I am that dummy. I have tested this over and over many times yesterday and today.

ookla Speedtest: Situation 1) speeds were 7 to 13 Mbps. Situation 2) was 72 to 83 Mbps. Flipping back and forth from situation 1) to 2) made an instantaneous and drastic change every single time. But I doubt it will help most people, it just happened to apply to my situation.

I was never getting my paid for speeds by my service provider (Comcast). I tried some things like this which seldom helps and it did not help me. Liron Segov is a very good source for dummys like me, and this video is the truth, but unfortunately almost all internet installations already have the mtu=1500 setting set, and almost always it is the best for most typically used hardware.

 

These can be useful tips but did not help my particular case.

 

I don't have wifi 6 with OFDMA, but it couldn't hurt in most situations if you for instance install a wifi card in your PC which does wifi 6.

 

Uses for the USB port on the back of your router.

Well, I said my big improvement was not something that is going to help most cases but was very simple. When I purchased router I put it up high (on top of the living room TV screen). Tested with antenna elements vertical and horizontal, result was no difference in speeds. Someone suggested setting the elements (router rods) exactly oriented parallel to the transmitter rods (the ones on or near your desktop PC). In our house you have to kinda wander thru an upstairs maze to get to the small closet where the PC desktop is. I had to jot down a sketch of the house plan to realize proper line of sight.

So pointing the router (turning it and dropping the rods not down sideways but down backwards so that both router antenna rods were parallel to each other and also aligned to the transmitter rod on the extension cable above the PC, and Mbps instantly shot up enormously. No other orientation changes anything much, if at all. But turn the rods to that one sweet spot and it's like night and day. Tested, retested several times. Repeatable. 100% of the time.

I'm assuming it's not possible to cable directly to your router so you're reliant on WiFi?

Wireless performance will always be variable. I live in an apartment building and every unit has their own wireless network, so the RF bands are all fighting with each other. Its slightly better on 5GHz than 2.4GHz. I also found out the hard way that although my internal walls are just dry lined plasterboard, they must have some sort of metallic layer inside them presumably for fire proofing which shields the wireless signals getting through! So much so that I have to use Powerline adapters to get a reliable connection in my study.

That said, my router is stuffed down behind my couch and I can still get over 250mbps from it most of the time so I can't really complain at that!