Increase Performance of Your WiFi Network

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Disclaimer:
This is not “fix” for all WiFi connection problems and many users would see no noticeable benefit in changing these settings; however, those that experience an unstable WiFi connection that connects/loses connection/connects and/or a noticeable slow-down of the data transfer for large data volumes such as streaming may benefit from changing these settings.

This applies mostly to laptops and other portable devices that also run on battery because the manufacturers of those devices set these settings at mid to low range to extend the time you can run on a battery charge. If you are not concerned with a long on battery time then the added energy used by increasing these settings can result in the most stable and best performing WiFi network that this PC can achieve with the current WiFi source/conditions.

The attached PDF contains the instructions with screenshots.

Increase-Performance-of-Your-WiFi-Network

HTH, Dana:))

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AusJohn, RetiredGeek

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The first of the two settings you recommend increasing here only appears to benefit someone with multiple wireless access points at the same general location, and it seems to require an additional setting to allow searching when already connected:

Roaming aggressiveness refers to the rate at which your computer looks for another access point with a stronger signal. You can adjust its value to tell your device how aggressively it should roam to find a new access point with stronger signal strength than the one you were connected to earlier.
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As a result, if your university or office has multiple access points and you need to switch spots throughout the day, you will find roaming aggressiveness very useful.
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Before changing the roaming aggressiveness value, we have to tweak another setting in the currently connected network’s properties, allowing your Windows device to search for another wireless network even when already connected.
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“Look for other wireless networks while connected to this network.”
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The Downsides of Roaming Aggressiveness
Roaming aggressiveness is a handy setting to connect the device to the preferred network automatically, but it has two drawbacks:

1. If the network strength fluctuates from time to time when you work, that can result in your connection being continually interrupted as the network adapter transitions to the new access point.

2. With this increased load, your laptop battery will likely be drained quickly.

What Is Roaming Aggressiveness? How to Get a Stronger Wi-Fi Signal on Windows

I don’t think it does anything to increase WiFi signal reception for a typical home user (unless perhaps at an airport, hotel or hospital).

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b wrote:

The first of the two settings you recommend increasing here only appears to benefit someone with multiple wireless access points at the same general location, and it seems to require an additional setting to allow searching when already connected:

Nice article, but it misses one practical application of the Roaming Aggressiveness function and presented a lopsided view – Roaming Aggressiveness to select the strongest signal from different sources of the same WiFi network and nothing about Roaming Aggressiveness from a single source for the WiFi network.

The article is correct in that:

Roaming aggressiveness refers to the rate at which your computer looks for another access point with a stronger signal.

More accurately Roaming Aggressiveness settings tells the WiFi adapter how often to scan for WiFi signals (not just stronger signals, but all signals).

In a WiFi network where there is only one source for the WiFi signal (such as the router in a home network) Roaming Aggressiveness scans for the same source WiFi signal since there is only one source for that network to scan.
Situation where the WiFi connection to the PC routinely loses connection and then reconnects (non stable connection). When the connection is lost there is a short time period before the WiFi adapter sees the connection is lost. If you increase the Random Aggressiveness to its highest level the rescanning occurs so often that it can detect the signal that was just lost and reconnect before the adapter can see the lost connection. To the user it will appear as nothing happened but the WiFi network stays connected.
I have many users I’ve helped solve that non-stable WiFi connection by changing that setting and some that was hit and miss if it would connect to connects all the time.

The Maximum Performance for the WiFi adapter has to do with WiFi adapter being able to use the multi-thread downloading function of modern browsers.

The article is correct about:

2. With this increased load, your laptop battery will likely be drained quickly.

HTH, Dana:))

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Does setting Roaming Aggressiveness to Highest do anything without “Look for other wireless networks while connected to this network”?

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b wrote:

Does setting Roaming Aggressiveness to Highest do anything without “Look for other wireless networks while connected to this network”?

“Look for other wireless networks while connected to this network” does not mean search for different WiFi networks. The “other wireless networks” the article is referring to are Access points for the same WiFi network and searching for a better signal from a different access point which is what this setting is intended for. Once connected to a WiFi network the Roaming Aggressiveness seeks a better signal for the network it is connected to (not other possible WiFi networks). Thus when there is only one Access point for a WiFi network you can use Roaming Aggressiveness highest setting to rescan that one and only network signal often. Roaming Aggressiveness has no choice but to concentrate on the only signal it detects for this network. Doing the rescanning so often so it can reconnect the signal before the adapter knows it was momentarily lost and make a more stable connection.

The comments in that article only apply to WiFi networks with multiple access points and not to users with a single WiFi source (such as a home router).

HTH, Dana:))

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