[SOLVED] Slowest mobile hotspot is actually faster than LAN or Wifi

[mujmuj]

My house has LAN coming out of the wall. Using a quite good wifi router, I connect my computer to the wiki router. So I have three options to connect to the Internet.

1. LAN line connected to the router, and another LAN line from router to PC

2. LAN line connected to the router, and use Wifi from the router

3. Mobile hotspot

If I test the Internet speed at https://www.speedtest.net , #1 and #2 have speed more than 90 mbps. If I test #3, the speed is 8 mbps.

But in practice, using #1 and #2, so many websites simply do not load well. It takes so much time that it almost looks like it's being blocked or as if I didn't click the link. It happens on Facebook, Reddit, and so many other sites.

Even more surprising is that this problem often just goes away by using #3, which is a lot slower according to the Internet speed test.

How could it be possible? I couldn't believe this, so I thought perhaps I was mistaken, but now it's been 6 months, so I have to ask somewhere.

 

[rgd1101]

what the dns server?

what website?

 

[kanewolf]

what the dns server?

what website?

Could be an IPv6 on the LAN problem. Ensure that IPv6 is disabled on the PC.

 

[gggplaya]

As said, disable IPV6 if you can.

My other instinct is that beamforming is causing issues because the client devices can't send information back to the router. Try turning off beamforming or try connecting only at 2.4ghz.

 

[mujmuj]

As said, disable IPV6 if you can.

Ensure that IPv6 is disabled on the PC.

Thank you! On "wifi properties", I could see that I can disable IPv6 and IPv4. Should I disable both? Or just disable IPv6?

 

[gggplaya]

Only disable ipv6.

You need ipv4.

 

[mujmuj]

As said, disable IPV6 if you can.

Ensure that IPv6 is disabled on the PC.

Unfortunately disabling IPv6 did not solve the problem.

An example of a webpage that is quickly loaded on (supposedly slow) mobile hotspot, but sometimes doesn't load forever (but it could load quickly if I enter the url second or third or multiple times) on router wifi is this link to a news article.

Perhaps this gives a hint?

I will try turning off beamforming as @gggplaya suggested.

 

[kanewolf]

Unfortunately disabling IPv6 did not solve the problem.

An example of a webpage that is quickly loaded on (supposedly slow) mobile hotspot, but sometimes doesn't load forever (but it could load quickly if I enter the url second or third or multiple times) on router wifi is this link to a news article.

Perhaps this gives a hint?

I will try turning off beamforming as @gggplaya suggested.

This sounds like a slow DNS. Your router caches DNS. So if you load a webpage a second time most of the DNS lookup traffic is cached. Manually chang the DNS on your router to the Google DNS servers (8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4).

 

[gggplaya]

Unfortunately disabling IPv6 did not solve the problem.

An example of a webpage that is quickly loaded on (supposedly slow) mobile hotspot, but sometimes doesn't load forever (but it could load quickly if I enter the url second or third or multiple times) on router wifi is this link to a news article.

Perhaps this gives a hint?

I will try turning off beamforming as @gggplaya suggested.

I've had the same exact problem with beamforming. Web pages load quickly, but requests back to the router are slow or sometimes never received. So after clicking a link, it hangs for a while. But once it does receive the request, it loads quickly.

 

[rgd1101]

tested only one pc on #1 and #2?
test directly without the router?

 

[mujmuj]

I cannot find how to disable beamforming. My router is tp-link. How to do this?

 

[bill001g]

It may not be the beamforming if your router does not have it that is just one of the many possibilities.

Try kanewolf suggestion. First try to change the DNS in the router to 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1

If that makes no difference try to change the DNS in the PC itself under the IPv4 settings to one of those IP addresses.

You can also check inside the browsers to see if it is using a different DNS. A kinda new feature of browsers is to use encrypted DNS. Most times this works very well but if the DNS server it is using is not fully supported it can be slow. I would either disable this feature or set it to use 1.1.1.1.
This is cloudflare and they tend to have the best support for encrypted DNS. I have used this for well over a year now and it work well and keeps the ISP from snooping on data.

