AX3000 - 800mbps UL, but only 400mbps DL?

[spruce-jackal]

My internet is 1gbps fiber and my new AX3000 is getting ~900/900 UL/DL on ethernet. With Wi-Fi from about a foot away I'm getting 800-900mbps UL, but weirdly only 400-500mbps DL (similar results on multiple devices). I've disabled 2.4ghz, set the 5ghz wireless mode to "AX Only" since all my devices support AX and set channel bandwidth to 160mhz (not 20/40/80/160) - speeds haven't moved up or down after these changes.

What router settings should I be tweaking to get my Wi-Fi DL speeds up closer to where my UL speeds are?

 

[L&LD]

Welcome to the forums @spruce-jackal.

What is the actual router model? What firmware are you using on it?

What client device(s) are you testing the up/down speeds with?

 

[Tech9]

channel bandwidth to 160mhz

- check your link rates in Client List first - 1200Mbps and 2400Mbps for 80/160MHz client
- MU-MIMO may cause streams reduction - you better keep it enabled for Wi-Fi 6 though
- avoid 160MHz for better Wi-Fi stability - it requires use of DFS channels and is radar sensitive
- 160MHz wide channel may increase the throughput to close clients, but will reduce the range

 

[spruce-jackal]

Welcome to the forums @spruce-jackal.

What is the actual router model? What firmware are you using on it?

What client device(s) are you testing the up/down speeds with?

Asus RT-AX3000. Firmware 3.0.0.4.386_48908 . Primarily testing with laptop with AX210 and S22+.

 

[spruce-jackal]

- check your link rates in Client List first - 1200Mbps and 2400Mbps for 80/160MHz client
- MU-MIMO may cause streams reduction - you better keep it enabled for Wi-Fi 6 though
- avoid 160MHz for better Wi-Fi stability - it requires use of DFS channels and is radar sensitive
- 160MHz wide channel may increase the throughput to close clients, but will reduce the range

In the client list I can see Tx rate for AX210 laptop is fluctuating 1800-2200. Tx rate for the S22+ is fluctuating 1400-2000.

I'm in a small apartment and getting -50 dBm signal with channel bandwidth set to 160mhz so not concerned about range.

I may try 80mhz but my goal here is to boost my DL speeds up closer to the near 1gbps speed I'm getting when just connecting via ethernet.

 

[Tech9]

160MHz wide channel and small apartment (apartment building?) sound bad to start with. You perhaps have very busy Wi-Fi environment around and you test your luck with 8x 20MHz channels. 80MHz wide channel to 2-stream AX client can give 800Mbps throughput. Not enough?

 

[L&LD]

The specs for the RT-AX3000 say it all. No CPU listed. 512MB of RAM. 2x2:2 performance. Maximum.

If you want to attempt to achieve 1Gbps wirelessly, you need at least the RT-AX68U. With the RT-AX86U it is within theoretical limits (even with 2x2:2 clients). The RT-AX86S may also be in this league.

With the way the RT-AX3000 specs as presented, I would not be expecting anything more than what you can achieve right now.

 

[spruce-jackal]

The specs for the RT-AX3000 say it all. No CPU listed. 512MB of RAM. 2x2:2 performance. Maximum.

If you want to attempt to achieve 1Gbps wirelessly, you need at least the RT-AX68U. With the RT-AX86U it is within theoretical limits (even with 2x2:2 clients). The RT-AX86S may also be in this league.

With the way the RT-AX3000 specs as presented, I would not be expecting anything more than what you can achieve right now.

Interesting. Asus sites for RT-AX3000 says "WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (5GHz) : up to 2402 Mbps" so I didn't expect issues hitting 1000 Mbps on AX. What am I missing? Do I actually need the RT-AX86U's "WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (5GHz) : up to 4804 Mbps" to hit 1000 Mbps download over AX? RT-AX86U definitely looks like an upgrade with, but wouldn't this be serious overkill for 4 devices in a small apartment?

Using speedtest during download two of the cores are getting loaded to like 10% util and during upload two of the cores are getting loaded with a much higher 20-40% util. So doesn't appear to be a CPU issue.

My upload speeds are already hitting 800-900 Mbps with 5ghz / 160 / ax only, it's just download speeds that seem to be stuck at 400-500 Mbps.

EDIT: RT-AX86S has a dual core CPU and the same 512mb ram. RT-AX68U also has dual core CPU, same 512mb ram and slower "WiFi 6 (802.11ax) (5GHz) : up to 1802 Mbps". CPUs are A53 based though vs RT-AX3000's A7 based so maybe their dual core > RT-AX3000's tri core?

 

[degrub]

check the settings in your wifi clients . make sure the drivers are up to date for the intel ax210

Run iperf from a wireless client to a wired client, both directions to check local lan/wireless speeds and see if you can replicate the speed test over the internet. You can also run iperf wireless to wireless client (probably loose 50 % since half duplex) and iperf lan to lan wired clients to establish a baseline.

 

[L&LD]

The important spec here in the real world is the 4x4:4 vs. the 2x2:2 of the RT-AX86U/S vs. the RT-AX3000.

If the CPU is a Tri-core 1.5GHz version (like the inferior RT-AX58U) that is also a huge hit below the quad-core/dual-core of the 1.8GHz RT-AX86U/S models. Not to mention any SDK version differences either.

Note (again) that even with the best hardware available, there is still no guarantee of hitting 1Gbps speeds in your wireless environment.

Is the RT-AX86U/S overkill? Not if you want to maximize your 1Gbps ISP connection, it isn't.

Note too that in your environment with just 4 devices, even a 3x3:2 (three antennae, 3 streams, on the 5GHz band) even the RT-AX68U will be an obvious network upgrade over the RT-AX3000 too.