Question ASUS XT8 help needed

[JB14]

I recently moved into a new house and it has a fiber direct to house ISP. The house I came from had spectrum cable and used a modem.
I used my Asus XT8 system there with no issues and paid for a 400mbps connection and very often got over that.

Fast forward to now, I brought one of my nodes from old house to the new one, I factory reset it, put it in router mode, and standing right beside it I get 280 down and 495 up and I’m paying for 500/500. This is on the 5G-1 and it’s worse on 2.4 and about the same on 5G-2. I have since added 3 nodes and seem to have decent coverage around the house but the speed is about half what I’m paying for on the download side. If I hook my laptop directly to router or direct to the supply cable I get 540/540 and that’s on speedtest…using Asus speed test in dashboard I get 525/550. I have all the stuff disabled that’s been reported to hurt, and the Asus rep I spoke with last night suggested to turn off the firewall which I did…didn’t help. I’ve tried channel 36,40,44, and 48 on 5G-1 with no real difference in any of them.

The only thing that changed from then and now is
1. A different ISP and type of service
2. Firmware is different now , but i have used a node with same firmware and got the exact same results.

I will say I’ve never had any issues with it until now, however my new house is in a very rural area and has zero cell reception so WiFi signal and bandwidth are of the utmost importance to me and my wife who works from home.

That brings me to my questions.

1. What am I missing on the download speed ?

I have this same system at my office and my old house both on Spectrum and consistently get 450+ DL on a 400mbs service.

 

[bill001g]

You want to start very simple in your testing. Only have 1 wifi radio source with no repeaters. It is not unexpected to get 1/2 the bandwidth from a device connected to a repeater. Most these systems you now have 2 copies of the signals being sent over the same bandwidth.

Is there a ISP router or is it just some kind of modem/fiber box. Mostly does it have wifi.

Pretty much if you are using the same router as you did before then the ISP it connects to makes no difference. The wifi only exists between your router and the end devices. Once it hits the router it is converted to ethernet and to a device upstream from the router it can not tell if the end device is connected via wifi or it is connected to a lan port via ethernet.

Not sure what is different. The routers are too smart in many ways. It might be selecting different channels. The problem with routers that run on the 5ghz band is there are lots of rules and you almost have to let the router select the channels to be able to use 160mhz bands the give you the high speed. The router must detect something like weather radar and stop using the restricted frequencies. All the issues with this is why most people saw no difference between wifi6 and wifi5. Wifi6e solves a lot of the issue because it can use the 6ghz band where there is lots more bandwidth and none of the restrictions.

This is all trial and error. I would turn off 1 of the 5g radios and use just 1 and only use the main router to start with. Try various channels and see if you get more speed. This is complex because not all end devices support the same combinations of radio channels and channel widths even if the router does. Kinda why the router numbers are such lies. Almost no wifi device has 4 antenna so even though the router can use 4 overlapping signals there are very few devices that exist that can connect and use this feature.

You also have to be careful about chasing big numbers. Do you really "need?" that speed. In general you only need high bandwidth for downloading large files. Most devices that can not use ethernet are portable devices that have very limited storage to begin with. It is not like you are going to download 100gbyte of microsoft flight simulator to your phone. In genral most portable devices us maybe 30-40mbps of bandwidth to watch 4k netflix...and not a lot of people watch 4k video on a phone screen.

 

[JB14]

You want to start very simple in your testing. Only have 1 wifi radio source with no repeaters. It is not unexpected to get 1/2 the bandwidth from a device connected to a repeater. Most these systems you now have 2 copies of the signals being sent over the same bandwidth.

Is there a ISP router or is it just some kind of modem/fiber box. Mostly does it have wifi.

Pretty much if you are using the same router as you did before then the ISP it connects to makes no difference. The wifi only exists between your router and the end devices. Once it hits the router it is converted to ethernet and to a device upstream from the router it can not tell if the end device is connected via wifi or it is connected to a lan port via ethernet.

Not sure what is different. The routers are too smart in many ways. It might be selecting different channels. The problem with routers that run on the 5ghz band is there are lots of rules and you almost have to let the router select the channels to be able to use 160mhz bands the give you the high speed. The router must detect something like weather radar and stop using the restricted frequencies. All the issues with this is why most people saw no difference between wifi6 and wifi5. Wifi6e solves a lot of the issue because it can use the 6ghz band where there is lots more bandwidth and none of the restrictions.

This is all trial and error. I would turn off 1 of the 5g radios and use just 1 and only use the main router to start with. Try various channels and see if you get more speed. This is complex because not all end devices support the same combinations of radio channels and channel widths even if the router does. Kinda why the router numbers are such lies. Almost no wifi device has 4 antenna so even though the router can use 4 overlapping signals there are very few devices that exist that can connect and use this feature.

