D-Link → DI-624 - what settings for max throughput?

What settings/tweaks should I use for max throughput on large pc to pc wireless file transfers?

Does Xtended range slow or speed close proximity transfers? What's the effect of QOS? Etc.

If it makes a difference, I'm using the 3Com 108 g card, the card client offers many of the same settings as the DI-624. The card uses the Atheros AR5001X+ chipset, same as the DWL-G650. (The

I'm using the 2.53 driver for the 624 and the Atheros 4.1.2.56 driver/client.

Thanks, all.

I have:

Super G with Static Turbo (it is not an option in 2.53 firmware, I suggest you to try 2.50 or 2.52b60 )

Short Preamble

Turn off Extended Range mode

Turn off QoS both on your router and your wireless card. (QoS will slow down your speed)

Turn off CTS mode.

Turn on 802.11g Only Mode

Thanks for the help.

What's the advantage of static turbo over dynamic turbo?

If I set Static Turbo, will the Turbo use the immediately adjacent channel(s) to the channel I select when turboing? (I want to set the main channel so as to minimize interference from the one or two other wireless networks in the area, neither of which has a very strong signal in my house).

My experience is:

if I chose Dynamic Turbo, the link speed never goes up to 108M (toped at 54) as it supposed to be. The transfer speed is always about half of Static Turbo.

I think Static Turbo will use channel 6 and with another one from either 1 or 11, because only channel 1,6,11 is not overlaped.

Remember, your YMMV. Turning on turbo here = dialup speeds after a while, which could only be fixed by turning turbo off.

Static turbo is supposed to be faster because it's 108mbps, all the time. Dynamic might be slower, because turbo only kicks in when you're transferring large files (in other words, only when it really needs it).

Static turbo was removed in 2.53b69, and I bet there's a good reason for that.

Tsume, if my PC card doesn't have a Dynamic Turbo/Static turbo option (it only has checkboxes for the Super G and XTended options), will the router when in static turbo mode force the card to 108 on all sends and receives, or will the card only kick up to 108 under large loads?

The router should force it.

So, to clear up a few things...

Michael Z's parameter suggestions are excellent!!

But there is some misinformation elsewhere in this thread...

1. Speaking rather simply, Turbo uses the space of the 5 channels above and the 5 channels below channel 6. Your channel selection is ignored.

2. If you live in a neighborhood with other wi-fi users, Turbo plays the good neighbor and backs off of frequencies it detects are in use. All of this adapting requires extra signalling. If you live in a busy neighborhood, it will slow to below 802.11g speeds. (This is why Tsume gets dialup speeds with Turbo, I'm betting. I do too.)

3. The only thing XR does is attempt to extend the range by slowing the datarate and being more error tolerant. Turn it off unless you really need it.

4. QoS attempts to give priority to certain packets by delaying other packets. Unless you have QoS aware applications, turning it off or leaving it on should make no difference.

Other things you can do

5. Increase your AP's beacon interval to 250-300.

6. Change your AP's DTIM to 2-4.

7. Avoid opening Explorer windows that show "extra" directory attributes or thumbnails (such as the duration of a song or the dimensions of a video)

8. Use a clear channel. A software program called Netstumbler will tell you about the channels used by wi-fi users in your area.

Robb, I was reading Nolonemo's thread and had the same basic questions since I have same hardware, so this thread got my attention-did not mean to offend anyone, or start another thread needlessly. I have most of my settings exactly as Mike Z states but never messed with the AP settings you have mentioned can you expound on them please. Also, may I ask where does one get Netstumbler? Thanks.

Netstumbler.com and .org are the primary sites for Netstumbler.

AP Beacon Interval (default 100 ms) --

By default, your AP beacons 10 times a second. While the beacon is transmitting, obviously your download data cannot be. Increasing the interval to 300 or 250 lowers the number of beacons per second to 3 or 4. It might take a fraction of a second longer for your wireless clients to associate with your AP, but I've never noticed it.

DTIM (default 1) --

When someone sends data to one of several broadcast addresses, it is rebroadcast to all the stations on your network. Generally broadcasts are server announcements (such as given by a multimedia server) or queries (such as DHCP requests). DTIM is a countdown of beacons. By default (DTIM=1), a broadcast can follow any beacon. But you can change this to make broadcasts less frequent, such as every other (DTIM=2) or every third (DTIM=3) beacon. Doing this gives more priority to your point-to-point (non-broadcast) traffic. Just be aware that the combination of DTIM and beacon interval can add up quickly -- I wouldn't hold off any packet for more than about a second (example: beacon interval of 250 ms and DTIM of 4 equals 1000 ms equals 1 second).

Extra "enhanced" directory data slow network traffic because Windows actually has to open the file or re-query the OS -- one file at a time -- to get these properties. This applies to any data about a file that doesn't come in a "dir" command in a Command Prompt window. Things that are okay: file name, modified date, size, and the file attributes. Simply displaying anything else costs additional bandwidth. See "Change how you view items in a folder" in Windows Help and Support.

As for a clear channel -- the airwaves are shared. Your channel 6 is the same "pipe" as your neighbor's channel 6. They are two networks on one wire. And that's okay -- these things can coexist -- one remains silent as the other uses the airwaves. But if your neighbor is filling the pipe when you come along -- then his system and your system will each yield such that each one gets approximately half (in a perfect world).

Thanks to all for the great information.

Funchords, could you say a little more and explain the difference between static and dynamic turbo? Why it is that static gives better performance? And why can I select a channel in static but not in turbo. And is selecting an empty channel better that using auto select?

BTW, I live in a low-traffic area. Netstumbler shows 2 other APs from time to time, my client software (which seems to be less sensitive (maybe it has a low-signal cutoff?) doesn't show either).

Thanks again.