 

[gggplaya]

What's your router's model number, they may have given it their own name.

Also try disabling WMM and SHORT GI.

 

[mujmuj]

What's your router's model number, they may have given it their own name.

Also try disabling WMM and SHORT GI.

TP-Link Archer AX20 is the model.

 

[mujmuj]

Also I cannot log in to tp-link settings. As is instructed on tp-link guideline (https://www.tp-link.com/tw/support/faq/87/), I went to http://192.168.0.1

But I can't login

This screenshot is taken from that webpage https://prnt.sc/hyEdyiBifPV6

 

[gggplaya]

Password is usually written on the bottom of the router.

That router does have beamforming in the specs page, but the software interface doesn’t allow you to turn it off in the manual.

 

[mujmuj]

It may not be the beamforming if your router does not have it that is just one of the many possibilities.

Try kanewolf suggestion. First try to change the DNS in the router to 8.8.8.8 or 1.1.1.1

If that makes no difference try to change the DNS in the PC itself under the IPv4 settings to one of those IP addresses.

You can also check inside the browsers to see if it is using a different DNS. A kinda new feature of browsers is to use encrypted DNS. Most times this works very well but if the DNS server it is using is not fully supported it can be slow. I would either disable this feature or set it to use 1.1.1.1.
This is cloudflare and they tend to have the best support for encrypted DNS. I have used this for well over a year now and it work well and keeps the ISP from snooping on data.

1. According to @gggplaya 's answer, it seems I cannot turn off beamforming on this router. If beamforming is really the reason, I am willing to buy another router which doesn't have beamforming or something that allows turning it off.

2. I cannot change DNS of this router because I cannot seem to login.

3. I tried change DNS of IPv4 but it does not work.

4. Check inside the browsers for DNS? How can I do that? I couldn't find how to do this though I googled this stuff.

 

[mujmuj]

Password is usually written on the bottom of the router.

That router does have beamforming in the specs page, but the software interface doesn’t allow you to turn it off in the manual.

At http://192.168.0.1 , I typed in the password on the bottom of the router (the same password that I type in when I connect to wifi). But still it says "incorrect password".

Where did you find the info that this router doesn't allow turning off beamforming?

 

[bill001g]

So I would just do a factory reset on the router and it will then change the password back to the default one.

Even if it is beamforming it may not make any difference. If this is the problem then the actual fundemetal issue is that you do not have enough signal. Turning it off may make things worse. In theory at lease beam forming direct the radio waves more toward the device. Problem is in a house the best path might not be direct the signal bounces around and might be coming through a door rather that going through the walls.

BUT i though you said in the first post you have the same issue on ethernet. If that is true then it is much more likely it is something else in your machine rather than being a wifi issue.

You do not need to change the DNS in the router. If you can change the DNS in your PC that actually tends to be the best option but it is a pain to set the DNS in every end device which is why you try the router first.

If you changed the DNS in your PC and it did nothing then the problem is going to be more complex to find. Maybe try other web browsers and see if it has the same problem.

 

[gggplaya]

If you have long delays waiting for websites to respond, it's most likely caused by beamforming. I've had issues with this in the past and it has helped others as well. See this thread: https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...ion-and-dropout-issues.3738428/#post-22549300

My theory is the client device, especially on battery power, thinks it has a better signal than it actually does because of beamforming. So it turns down the gain on the antenna amplifier and doesn't transmit with the power it actually needs. With my old netgear router, it was mostly mobile phones that had the issue. You would click on a link and it would take forever to respond. But when it did respond, the website would download quickly.

For the OP, I would reset the router and get the default password to work. The operators manual doesn't always reflect the software interface because software updates are so frequent that they don't bother to update the manual until there are major changes. So the option may be in there and not shown in manual.