computer. The magic packet contains the MAC address of the intended destination computer. Enabling turns on Wake on Magic Packet. Disabling turns off Wake on Magic Packet. It only disables the magic packet feature, not Wake on Wireless LAN
Wake on pattern match
The feature wakes the computer from a sleep state when an adapter receives a particular wake pattern. Window 7* and Windows 8* support the feature. Patterns are typically:
- Wake on new incoming TCP connection for IPv4 and IPv6 (TCP SYN IPv4 and TCP SYN IPv6)
- Wake on 802.1x reauthentication packets.
Disabling only disables the pattern match feature, not Wake on Wireless LAN.
Wireless mode
The setting allows you to select whether the adapter operates in the 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11a bands.
- 802.11b only: Connect the wireless adapter to 802.11b networks only.
- 802.11g only: Connect the wireless adapter to 802.11g networks only.
- 802.11a and 802.11g: Connect the wireless adapter to 802.11a and 802.11g networks only.
- 802.11b and 802.11g: Connect the wireless adapter to 802.11b and 802.11g networks only.
- 802.11a, 802.11b, and 802.11g (Default): Connect to 802.11a, 802.11b, or 802.1g wireless networks.
NS offloading for WOWLAN
NS offload is the ability of the network adapter to respond to a Neighbor Discovery Neighbor Solicitation request with a Neighbor Advertisement without waking the computer. Both the hardware and the driver must support NS offload to enable this feature.
Packet Coalescing
The feature enables power saving by reducing the number of receive interrupts. The feature reduces receive interrupts by coalescing random broadcast or multicast packets.
ARP offloading for WOWLAN
ARP offload is the network adapter’s ability to respond to an IPv4 ARP request without waking the computer. To enable the feature, both the hardware and the driver must support ARP offload.
GTK rekeying for WOWLAN
Group Temporal Key (GTK) Rekey is used to encrypt and decrypt network traffic.
The setting lets you select HT Mode (High Throughput mode), select VHT Mode (Very High Throughput Mode), or disable both modes.
- Disabled
- HT mode (supports 802.11n compatibility)
- VHT mode (supports 802.11ac compatibility)
Sleep on WOWLAN disconnect
Sleep on WOWLAN Disconnect is the ability to put the device to sleep/drop connection when WOWLAN is disconnected.
U-APSD support
uAPSD (or WMM-Power Save or WMM-PS) is a WiFi capability that saves power consumption on low periodic latency-sensitive traffic modes, like a VOIP. We have identified IOT (interoperability) issues with certain access points that result in reduced Rx throughput.
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