Hey all, I think I'll just leave this here.

About two months ago I picked up a netgear WNDR3700 dual band router. Last week I got my laptop with n capabilities built into it, but am rock solid at 65 mbps and can't get any faster despite my best efforts. I realize that I can only utilize the 2.4 band, but I was expecting 130 mbps.

Any thoughts? My 2.4 max speed is set to be 300 mbps at the router.

You may want to check your wireless encryption. Some methods won't allow the router to work at maximum speed for 802.11n.

On my WNDR3700, I'm using WPA2-PSK (AES).

I also presume you are referring to the speed Windows reports, rather than the actual bandwidth (since even with 802.11n, you won't get anywhere near 130mbps speeds).

In addition to the above points, 2.4GHz is a crowded spectrum space. Bluetooth, cordless phones, other WiFi networks, etc. Unless you're living in a rural area, I would expect performance degradation to some extent.

I am in the same boat with my DIR-150N. No matter what I try, it won't go past 65.
My encription is set with WPA2-PSK (AES) but it doesn't change.

I also found a program called INSSIDER which telss you if you're using a frequency shared with someone else and I don't. I'm hoping someone will help us both!!!!

You can also try going into Device Manager, opening up the properties of your wireless card, and changing these settings under the Advanced tab:

802.11n Channel Width for band 2.4: Auto
802.11n Mode: Enabled
Transmit Power: 5 (Highest)

Will jumbo frames improve throughput? I assume you are sitting beside your router when you test to eliminate any power or interference issues?

You may want to check your wireless encryption. Some methods won't allow the router to work at maximum speed for 802.11n.

On my WNDR3700, I'm using WPA2-PSK (AES).

I also presume you are referring to the speed Windows reports, rather than the actual bandwidth (since even with 802.11n, you won't get anywhere near 130mbps speeds).
I am using WPA2-PSK (AES) as well and I'm no farther than 10 feet away from the router at any one time. The computer in question is a Dell Vostro 3500 with a Wireless-N WLAN Half-Mini Card and am running Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. I've tweaked the settings on the card to no avail.

The funny thing is I have a small wireless environment scanning applet built in and my network is shown as running 130 mbps. By the way, I got my 65 mbps result from the icon in the systray.

Thanks for all the replies folks - this forum never ceases to amaze me. :-)

Just to narrow the issue down...

- Make sure no other clients are connected to the wireless network (only one PC to test with). Turn off all other wireless devices to be sure.
- Put your PC right next to the router or as close as possible.
- Set your WNDR3700 to Wireless-N only, not Mixed Mode.

A few things to remember...

- The network can only operate as fast as the slowest client. If a Wireless-G client connects, everyone falls down to 54Mbps (though Windows may report a slightly higher link-rate).
- On 2.4Ghz, you should never expect to see 300Mbps. 150Mbps is likely the maximum link-rate you will see unless you live in a very rural area and don't have many other 2.4Ghz devices in the house***
- The further you are from the router, the slower the speed.
- The more clients connected, the slower the speed.
- The link-rate doesn't represent your actual throughput. Throughput will only be about 50% of the link-rate under the best conditions.

***The reason for this is Wireless-N devices have a "good-neighbour" policy. If there are too many other 2.4Ghz devices in the area, they must fall back to 20Mhz channel-width limiting them to only 150Mbps.