Slow Routers in AP mode

[legacyofbob]

So I made a thread about this in the Asus AC forum but I've tried this whole setup with a Netgear R7000 and I'm having the same issue so I'm making a new thread here. I'm just looking for ideas to try at this point.

I've had my basement "office" network for a few years, unchanged, with an Asus RT-N66U and a switch and everything else worked off of wifi. For the most part this was fine but 5GHz doesn't work very well upstairs and even 2.4GHz is very weak at the opposite corner of the house. My goal had been to make a run of CAT5e to the opposite end of the house and add on a router in AP mode to let everything upstairs work off of. I finally got around to doing all this and I'm having a strange issue with both an Asus RT-AC68U and a Netgear R7000.

The problem is no matter what I do the AP upstairs will only give me 9.5Mbps of upload/download.

• R7000/AC68U are in AP mode and have latest official firmware
• I tested the CAT5e run by plugging a laptop directly into the cable and running several speed tests, each getting 100+Mbps up and 35+Mbps down. I even tried bending the cable to put strain on the RJ-45 while I ran tests and the results were the same.
• Bandwidth is the same 9.5Mbps to LAN hosts
• I also plugged the laptop directly into the upstairs AP's LAN ports and still got 9.5Mbps wired.
• Wireless clients connect at 72Mbps (2.4) or various hundreds of megabits on 5GHz but speed tests still give same result.

Getting pretty frustrated at this point because I'm sure it's something configured wrong or otherwise since the issue is identical on both the Asus and the Netgear devices. The only things I haven't tried are using a different cable/shorter run to see if it the cable is somehow getting interference (not likely since cable works fine plugged into laptop) or swapping my legacy router (RT-N66U) with the newer models (I planned to do this eventually I just have a lot of port forwarding/static DHCP entries and such I would have to copy over.)

If anyone has any ideas I'd appreciate a fresh set of eyes. I'm hoping it's something simple I've just forgotten to check.

 

[netwrks]

What port speeds are you getting between your router, AP, and your switch? Ensure WMM is enabled on router and AP. Q0S disabled on the 7000. Also, give the 7000 a channel for 5 ghz.
As an FYI.. With the 7000, after any firmware upgrades, it is best to do a factory reset. As an alternative to stock firmware on the 7000, you should have a look at Xvortex. Perfect for AP mode. The second fw release works best.

EDIT: don't forget to reboot router / AP when assigning / changing wifi channels.

 

[thiggins]

Although it seems unlikely, it sounds like both routers and switch are negotiating a 10 Mbps connection.

Did you try connecting the APs to the RT-N66U LAN ports instead of the switch?

 

[azazel1024]

Yeah, they are connecting at fast Ethernet speeds, not gigabit speeds. It sounds like you tested the cable, but you did test the specific cable that runs between the two routers, yes? I'd also try different LAN ports on the two routers to connect them up to see if you get different results with different LAN ports connected.

Also, I assume you are meaning 9.5MBps. Little b always means bits and big B means Bytes. (standard nomenclature is Mbps for Megabits per second and MB/sec is the standard nomenclature for Megabytes per second, but Mb/sec and MBps can also both be used).

 

[legacyofbob]

I did actually mean 9.5Mbps or just north of 1MBps. If I were getting 9.5MBps I might not be upset by that.

I just tried moving the cable to one of the ports on the RT-N66U and the result is the same. I don't really have a way to check the negotiated speed from the switch, and I don't see how from the Netgear R7000 either, unless some one can direct me otherwise. There probably is a way to do it from the N66U (found it see below LAN4)

QoS settings on the R7000 seem to be disabled in AP mode. I'm going to try brining the AP down to my office and plugging it in with a short cable and see what happens.

Thanks for the replies,

 

[azazel1024]

Oh dear Christ. That is something seriously wrong going on if you are getting only 9.5 Megabits per second. I'd certainly start with moving it closer and using a different cable as a quick test.

 

[thiggins]

I'm going to try brining the AP down to my office and plugging it in with a short cable and see what happens.

That was going to be my next suggestion. If you wired the CAT5 yourself, it could be miswired.

Yes, I know you got a 100 Mbps connection via your laptop test. But would be better if you confirmed via a cable tester that everything is wired correctly.

 

[System Error Message]

Aside from checking the cables, try to manually pick a channel for your wifi. Look for the least used channel and pick one. Another thing that can happen is that an ethernet link between 2 devices will reduce in speed if there are errors. For example if error rates are too high it will go down from gigabit to 100Mb/s and if there are still a lot of errors it can go down to 10Mb/s. Check your wiring and interference. I noticed that you dont have many wired devices so try plug everything into the n66U and see if this solves the problem. Some switches are known to reduce rates in case of errors.

Try swapping the N66U with the R7000 and see if it improves. The N66U uses a MIPS CPU and some combinations of MIPS with a switch chip does produce errors at times. My Rb450G tends to reduce to 100Mb/s because of this and the switch shows me a large number of errors where the cable is plugged in.