Netgear GS724Tv3 - 30 sec lag when connecting to the internet

[ddaenen1]

OK, this might be a lengthy post as i am not an experienced network builder and probably even need to learn the jargon.

Up until recently (like in last Saturday), i had a home network consisting of an Asus RT-AC88u wireless router connected to 200Mbps cable modem (with a static IP) and the integrated 8-port switch hard wired to a Samsung smart TV, my ReadNAS RN212, another non-smart Samsung TV and 2 AP's, one Linksys EA6400, one Linksys XC1900 (both configured in bridge mode) and even an older server tower mainly used for Plex streaming (all hardwired devices are configured with static IP's) and all was working fairly ok with the exception of the Asus router which always had the odd glitch, like not wanted to connect my wireless HP printer to my wireless laptop, dropping the connection with one of the AP's and so on...Wireless devices are plenty in the house included several Macbook air's, iPads, iPhones, Nintendo Switch, Wii U and even a smart thermostat.

Fact is that with the upcoming installation of solar panels on the roof, i was running out of ports on the switch so i decided to change gears and get some decent networking hardware installed whilst needed to extend the amount of ports (for solar panel inverters, a hardwired UTP connection is recommended). The plan was to keep the 2 Linksys AP's, add a decent switch, router and convert the Asus wireless router into a wireless AP and all of this with the aim to create a state reliable home-network.

As i am not very experienced in building networks, i wasn't looking for the latest hardware but something solid and stable that can last x-amount of years. I bought a Netgear GS724Tv3 switch which i already installed and soon will add a EdgeRouter lite which i am just waiting to arrive. Both i bought 2nd hand via a local site. My choices for this specific hardware were driven by availability closely and various online sources on this hardware.

So far for the introduction...

I have added the Netgear switch to the network and rerouted all hardwired devices to connect to the switch with the Asus only functioning a router with the exception of both TV's that were always connected to the network via the UTP ports of both respective AP's. The switch has been configured with a static ip (192.168.1.2), the default VLAN settings and i configure p15 & p16 in LAG to support the LACP link aggregation capability of the ReadyNAS. For the rest i left everything on default except for NTP settings (which still don't work). All, in all, I would say that all worked out fairly well but i do noticed some odd behaviour for which i do not have any remedy.

1. the smart TV (initially DHCP enabled) was still connected to the network but couldn't get the gateway (192.168.1.1) yesterday. I fixed that by configuring it as a static IP with 192.168.1.1 gateway and 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4 DNS servers and after that all was working again.

2. When i close a laptop and re-open it again, the wifi connects instantly but it takes up to 30 seconds before i have internet connection with existing windows that were open in the browser. If i open a new browser window and go to a different site, that works instantly. I have only seen this behavior with laptops and even with my old Plex server when it came out of sleep mode. Not have seen this with iPads or iPhones.

It is too early if the static config on the smart TV fixed the problem permanently but the big question here is what caused this to happen. What bugs me most is issue no. 2 and probably because i have no clue where to start looking.

Hoping to get some new insights on where to look first and foremost, to learn from the knowledge in this forum and hopefully one day, i can return by providing insights and solutions to others.

Many thanks, Dominique

 

[coxhaus]

Try turning off green ports on the switch. It burns a little more power but they don't have to rev up.

 

[ddaenen1]

thanks. Checked that. Seems all green stuff is disabled. Yesterday, i thought i found it with turning off the DNS properties in the switch but unfortunately no success. I am currently leaning towards connecting the AP back to the Asus router as the lag bothers me. It bothers me that i when i open my laptop i have to wait for 30 sec before i have internet connection. When the AP was connected directly to the Asus, i didn't have this issue. It is hard to believe that a decent switch like this would cause so me so much grief.

 

[L&LD]

Just noticed you bought the switch second hand.

I would do a full reset or two on it including any firmware updates that may be available for it.

This is not normal of course. Possibly the old owner's settings were contradictory?

Or it's even possible that the switch needs to be properly grounded to release any static charge it may have picked up too.

 

[coxhaus]

You might try hard coding an IP to the laptop. I wonder if you are having issues with DHCP.

 

[ddaenen1]

You might try hard coding an IP to the laptop. I wonder if you are having issues with DHCP.

This may well be the case as i noticed yesterday that in some instances this laptop which connects to wifi through the Linksys XAC1900 router that is in bridge mode function as access point, did not get an IPv4 adress assigned nor a gateway while it did have an IPv6 IP assigned. Could it be that the switch doesn't pass through the DHCP assignments from my Asus router correctly?

I did upgrade the firmware to the latest version and i did do a reset to default before putting it in use and in the mean time, have also done a couple of power cycles.

 

[coxhaus]

Maybe you need to use DHCP relay or maybe there is a problem. The way DHCP works is first there is a requested broadcast from the client then the DHCP server answers with a directed DHCP offer. The client then accepts the offer and receives an IP address. You may want to capture the DHCP traffic.

PS late add on
Remember VLANs define broadcast domains. So if you have more than 1 VLAN you need to deal with it if your client and server are in different VLANs.

