Netgear A6200 802.11ac USB Wi-Fi Adapter Review

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Netgear A6200 802.11ac USB Wi-Fi Adapter Review

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Netgear A6200 802.11ac USB Wi-Fi Adapter Review

Is your laptop or wireless PC running connecting to your network at the fastest possible speed but you are still lagging when playing online games or when streaming video? You may need to look at upgrading your client to the latest WiFi format, 802.11ac. Read on as we take a look at the Netgear A6200 USB adapter, an under-$60 wireless-AC solution!

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The Netgear A6200 WiFi USB Adaptor has been designed to connect your notebook or desktop computer to an 802.11ac network to give you lag-free HD streaming of multimedia or maximum throughput on wireless data transfers. This, of course, is tremendously important for those trying to wirelessly game or who just want the fastest speeds that their network can provide...
Article Title: Netgear A6200 802.11ac USB Wi-Fi Adapter Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/2252/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: $59.49 Shipped
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Clouseau
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Re: Netgear A6200 802.11ac USB Wi-Fi Adapter Review

Post by Clouseau »

I have been playing around with this adapter for over two weeks now. I also have it pared with an R6300 as in the stated review. The pc it is connected to, the signal travels through two walls and is like thirty-five feet from the router. No matter what the router and adapter setting are, I cannot get the ac speed over 243. It is rock solid at that speed, no dips. The n speed is maxed at 300 and again no dips in speed. The signal strength on the n side is 100% while the ac is steady at 63% according to the genie software.

The computer it is connected to runs XP SP3 on an A-Bit AV-8 board. Do not understand why the ac speed is stuck at the 243. I have tried with and without the genie software. The Window's utility shows the same results. Is it the old board that is causing the issue? I am staring to lean to it being an issue with the adapter since the ac speed does not even match the n's. Am I not understanding the picture correctly as to what the actual issue is? Do I have to install a protocol or service relating to ipv6?
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Re: Netgear A6200 802.11ac USB Wi-Fi Adapter Review

Post by Digital Puppy »

Clouseau wrote:I have been playing around with this adapter for over two weeks now. I also have it pared with an R6300 as in the stated review. The pc it is connected to, the signal travels through two walls and is like thirty-five feet from the router. No matter what the router and adapter setting are, I cannot get the ac speed over 243. It is rock solid at that speed, no dips. The n speed is maxed at 300 and again no dips in speed. The signal strength on the n side is 100% while the ac is steady at 63% according to the genie software.

The computer it is connected to runs XP SP3 on an A-Bit AV-8 board. Do not understand why the ac speed is stuck at the 243. I have tried with and without the genie software. The Window's utility shows the same results. Is it the old board that is causing the issue? I am staring to lean to it being an issue with the adapter since the ac speed does not even match the n's. Am I not understanding the picture correctly as to what the actual issue is? Do I have to install a protocol or service relating to ipv6?
What channel are you using? 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz? To get speeds over 300Mbps, you need to communicate over the 5GHz channel. Also make sure WMM is selected and enabled.

If you are using a laptop, take it into the same room as your router and check out the windows connection. You should see something like this:
Image

Hopefully, that helps!
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Re: Netgear A6200 802.11ac USB Wi-Fi Adapter Review

Post by Clouseau »

Sorry, forgot to mention the channel frequency. According to both the genie software and the window's utility I only have two choices to connect to; The 2.4 GHz band or the 5Ghz band. The 2.4 band maxes out at 300. The 5Ghz band cannot get it to budge over the 243. I have yet to try the adapter on the rig in the same room as the router. Will try when get home and everyone has gone to bed. The rig is located just off the kitchen and is the busiest one in the house. The router is located in "my" office. The only ac solution for an internal card that I have found is from asus, and basically at $100; not in the picture yet.
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Re: Netgear A6200 802.11ac USB Wi-Fi Adapter Review

Post by Digital Puppy »

Clouseau wrote:Sorry, forgot to mention the channel frequency. According to both the genie software and the window's utility I only have two choices to connect to; The 2.4 GHz band or the 5Ghz band. The 2.4 band maxes out at 300. The 5Ghz band cannot get it to budge over the 243. I have yet to try the adapter on the rig in the same room as the router. Will try when get home and everyone has gone to bed. The rig is located just off the kitchen and is the busiest one in the house. The router is located in "my" office. The only ac solution for an internal card that I have found is from asus, and basically at $100; not in the picture yet.
I understand. I really want to know what the *same room* speeds are and if you can get the client to connect at 867. If you can do this, then it's probably a limitation of your environment (walls/doors/noise/etc), and not the adapter. How are you measuring your speeds?

I'm hoping you have tried to change the location/direction of the USB Adapter as well as the Netgear router already. I know that the router has a sweet spot and you can "tune" the router by rotating it slightly to change its pointing.

The other thing you can try is to use 2.4 GHz channel too to see if you improve your speeds as well. If it is connecting at 300 Mbps, then technically, that is faster than what you are getting with the range-limited 5GHz channel.

Just throwing you some ideas...
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Re: Netgear A6200 802.11ac USB Wi-Fi Adapter Review

Post by Clouseau »

When in the same room was able to connect at 866.5. There was an anomaly when I set the computer back up in it's place. Was able to get a fairly stable connection at 351 on the ac (5GHz) band. Was shortlived though. stuck at 243 again. Like you mentioned, looks like I am going to have to play with router placement.
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