Why does my laptop always open to 5GHz when I have 2GHz selected?
Because of the EXTREME consumption of bandwidth that happens no matter what I do to minimize it, I've set my Gen5 WiFi settings to 2.4GHz (see image below), since 5GHz would be even more consumptive. However, almost every single time I start up my laptop in the a.m. the WiFi connects at 5GHz anyway. What can I do to prevent this? I need to conserve every tiny byte I can!
The laptop OS is Win7. I turn off the power to the modem nightly (I'm on solar power and must conserve that way as well).
Hi lifstrand,
Generally, depending on the model of your laptop/wireless card, you can change the "wireless mode" on the wireless card. This is usually achieved by changing the wireless mode 802.11 a/b/g to 802.11 b/g.
[edit: I forgot to say you have to make this change by accessing the Network Adapter's properties in Device Manager or Control Panel]
Another alternative would be to create 2 different SSID's for each band with 2 different passwords. This would prevent a device that does not have a certain bands password from auto-connecting.
Hope I could help!
Amanda
I'm not sure why you would assume that the 5Ghz band uses any more data than the 2.4Ghz band. The only way it may is if you are doing something that constantly uses data, and the possible slower speed of the 2.4Ghz WiFi might cause it to use less data. If it's not that, and you are just browsing and downloading files and such, the only difference with the 2.4Ghz band might be that it takes longer to do those things, but it's not going to use any less data. A 50MB file is going to use 50MB of your data no matter which WiFi band you use.
With that said, you can disable the 5Ghz band in the same settings of your picture. Click on the 5Ghz tab and uncheck SSID enable and SSID broadcast, then click Save Settings. Then do the same with the 5Ghz Guest radio, too. You can also disable it in the Advanced Setup under the Wireless section. Uncheck the box for the 5Ghz Frequency Band. The second method may be easier and actually shut the 5Ghz radio off, though I don't know for sure. It's what I do instead of the first method. I have my 5Ghz WiFi disabled because I don't have anything that can utilize it.
Edit: Was writing this when Amanda posted.
I believe your computer will only connect to one or the other if you have previously entered the password for each band separately. So another way to stop your computer from connecting to the 5Ghz band is go into your WiFi settings on the computer (I forget where it is on Windows 7) find where your previous connected networks are and Forget the 5Ghz network, only enter the password on the 2.4 GHz network.
