Wireless Performance
NOTES:
• 802.11b testing was done with a Linksys WPC11 ver 3 client with WinXPHome
• AP was run at full-power setting
• Signal Quality readings in the table above are not valid. No signal quality readings were available via the WinXP monitoring application.
As I mentioned earlier, I had a bit of a difficult time using the Linksys cards as test clients. Let's start with the 11b performance first.
Plot 1: 802.11b performance -Four Conditions plus WEP
(click on the image for a full-sized view)
Plot 1 shows a good deal of variation in 802.11b performance across my four test conditions. It also shows that throughput with 128 bit WEP enabled was higher than with it off... a first in my testing experience! Since the plots show not-exactly-stellar performance, I ran a test with three other 802.11b client cards to make sure that I wasn't falsely attributing the cause of this relatively poor showing to the 51AB.
Plot 2: 802.11b Condition 1, different clients
(click on the image for a full-sized view)
Plot 2 shows Condition 1, WEP-disabled runs for the Linksys WPC11 ver 3, ORiNOCO Gold, Asante FriendlyNET AL1511 "X-Wing", and NETGEAR WAB501 Dual-Band (forced to 802.11b mode) clients. The plot clearly shows better, more consistent throughput with the other cards than with the WPC11. To check that I wasn't having a problem with my laptop's configuration, I tested the Linksys card on another laptop running Win98SE and got similar results.
As one last check, I tested the WPC11 with an Asante VR2004AC 802.11b wireless router. That test showed much better results, with an average Condition 1 throughput of 4.9Mbps and a steady cyclical variation from a low of 3.7 to a high of 5.4Mbps. My only conclusion from these tests is that I have either a bad WPC11 ver 3 card or there's something wonky going on between the card and the AP. I offered to test another WPC11 if Linksys wants to send one, and I'll update the review if I get different results.
802.11b Wireless Performance Test Results
| Test Conditions
| Firmware/Driver Versions AP f/w: | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Test Description | Signal Quality (%) | Transfer Rate (Mbps) | Response Time (msec) | UDP stream | |
| Throughput (kbps) | Lost data (%) | ||||
| Client to AP - Condition 1 | 0 | 2.9 [No WEP] 3.9 [w/ WEP] | 2 (avg) 4 (max) | 349 | 0 |
| Client to AP - Condition 2 | 0 | 3.5 | 3 (avg) 22 (max) | 402 | 0 |
| Client to AP - Condition 3 | 0 | 1.6 | 4 (avg) 15 (max) | 250 | 0 |
| Client to AP - Condition 4 | 0 | 2 | 3 (avg) 15 (max) | 264 | 0 |