twinreverb
New Around Here
This is puzzling. I purchased the Asus RT-AX56U in hopes of upgrading an aging but reliable 802.11n router.
Set up the Asus, ran the usual speed tests, and everything looked great: 5GHz devices pulling 120 Mbps on my 100Mbs plan, which was a nice boost over the old router. 2.4GHz devices pulled around 40-70 Mbps down, which was about in line with the old router or maybe a bit better. Uploads were around 5-6 Mbps on everything, which is consistent with the old router.
However, I soon discovered that the real world performance was terrible on all of the 2.4GHz devices: general web browsing was sluggish; Youtube videos would choke and buffer forever; Twitch streams were impossible to watch, with freezing/buffering every 2-3 seconds. Immediately tried the speed tests again, and they appeared normal. Went back to the streams, couldn't manage even 480p.
Checking out Asus' traffic monitor, I fired up a Twitch stream: the data initially spiked above 40+ Mbps for a second or two, then quickly got choppy and dropped off to sub 1Mbps for the remainder. As if something was throttling the bandwidth down to near zero. All of this while sitting five feet from the router, line of sight, signal strength good, channel clear. Doesn't seem to be a matter of interference. Any QoS settings, parental controls, etc. are switched off. Cloudflare DNS, Google DNS, no change. I attempted to replicate my settings from the old router, but nothing helped.
After a week of setting after setting, reboot after reboot, I got to thinking it's defective router, and decided to try a "simpler" unit; a TP-Link AX21. To my horror, it exhibited the exact same behavior as the Asus.
There are less options to deal with on the TP-Link, but no combination of settings seemed to improve the situation. Running low on ideas, I set up a 2.4Ghz guest network and connected to it. As if by magic, everything worked perfectly! Performance snappy again, can stream all day without a hiccup. Go back to the main 2.4Ghz network, and it's unusable. Back onto the guest network, and there's no problem whatsoever.
Out of curiosity, I decided to try the Asus again. Set up a 2.4Ghz guest network on it, connected, and everything worked perfectly. Main 2.4Ghz network remains unusable.
How is this even possible? Silly me thought the guest network inherited the same settings from the main network, but apparently that's not the case. I think I can live with this workaround, but I'd still like to figure out what the deal is.
So I guess my question is: what settings might a guest network ignore or do differently from the main network, such that it could correct the problem I've described?
Set up the Asus, ran the usual speed tests, and everything looked great: 5GHz devices pulling 120 Mbps on my 100Mbs plan, which was a nice boost over the old router. 2.4GHz devices pulled around 40-70 Mbps down, which was about in line with the old router or maybe a bit better. Uploads were around 5-6 Mbps on everything, which is consistent with the old router.
However, I soon discovered that the real world performance was terrible on all of the 2.4GHz devices: general web browsing was sluggish; Youtube videos would choke and buffer forever; Twitch streams were impossible to watch, with freezing/buffering every 2-3 seconds. Immediately tried the speed tests again, and they appeared normal. Went back to the streams, couldn't manage even 480p.
Checking out Asus' traffic monitor, I fired up a Twitch stream: the data initially spiked above 40+ Mbps for a second or two, then quickly got choppy and dropped off to sub 1Mbps for the remainder. As if something was throttling the bandwidth down to near zero. All of this while sitting five feet from the router, line of sight, signal strength good, channel clear. Doesn't seem to be a matter of interference. Any QoS settings, parental controls, etc. are switched off. Cloudflare DNS, Google DNS, no change. I attempted to replicate my settings from the old router, but nothing helped.
After a week of setting after setting, reboot after reboot, I got to thinking it's defective router, and decided to try a "simpler" unit; a TP-Link AX21. To my horror, it exhibited the exact same behavior as the Asus.
There are less options to deal with on the TP-Link, but no combination of settings seemed to improve the situation. Running low on ideas, I set up a 2.4Ghz guest network and connected to it. As if by magic, everything worked perfectly! Performance snappy again, can stream all day without a hiccup. Go back to the main 2.4Ghz network, and it's unusable. Back onto the guest network, and there's no problem whatsoever.
Out of curiosity, I decided to try the Asus again. Set up a 2.4Ghz guest network on it, connected, and everything worked perfectly. Main 2.4Ghz network remains unusable.
How is this even possible? Silly me thought the guest network inherited the same settings from the main network, but apparently that's not the case. I think I can live with this workaround, but I'd still like to figure out what the deal is.
So I guess my question is: what settings might a guest network ignore or do differently from the main network, such that it could correct the problem I've described?