Under Dynamic Turbo:
- The AP still does frequent signalling to be compatible with non-Atheros chips (for example, non-Atheros stations would still see the Atheros AP in a site survey and be able to associate with it).
- The AP falls back to single-channel use if network conditions do not permit multi-channel or if another station on the network is not capable.

Under Static Turbo:
- The AP does not need to take any time to do standard wi-fi signalling
- The AP never falls back to single-channel use (it still adapts to conditions)

I also ran across the following:

Dynamic Turbo

Backwards compatible with non-Turbo (legacy) devices
Turbo mode only enabled when all nodes on the wireless network is Super G with Turbo enabled
Occasionally drops down from Turbo mode to 11g mode to allow association of legacy devices.
Any wireless device on network not Turbo capable causes entire network not to be Turbo capable.

Static Turbo

Not backwards compatible with non-Turbo (legacy) devices
Turbo mode is always on
Only Turbo mode devices can talk to each other, meaning all devices must be set to Turbo.

Bottom line for me seems to be that if I want to be able to connect with my b-only PDA (which I do only occasionally in the house), I need to use dynamic turbo.

Turbo Mode vs. Regular Wi-Fi

Excellent tweak settings. Also, a great explaination of turbo, static and dynamic. These things keep getting explained over and over again, perhaps it is time for us to get together and author a pinned FAQ.

FYI - static turbo is being obscured in the firmwares because, as funchords has stated, channel bonding overlaps too much with neighboring channels, and destroys the connections of broadcom equipment. I HIGHLY recommend everyone read this
»www.tomsnetworking.com/S ··· age4.php

Now that said, the best combination I've used thus far is 2.53b69 (canadian fw) with the atheros 4.1.2.56. Do not fall back to 2.52 to run static-turbo, you can use it on .53, you just have to give it some thought. 4.1.2.56 seems to keep the transmit speed of my G650 set higher than 4.0.0.167 did. Usually 167 kept it at 108.0/54.0; 4.1.2.56 holds it at 108.0/96.0-108.0. I'm still early in testing so I'm saying that pensively.

That said, my settings are static-turbo, dtim 2, beacon 250 (I like times to multiply to even seconds). WMM-on, etc. Yes, WMM may perf-hit a little, but overall the purpose of it is to provide proper-performance balancing across the network and between applications. If all you want is the fastest point-to-point transfer, turn it off. If you want your network to "perform" better with a lot of different types of traffic, it's a good idea to support these measures. I am working on an efficacy test for atheros' "back-off" implementation, but havn't had a lot of free time lately.

Rob Red Beard

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I am trying DTIM 2, Beacon 250 as well....!

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Is what you're saying that if I set the router to 11g only mode with dynamic turbo enabled, and have my laptop card set to 11g only with turbo enabled, then what I will end up with is the same as static turbo? Otherwise, I can't figure out what you mean.

Nope, that's not it, sorry.

I'm not going to explain it. I just wanted to point out that it is possible. I'm intentially not going to give a step by step, because then D-Link would just remove the option. They need regular product users to not have this mode available in order to get WIFI 11G certification, which is being blocked because the Atheros channel-bonding harms nearby 11G Standard networks. See that Tom's article I posted link to if you havn't yet.

If you are familiar with how to turn an early USRobotics Sportster 14.4k into a Courier DualStandard 16.8k HST modem, you'll have the basic paradigm of this kludge. Unfortunately, that same mod became so available that USR modified new production to block the configuration option.

I just want to get the "One Golden Firmware" (US-Released, full QoS ability) that still allows me to do this, then I'll explain it. Good luck, this should help you.

Rob

Well, at leat I know what tree not to bark up. Thanks for the hint.

Wow -- there are not many of us around that would remember this point in telecommunications history. Remember how USR promised it would void the warranty?

And yes, I was one of these Sportster owners. I loved that hack!!

I just want to make an observation on something I found out when trying to get my DI-624 stable with the new firmware 2.53. I downloaded Netstumbler to check for other channels that were running in the neighborhood.

I had my router in channel 9 and Netstumbler would show signals close to -60 dbm for the power level. I had reboots galore in that channel. Tried channel 11 same thing close to -60 dbm and more reboots. Tried channel 5 and Netstumbler show -70 dbm which is less power than the previous channels. The router has been on for 2 weeks with no reboots.

More power = more reboots. Anyone care to explain that one to me. My connections used to show "Excellent" and "Very Good" and now they are "Very Good" and "Good" but at least no more reboots.

Rob(b)s,

If either of you can drop me a line and let me know how to enable static turbo w/ 2.53 I'd appreciate it. I'm pulling my hair out here trying to get better performance with my wireless connection to my Xbox. I'm a bit of a networking moron and need all the help I can get. I know RobRedBeard doesn't want to make it public, but if you could email me at darkandlong@gmail.com I'd be greatly appreciative.

Thanks

Me too.

If you could email me at michaelzhao@hotmail.com I'd be greatly appreciative.

Randalla turn down the transmit power on the router to 50%. It should stop the reboots or stopping the zero service.

This Rob(b) has a mixed network and so I do not use Static Turbo. I was also one of the ones that had worse performance when I did try it.

Sorry, I don't know how. My guess would be to somehow modify the data that is sent in the HTTP POST, either by rolling your own config pages somehow or using software that intercepts it and allows you to change it.

No problem Robb. I'm hoping Rob will help me out. I'd really like to get better performance for streaming and xfering ISOs to my Xbox.

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Talon,

What fix is that for? And how would you go about applying it?

OK I see it, but how the heck do I edit it?

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I guess un-rar the FW.bin to NML.MEM,
then HEX Edit it & rar it again. Rename
the .rar back to bin & Crash Recovery back
to the router will do the trick.

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