Solved Ideas on why download speed on AX86U slower than AX58U?

[higgsiu]

I have a 1G up/down fiber connection. I've been using Merlin releases for the past couple of years with a few addons in my sig. Recently my RT-AX58U was dropping the WAN connection randomly. I went to Best Buy and picked up an RT-AX86U to test to see if the connection was better. Sure enough the WAN connection has been perfect so I kept the AX86U. I configured the router very similarly to the AX58U and about the only thing I don't have figured out is why download speedtests from the router are about half of what I was seeing on the AX58U.

Upload speedtest are 950mbps, but download I'm only seeing 450mbps. I was used to seeing both up and down 900+ with the AX58U. So just curious if anybody had a suggestion for a setting I've overlooked that is keeping my wired speed tests from the router or from a PC on the LAN from getting closer to the 1000mbps mark? I know the cpu in the router can be a limiting factor, but the AX86U cpu is faster than the AX58U, right?

Thanks for your time, Mike

 

[L&LD]

What changes past defaults have you enabled in the RT-AX86U? How did you set it up, manually? Hopefully, you haven't imported a previously saved backup config file (and certainly not from another router and/or router model). Or, plug in a USB drive from the old router used for amtm into the new router without first formatting it on a PC as NTFS (and then start using it again in the new router by formatting it in amtm once more as Ext4 w/journaling enabled).

What options/features have you enabled, use, and/or toggled on/off? Some settings may need a full WPS Button Reset to be 'undone' fully.

Here is the link to a proper WPS Button reset, be sure to follow the instructions specific to your model router.

[Wireless] ASUS router Hard Factory Reset | Official Support | ASUS Global

 

[higgsiu]

Thanks for the reply! No, I did not use a saved config. I used your M&M guide and set up manually. I did a factory reset after flashing Merlin. I used the same USB drive but reformatted it between routers following your amtm guide. I guess if there is nothing specific you can think of that could be causing this I will find time to do another factory reset. Maybe with the next Merlin release. The router is working so flawlessly besides this little issue that I hate to even mess with it. Especially since nobody is sending me data this fast anyway. Just seems strange to see that spdMerlin graph with the download speeds half the upload.

There is one place I see a fast download. My QNAP NAS has a speed test app called HTML5 Speedtest. Have you used that app? It seems to load from the QNAP, but then run on my desktop. It shows my download speed to be 900mbps and upload 1000mbps. But I don't have a lot of faith in one app when everything else shows me speeds half of that.

Thanks again for your time.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Are you looking at the Speed Test that runs on the router? If so ignore those results as they can be inaccurate, especially if you're using AiProtection or QoS. Only rely on results obtained from a PC connected to the router via Ethernet.

 

[higgsiu]

Not running AiProtection or QoS. Speedtests from the router are one place I'm seeing download speeds half the upload. But also seeing the same results on wired connections to multiple PCs. I'm not sure I've tried speedest connected directly to the router. All tests with RT-AX86U have been through an unmanaged switch, but same switch was used with RT-AX58U. Worth trying directly from the router though.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[L&LD]

If multiple PCs are showing irregular and unexpected throughput, I would be testing the switch and cables with new ones to rule them out too.

When you're using spdMerlin, you are running the speed test on the router. Less than full speeds are expected with the weak CPUs the router uses.

If you've ever toggled any options on/off, they may still be toggled in the 'on' state, internally for the router, and be giving you less than expected results. A full reset with a minimal and manual configuration will take care of that but note certain routers may need more than one 'full reset' to be fully reset too.

You may also try to Withdraw from the Administration, Privacy tab any permissions you may have granted (by toggling certain features on/off), and then reboot afterward too.

 

[higgsiu]

If multiple PCs are showing irregular and unexpected throughput, I would be testing the switch and cables with new ones to rule them out too.

When you're using spdMerlin, you are running the speed test on the router. Less than full speeds are expected with the weak CPUs the router uses.

If you've ever toggled any options on/off, they may still be toggled in the 'on' state, internally for the router, and be giving you less than expected results. A full reset with a minimal and manual configuration will take care of that but note certain routers may need more than one 'full reset' to be fully reset too.