 

[ddaenen1]

I took the liberty of providing a quick overview of my network with all wired devices and their static IP. The intent has always been to also hook up the EA6400 to the switch and to replace the RT-AC88U router function by an Edgerouter Lite (once i figure out how you can get that thing to work) and convert the RT-AC88U into an access point. I don't seem to have any issues with the wired connection but only with the WiFi coming from the XAC1900 as the EA6400 is still connected to the switch ports of the RT-AC88U. Since this AP is upstairs in the children's corner, i do not want to connect it directly to the switch until i figured out what is going wrong with the XAC1900 WiFi as i have no appetite to listen to my kids complaining about the WiFi all the time

Maybe one of you SME's can tell me where i am going down the drain...

 

[L&LD]

Is the XAC1900 connected via Ethernet or WiFi?

Being labeled as Bridge, and if it is configured as such, it should be connected via WiFi and serving Ethernet connected clients.

 

[coxhaus]

Assuming 1 VLAN and your Linksys APs are wire connected on the LAN side it should work. I assume you are using a 255.255.255.0 mask. I don't like your modem/router on the 192.168.0.0 network. Is there a way to bridge it so your ASUS can have an outside IP address?

 

[ddaenen1]

Is the XAC1900 connected via Ethernet or WiFi?

Being labeled as Bridge, and if it is configured as such, it should be connected via WiFi and serving Ethernet connected clients.

Maybe a bad choice of labeling. Both routers are configured as access point which in Linksys wifi router language means they are to bridged mode.

 

[ddaenen1]

Assuming 1 VLAN and your Linksys APs are wire connected on the LAN side it should work. I assume you are using a 255.255.255.0 mask. I don't like your modem/router on the 192.168.0.0 network. Is there a way to bridge it so your ASUS can have an outside IP address?

The Netgear is configured with VLAN 1, which is the default setting and 1 AP is currently connected to the Asus router and 1 AP is connected to the switch. Yes, i am using the 255.255.255.0 mask. i cannot change the 192.168.0.0 as this comes from my cable modem which is ISP provided and has very few configuration possibilities.

 

[ddaenen1]

The Netgear is configured with VLAN 1, which is the default setting and 1 AP is currently connected to the Asus router and 1 AP is connected to the switch. Yes, i am using the 255.255.255.0 mask. i cannot change the 192.168.0.0 as this comes from my cable modem which is ISP provided and has very few configuration possibilities.

The lag seems to have been resolved by doing a factory reset to default of the switch and full reconfigure. Fingers crossed but i haven't seen it again since i did this. I also learned that when i did it last time, i pressed the reset button for too long and the switch went into recovery mode so it might have been i actually didn't factory reset it. The only issue i had is that i could not access the Asus router web interface via my plex server which is wired to the switch. This was odd as i can access the webinterace from every other device connected via WiFi, laptop and iPad. While it was merely an inconvenience as i do most of my network config and monitoring via the plex server that is in my office, i could ping the router and found out it was a cache problem with Firefox.

What is left now is figuring out how to get the SNTP on the switch to work. I have add pool.ntp.org but it is timing out and i haven't found a source that can help me figuring out why.

 

[L&LD]

Good to see that a proper reset of the switch has brought you forward.

Try doing a full network shut down for a few minutes and then bring the network back up in a proper order to see if it fixes your pool.ntp.org timing out issue.

Don't just power everything down. Unplug all connections (power and LAN cables too) and let it sit like that for as long as you can stand (just over an hour is optimal).

I can't explain why this part of the 'sanitize' of the network works for some issues. Static buildup? I'm not sure.

I just know that when it does work (90% of the time, for my cases), the network gremlins stay away for a very long time. I make sure they stay away by also giving a good UPS to each piece of network equipment that is needed to keep the network up and working.

 

[System Error Message]

i have the same model, v2 i think and there are issues, while the hardware of the prosafe line is decent, it is plagued by netgears usual firmware bugs. Now though i dont know about netgear anymore as their hardware has gone to hell and pricing worse than asus.

its important to remember that this switch uses store and forward, so a bug can cause packets to still be in the store part.

 

[coxhaus]

My guess is if you can ping pool.ntp.org from your switch then you have a bad setup for time on your switch.

 

[ddaenen1]

My guess is if you can ping pool.ntp.org from your switch then you have a bad setup for time on your switch.

I thought i found a solution in the Netgear community but it doesn't seem to be working. I had not configured the DNS server in the switch. Now i added 192.168.1.1 to the DNS settings (as per recommendation from Netgear) but i cannot ping pool.ntp.org from the switch. It goes out but nothing comes back. Same for any other IP i try to ping via the switch. If i ping the same address from the router, i get a response.

 

[coxhaus]

Can you ping local? Ping using a number rather than DNS.

What is your default gateway on your switch?

 

[ddaenen1]

Can you ping local? Ping using a number rather than DNS.

What is your default gateway on your switch?

Yes, i can ping locally. Below the result of pinging my NAS. My default gateway is 192.168.1.1 and this is also what i entered in the switch as DNS server as per the recommendations of Netgear.

 

[coxhaus]

Look at that first ping time, way high. The others can't be zero. Something is weird. I would at least try a different cable. If no difference I would contact Netgear.

This is why I have gone back to Cisco small business gear. They basically work with issues sometimes. I tried Netgear, TP-Link and few others. I always found basic things which did not work. It drives me crazy. I spend too much time on stuff like this.