Question R8000P Slow speeds - Wired - why?

[sdgeiger]

Hello,

Over the weekend I decided to test my wired connections in my house and noticed slow speeds (I currently have 500 MBPS download/upload cap with Verizon FIOS), and I was expecting speeds better than 70% when connected through Cat 5e or better ethernet cables. 70% is what I get when I speed test using a WIFI connection. Instead, I got about 45-50% speeds. So, I decided to go down to the basement and bring my laptop and connect directly to the back of the Nighthawk R8000P, and the speeds were the same, about 45-50%. So, thinking maybe it's a wiring issue, I bought a new, highly rated Cat 8 cable (3 ft), and tested it again - same result. I tried a different port, and the same result. I tried another laptop, and got the same result - 45-50% download speed.

I'm thinking that it might be time to get a Mesh router, but didn't want to get it until I've had a better understanding of why this is happening. I'd greatly appreciate any tips on how to identify the root cause of this slowness.

 

[bill001g]

Maybe it is something strange with the pc. Have you tried another device. edit... never mind I see you tries a second laptop

Some fancy mesh router is just going to make you have less money in your wallet. Even a very cheap $50 router that has gigabit lan/wan ports can pass full gigabit speed on ethernet. Router differences are more other feature and what types of wifi radios they have.

Now I guess it could be a defective router but it would be rare. I would try the standard factory reset of the router and then configure only the admin and wifi passwords. Leave all the other setting on defaults. Although unlikely there are settings that can limit traffic rates.

If this still makes no difference I would plug directly into the verizon fiber termination box. I assume you are not using the verizon router and had them activate the ethernet on the ONT ?

Cables would be suspect but most times a bad cable will not work at all or will drop the speed to 100mbps. It is very different problem if you test and get say 95mbps and say 110mbps. Test results in the low 90mbps is almost a cable running at 100mbps.

 

[sdgeiger]

just to make sure I was clear, I have 500 MBPS service with Verizon, but I am getting 250-277 MPBS with a wired connection, and 350 MBPS if wireless. I will try plugging the cable from the ONT into the laptop and re-test.

 

[sdgeiger]

Maybe it is something strange with the pc. Have you tried another device. edit... never mind I see you tries a second laptop

Some fancy mesh router is just going to make you have less money in your wallet. Even a very cheap $50 router that has gigabit lan/wan ports can pass full gigabit speed on ethernet. Router differences are more other feature and what types of wifi radios they have.

Now I guess it could be a defective router but it would be rare. I would try the standard factory reset of the router and then configure only the admin and wifi passwords. Leave all the other setting on defaults. Although unlikely there are settings that can limit traffic rates.

If this still makes no difference I would plug directly into the verizon fiber termination box. I assume you are not using the verizon router and had them activate the ethernet on the ONT ?

Cables would be suspect but most times a bad cable will not work at all or will drop the speed to 100mbps. It is very different problem if you test and get say 95mbps and say 110mbps. Test results in the low 90mbps is almost a cable running at 100mbps.

I plugged the ONT cable directly into the laptop and the speed was about 20-MBPS!! I called Verizon and they also thought that this was ridiculously slow. Yet, I try the WIFI and the speeds are about 70%. I can't think of anything else except maybe get a new router.

 

[bill001g]

Try taking both your laptops plug them into 2 ethernet ports on the router. Then copy some large files in both directions just to be sure there is not some read vs write issue. You can get a good idea about the speeds from the resource monitor network tab. Be aware some values on that screen are MBytes and others Mbits.

You can also try a old line mode program called iperf. This is a very simplistic tool that is not affected by things like disk or file structures. You should see 900+mbps in both directions.

Mostly this is to avoid replacing a router and then find it is not the problem.

You could also try to boot a USB linux image on one of the machines. This would be more to test if there is some strange window setting causing the problem.

You can actually test the router throughput if you really want to. It is a little messy but what you would do is hook 1 pc up like you did in the first tests. The other you hook to the wan port. You then will need to manually set the IP on the router and the PC....using a different subnet than the lan.
You would then use file copies or IPERF to test. Now if this also works at good speeds then it is going to be something strange related to web traffic.