You may also try to Withdraw from the Administration, Privacy tab any permissions you may have granted (by toggling certain features on/off), and then reboot afterward too.

No way! I did the withdraw from the Administration, Privacy tab and rebooted. Now getting 950mbps UP AND DOWN. Yippee!!

I lost my DDNS connection due to the withdrawal. Went and reenabled it and still getting full bandwidth up and down.

Thanks for the great suggestions!

 

[capncybo]

Glad you have it working... But too bad I didn't see this until now.
Because (to me) it sounds like you had your Hardware Acceleration: "disabled".
Certain advanced router options will disable it... And obviously withdrawing from the agreement will remove these.
After doing-so the Hardware Acceleration will be Enabled.
I think with most of the Asus routers you can quickly verify by looking at the WebGUI via: Tools> Network: Hardware Acceleration

 

[higgsiu]

Glad you have it working... But too bad I didn't see this until now.
Because (to me) it sounds like you had your Hardware Acceleration: "disabled".
Certain advanced router options will disable it... And obviously withdrawing from the agreement will remove these.
After doing-so the Hardware Acceleration will be Enabled.
I think with most of the Asus routers you can quickly verify by looking at the WebGUI via: Tools> Network: Hardware Acceleration

Interesting. That is a definite possibility, but I would be shocked if the WebGUI showed Disabled and I didn't notice it. Maybe the WebGUI was reporting Enabled when it was really Disabled, because I reviewed my setting fairly extensively when this wasn't behaving properly.

Thanks for your post.

 

[RMerlin]

Maybe the WebGUI was reporting Enabled when it was really Disabled, because I reviewed my setting fairly extensively when this wasn't behaving properly.

Recent versions (like 386.5) now directly queries the router to determine if it`s enabled or disabled rather than just rely on an nvram flag like it used to do, so it should be 100% accurate.

 

[higgsiu]

Recent versions (like 386.5) now directly queries the router to determine if it`s enabled or disabled rather than just rely on an nvram flag like it used to do, so it should be 100% accurate.

Is that the behavior you would expect to see if HW Acceleration was disabled? 1/2 speed on downloads, but full speed on upload?
I guess I was thinking they would affected equally or maybe even more so on the upload end than the download.

 

[capncybo]

Is that the behavior you would expect to see if HW Acceleration was disabled? 1/2 speed on downloads, but full speed on upload?
I guess I was thinking they would affected equally or maybe even more so on the upload end than the download.

Yes, I think you're likely mixing-up or confusing a few things regarding network speed. QoS is tech designed to prioritize & minimize (Latency/Delay) regarding packet arrival. Think in terms of round/trip time. Even the smallest packet if sent immediately... will still take a certain amount of time. However, stacking additional Latency from additional WiFi overhead (ex packet loss) or multiplexing many clients as their data requests are qued & cached... Latency Is compounded. But QoS rearrages these additional delays often introduced by the Local network specifying what types of packets should go first. However, the disabling of your router's hardware acceleration will have a very noticeable effect on througput because... The CPU will be tasked with using software & it's own limited resources to try & process the packets at speeds which are challenging to keep up with. It simply cannot keep up & the throughout drops.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Is that the behavior you would expect to see if HW Acceleration was disabled? 1/2 speed on downloads, but full speed on upload?

No, not if you've disabled all the Trend Micro stuff, e.g. AiProtection, QoS, Traffic Analyzer, etc. On my RT-AX86U with HW acceleration disabled I still get download speeds of ~630Mbps (which is almost my full internet speed). My guess is that the Trend Micro DPI module was still being loaded even though it wasn't needed. Withdrawing from the TM licence stopped that module being loaded.

 

[RMerlin]

Is that the behavior you would expect to see if HW Acceleration was disabled? 1/2 speed on downloads, but full speed on upload?

I don't know. My own upstream is only 50 Mbps.

 

[papypaprika]

Is that the behavior you would expect to see if HW Acceleration was disabled? 1/2 speed on downloads, but full speed on upload?
I guess I was thinking they would affected equally or maybe even more so on the upload end than the download.

I can confirm that on my symmetric “2.5Gb/s” connection, disabling HW acceleration decreased my download speed from circa 2Gb/s to 1Gb/s while my upload remained at circa 2Gb/s