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Slow speeds over 5 GHz - Barely any difference between 40/80 MHz.

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Dark910

Occasional Visitor
Recently, my ISP increased our speeds, when I noticed an oddity in regards to the speeds over 80 MHz.

I'm not sure why, but regardless of whether I select 40 or 80 MHz, the speeds are essentially the same, just slightly less with 40 MHz. I don't have a lot of AC clients, but I tried it with the two I have tried on this desktop (Netgear A6200 + Edimax EW-7822ULC) as well as two different AC networks were tested, and it's the same results.

Wired speeds are 360 as expected, but with both the wireless adapters, it seems to top out at roughly 240-250 Mbps in the same room for testing. Both adapters are 2x2 AC, and the main router is 4x4 AX, with the second AP I tried out of curiosity is 3x3 AC. When I change it from 80 MHz to 40 MHz, it only drops it to say 230 Mbps.

I then tried to go the extra mile, and put the AP I had stored away set up as a repeater to see how that would behave. Unsurprisingly, with the adapter connected to the repeated network(with good signal), it's 120-140 Mbps, slightly less with 40 MHz.

In the main router UI it shows the correct link rate - 1300 Mbps to the repeater, and my clients in all cases have had 866 link rates for 80, and 400 for 40 MHz as expected to either network.

My phone which is 1x1 N(150 Mbps link rates so 40 MHz) gets ~128 Mbps in this same room on 5 GHz, which is great for its spec. The ac clients are acting as if they were 40 MHz in regards to speed on both the 4x4 AX router and 3x3 AC AP.

Any idea what's going on?
 
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Recently, my ISP increased our speeds, when I noticed an oddity in regards to the speeds over 80 MHz.

I'm not sure why, but regardless of whether I select 40 or 80 MHz, the speeds are essentially the same, just slightly less with 40 MHz. I don't have a lot of AC clients, but I tried it with the two I have tried on this system (Netgear A6200 + Edimax EW-7822ULC) as well as two different AC networks were tested, and it's the same results.

Wired speeds are 360 as expected, but with both the wireless adapters, it seems to top out at roughly 240-250 Mbps in the same room for testing. Both adapters are 2x2 AC, and the main router is 4x4 AX, with the second AP I tried out of curiosity is 3x3 AC. When I change it from 80 MHz to 40 MHz, it only drops it to say 230 Mbps.

I then tried to go the extra mile, and put the AP I had stored away set up as a repeater to see how that would behave. Unsurprisingly, with the adapter connected to the repeated network(with good signal), it's 120-140 Mbps, slightly less with 40 MHz.

In the main router UI it shows the correct link rate - 1300 Mbps to the repeater, and my clients in all cases have had 866 link rates for 80, and 400 for 40 MHz as expected to either network.

My phone which is 1x1 N(150 Mbps link rates so 40 MHz) gets ~128 Mbps in this same room on 5 GHz, which is great for its spec. The ac clients are acting as if they were 40 MHz in regards to speed on both the 4x4 AX router and 3x3 AC AP.

Any idea what's going on?

Maybe bandwidth is not a limiting factor, so either 80 or 40 is enough to measure your max speed possible, give or take some overhead... order Gigabit service and then you might measure a difference due to bandwidth(?).

OE
 
Maybe bandwidth is not a limiting factor, so either 80 or 40 is enough to measure your max speed possible, give or take some overhead... order Gigabit service and then you might measure a difference due to bandwidth(?).

OE
My speeds aren't hitting my speed tier, even my 1x1 N 5 GHz phone is only getting 88 Mbps(~125 Mbps expected normally) when connected to the test repeater(which has a 1300 Mbps link rate). The tier is exactly 360 Mbps and I'm seeing well below that on clients that should be capable of doing more when using AC. I get the proper speeds wired, and get the same speeds wirelessly as I did prior to the speed increase and after. My 2x2 AC clients should have no problem doing 360 Mbps up close on either the 4x4 AX router or the 3x3 AC AP/repeater wired, probably even through the test repeated network as well, given the high link rate between the two networks, after the halfing of speed due to repeating.

My findings seem to point to the link acting as it was 40 MHz essentially regardless of device, even when it shows the correct link rates.
 
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My findings seem to point to the link acting as it was 40 MHz essentially regardless of device, even when it shows the correct link rates.

Does the router Wireless Log show 80 and 40 bw for the respective clients?

OE
 
Both USB Wi-Fi adapters, USB 2.0 speed limited.
I figured it wasn't USB since the speeds are even worse through the repeated connection with 1300 link rates. Only 120-140 Mbps over 2x2 AC through the 1300 Mbps repeated network. It halfs the speed as expected for a repeater, but the halfing should be a halfing of a much higher speed given the link rates of the source connection. I thought if the USB was the limiting factor, I wouldn't really be seeing the reduction of speed.

Shouldn't I be seeing at least 250 Mbps possible speeds through the repeated test network(where 40 or 80 MHz on the whole link chain makes no difference either), or well at least the 240 Mbps before, instead of ~125 Mbps.

I did try direct Ethernet to the test repeater so it would act as a bridge, but it's not easy to tell because the speeds I saw with 2x2 AC direct connected multiplied to be 3x3 AC instead would match up to my speed tier, so I can't really draw any conclusions in that department. I did seem to have some drops of speed sometimes averaging a little lower, which may seem to indicate the link was saturated as well in that situation with it acting as a wireless bridge. 310-340 Mbps seems a little low for 3x3 AC.

What are the real max USB 2.0 speeds?
 
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I don't know what your repeater is doing, but ~30MB/sec is typical USB 2.0 speed limit for USB Wi-Fi adapters.
 
Hmm, I wish I still had a device with the Intel AX210 or a phone with AC to test this to bypass USB and the wireless bridge. Maybe I'll have a chance to confirm it in the future.
 
Just use your network as normal and don't stress yourself with speed tests. Very often after ISP speed increase folks tend to spend more money to match that speed or waste time to troubleshoot various speed issues. Both actions usually don't improve normal use Internet experience.
 

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