What is Killer Control Center Rivet Networks LLC?

My new Dell machine with Windows 11 Pro came with a program from Intel, namely
Killer Control Center Rivet Networks LLC. A quick Internet search shows:

"The Intel Killer Control Center is the program that examines your applications and sets priority so that your most speed-critical applications get first access to your bandwidth. Without it, every application that uses your Internet connection gets equal treatment, which can cause noticeably slower speeds."

https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...t examines,can cause noticeably slower speeds.

Does anyone know whether it is worth having, apparently it optimizes games in terms of bandwidth, I'm not a gamer at all, therefore is it needed? Is it on by default, or it should be activated? It doesn't show as an installed program... Thanks in advance for any info...

 

This is the number one tech support complaint in the company that I work for that we get. "Hi there, I just got my new Dell/Alienware laptop but my internet is much slower"

On paper, it is supposed to prioritize your bandwidth to give apps that need more bandwidth higher priority. In the real world, it cripples your internet and throttles down your bandwidth regardless of how many apps you are running as if you just downgraded your speed by half if not more.

Launch services.msc and disable all Killer related services. Then uninstall the Killer Control Center then reboot and watch your internet get back up to speed.

https://youtu.be/fNnXMjlWjbU

 

I may try this myself. I know my speeds are much slower than they should be because of it but it's just one of those things I have passively ignored out of a lack of time to research it.

 

as long i read about killer network it always caused issues and was not worth the money.

 

Just bookmarking.

 

It sure isn't. That said mine just came with it, I did not have the ability to order it with a different option. Also, after making the suggested changes mine is still slow. I can't get past 1.3 MB/s on the WiFi. My old laptop got 5 MB/s and was 12 years old. Maybe calling it Killer networking is an inside joke.

 

Killer control center is a control software for WiFi adapter in your computer. You do not need it for the basic function of your WiFi. It just adds some useful functionality to your computer, the biggest one of which is the ability to use both wired and wireless adapter simultaneously. This is very important for gamers to get the maximum out of their internet during an intense gaming session. Unfortunately it does that by installing a hidden virtual adapter that merges your wired and wireless adapters together, so your internet goes through this virtual adapter. It is only useful if you want to merge your two wired/wireless adapters together, if you don't, then your internet traffic needlessly goes through two adapters wireless/virtual before reaching you.

The only good thing it adds is the ability to check for wireless congestion for the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands in your surrounding area, so you can choose a WiFi band that is least congested. But you can get this functionality by using a dozen of free apps for android or Windows.

I recommend that you uninstall the whole killer driver package, including the WiFi driver and then download the WiFi driver for the Intel card inside your PC directly from intel's drivers website. Just the driver, not the whole Proset utility. This will give you the best wireless performance through your WiFi. This is what I have been doing on my gaming PC for the last 4 years.

Some background: Killer brand Ethernet and WiFi cards were made by Rivet Networks and marketed towards gamers and gaming PCs. They quickly became the de-facto cards included with almost all gaming PCs of every brand. Rivet Networks did not make their own chips, but just used chips from other vendors. For example, their WiFi card chips were always from Intel. So this is why you could uninstall the killer driver suite, and just install the intel driver directly on your PC. Intel bought them out a couple of years ago, so now they own the brand. This is most likely why you have a killer control software on your PC.

 

Just completely uninstall the killer driver suite from your computer and then install the driver for your intel card directly from the Intel's driver website. Download the driver only package, not the whole Proset utility. You will immediately see a performance increase on your internet.

Extra tip: Under Device Manager > Choose your WiFi card > Advanced > Property > Preferred Band > Choose "Prefer 5 GHz band" to get the max out of your internet bandwidth. If you don't and if there is a slight signal degradation in the 5 GHz band, your WiFi card will automatically connect you to the slower 2.4 GHz band instead. I will take 4 bars of 5 GHz band over 5 bars of 2.4 GHz band any day.

 

thats a major problem when users are threatened with a perfect marketing.
i read last weeks about same, gaming laptop with killer network chip - has issues.

"killer network" is trash. its a futile part of hardware. i cannot explain if its cause by hardware or drivers (only). anyhow, dont buy it.

PS thx for input

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into it on a day I have more time.

 

Most gamers most likely did not have a choice. In 2018 when I was shopping around, almost all brands like Asus, Acer, Alienware, MSI etc had Killer adapters inside their laptops. If you chose a gaming laptop, you had to buy it with Killer adapters.

And it is not completely useless, it gives gamers the ability to choose to send their game's traffic over Ethernet, while sending the rest of the internet traffic over WiFi, or to use both wired/wireless adapters simultaneously, thus ensuring no lag in games. These options are very important for gamers, but if you don't play competitive games, pretty useless for everyday work.

But in my opinion the cons of Killer suite outweighs its pros. This is why I uninstalled it after about a month of buying this laptop 4 years ago.

 

Just made a video about it: https://youtu.be/fNnXMjlWjbU

 

Thank you all, and particularly Raza0007 for the detailed reply. As I said I’m not a gamer, but as far as I can tell my internet connection is very fast both with Ethernet and wifi. I will try uninstalling it after making an image just in case, I usually stand by the proverbial saying ‘if it ain't broke, don't fix it…’

 

I have Killer network devices with my 2 Alienware systems and a Killer app control! The pictures are from my 7 year old Alienware 17R2.

 

Hi Triple Helix my dashboard definitely looks different, I have two main settings "multimedia" and "creator", but I really wouldn't have a clue as to what actions to take if any...

 

I would definitely turn on DoubleShot Pro not sure about Game fast.

 

@Spartan thanks it is a very clear guide as what to do to uninstall it, as I said the speed of my internet hasn't changed compared to my old machine, but I will test the system without the killer application and report the results.

 

Will try your suggestion. Have you ever tested your machines with and without the killer application? Any significant changes?

 

No I have not as I said it's a 7 year old system I might try on my newer 17R5 but everything is running well as is so I don't know...I still use my 17R2 mostly with lot's of Samsung SSD's!

 

Sorry Triple Helix, I'm confused now, what is the relationship between the killer app and your SSDs?

 

I followed your video suggestion and uninstalled the killer app. As far as I can tell the speed of my computer and internet is the same, definitely not slower but if it is faster we are talking about changes not perceivable by sight. I'll keep it this way for a while and see if there are positive changes. I'd say that the most respondents here would advise to uninstall it, and not being a gamer, I see no use running several services for nothing.

 

I've uninstalled the killer suite, but the driver for the Intel card is still there. I also changed the 'preferred band' to 6 GHz. The computer is fast, but I really can't tell whether it is faster than with the Killer app (my connection is strong 94.72 Mbps down, 94.84 Mbps up Ookla speedtest).

 

Try uploading a large file to a sharing site such as Google Drive with it and without it and you will see the difference also. Also test by downloading gigantic files with it and without it.

 

If you want faster upload speeds, go to Device Manager, right click on your network adapter (be it wired or wireless), choose the ADVANCED tab. Disable Large Send Offload v2 (IPv4) and Large Send Offload v2 (IPv6), hit OK. Then reboot.

Just Google it and you will see how this makes upload speeds faster.

 

I personally never had any performance issues with the Killer Control Center, I just did not use any of the functionality it brought to the table. I also did not like the fact that it sat between me and the internet, parsing every app that I used. Since I did not notice any performance difference between this app and just the WiFi driver, I uninstalled it.

6 GHz preferred band is even better, but only if your router transmits at 6 GHz. Very few people own a router right now that can transmit at 6 GHz, so I usually set mine to prefer 5 GHz. This way I can take my laptop anywhere, and it will give preference to the faster 5 GHz band.