You also have to be careful about chasing big numbers. Do you really "need?" that speed. In general you only need high bandwidth for downloading large files. Most devices that can not use ethernet are portable devices that have very limited storage to begin with. It is not like you are going to download 100gbyte of microsoft flight simulator to your phone. In genral most portable devices us maybe 30-40mbps of bandwidth to watch 4k netflix...and not a lot of people watch 4k video on a phone screen.

I should have stated that I’ve already tried singling out radios, on 5G-1 I’ve tried every channel, I have no neighbors and live in the middle of a 28acre farm now, all of my wireless tests have been done on main node within 3’ , I have hard reset router, and made sure all the bandwidth robbing services are disabled.

There is no router, only a Ethernet cable coming from an outside hub/box that goes directly to the router. I can also hook that directly to my laptop. When direct to laptop I get proper speeds, when laptop is direct to node I get proper speeds, when testing on router dashboard I get same speeds. I also took a node back to my old house and set it up there and consistently get 450 on a 400mbs connection.

 

[bill001g]

From reading the basic specs you likely are better off testing on the 5G-2 radio it has more capability.

This is very strange. You are saying you take the router and move it between houses with no changes and it runs at different speeds.

The wifi connection and setting should be exactly the same no matter what ISP is plugged in the back. In fact you do not even need a ISP plugged in, you could transfer data to other devices in your house. Again once it leave the wifi chip the data is being processed exactly the same as if it came from the ethernet switch chip.

 

[JB14]

From reading the basic specs you likely are better off testing on the 5G-2 radio it has more capability.

This is very strange. You are saying you take the router and move it between houses with no changes and it runs at different speeds.

The wifi connection and setting should be exactly the same no matter what ISP is plugged in the back. In fact you do not even need a ISP plugged in, you could transfer data to other devices in your house. Again once it leave the wifi chip the data is being processed exactly the same as if it came from the ethernet switch chip.

I’ve tested on 5G-2 also …same results and yes I can take the same router to 2 different houses and get a faster than I’m paying for speed at one house and half the speed I’m paying for at the other house, the only difference is the ISP. I set them up the exact same way in both places.

 

[bill001g]

I will assume that you did not actually take the router unplug it driver over to the old house and plug it into the cable modem.

There has to be something different in the settings. The ISP can not tell if you are connected via wifi or ethernet.

It either has to be something different with the wifi setting or with the setting on the wifi client you are using to test. Do you have a second device you can test with.

When you get different upload/download speeds on wifi it generally means the end device is having some issue hearing the router. Most times it is the reverse. When you stand next to the router you would think the signal levels would be fine.

Very strange issue.

 

[JB14]

I will assume that you did not actually take the router unplug it driver over to the old house and plug it into the cable modem.

There has to be something different in the settings. The ISP can not tell if you are connected via wifi or ethernet.

It either has to be something different with the wifi setting or with the setting on the wifi client you are using to test. Do you have a second device you can test with.

When you get different upload/download speeds on wifi it generally means the end device is having some issue hearing the router. Most times it is the reverse. When you stand next to the router you would think the signal levels would be fine.

Very strange issue.

Have to do a reset when switching between ISP but the setup is the same both ways. Have tested with 3 different clients and various ways….all tests are the same

 

[bill001g]

Although it is all on the same chip the way it works is as if the wifi radios were on a external ap connected via a ethernet cable to the router.

What happens if you take one of your remote units hook it to the main router via ethernet using it as a AP. Then turn off the wifi radios on the router.

How can even your router possibly know if you directly hook your pc to the ethernet or you hooked your pc to the remote ap via wifi which then connects via ethernet.

This is another level removed from the ISP.

Maybe it is some strange software, asus has a ton of crap in their firmware. Maybe it somehow detect the 2 different ISP as different somehow. Grasping at straws on this theory though.

 

[JB14]

Although it is all on the same chip the way it works is as if the wifi radios were on a external ap connected via a ethernet cable to the router.

What happens if you take one of your remote units hook it to the main router via ethernet using it as a AP. Then turn off the wifi radios on the router.

How can even your router possibly know if you directly hook your pc to the ethernet or you hooked your pc to the remote ap via wifi which then connects via ethernet.

This is another level removed from the ISP.

Maybe it is some strange software, asus has a ton of crap in their firmware. Maybe it somehow detect the 2 different ISP as different somehow. Grasping at straws on this theory though.

Trust me I’m at a loss as well….I’ve tried and retried almost everything including calling the ISP and ASUS. Neither were of any help. I can try your other suggestion later tonight…if I take WiFi down right now I may start a family war. I’m bidding on a pair of xt12s right now to see if that changes anything and I’m open to any suggestions for a better system with wireless backhaul.