Good afternoon folks!
I just set up NordVPN on my RT-AC5300, and worked with their support folks on tweaking some aspects of the configuration, and finally got everything working except the bandwidth. I am very lucky to have access to 1G Fiber, so I usually get 930Mbit Down & 900Mbit Up under normal circumstances (non-VPN). Originally I was told that I could expect a 30% drop in bandwidth, and I'm fine with that. But in reality, with VPN enabled I'm getting 67Mbit Down and 60Mbit Up.
I got bounced around a lot towards the end of the support chat, but the guy that I worked with last seemed like he really didn't want to be bothered to dig-in and provide any real support. After confirming I was set to UDP and had already changed the VPN Server IP once before, he quickly threw-up the white flag. He even had a prepared response that he just copy/pasted on me:
I have no doubt that OpenVPN is not very efficient, but I was expecting that I would at least be able to get about 300-650Mbit out of the connection with VPN enabled, especially with the more heavy-duty RT-AC5300 in my corner. I asked him why then does my CPU only show 3 to 5% utilization? He never replied back after that. So just out of curiosity:
1.) Is he being lazy, or does anyone think that 67Mbit Up & Down the probably the best I can hope for with an RT-AC5300 and NordVPN?
2.) What is the best bandwidth speed you could obtain on what ASUS/Merlin router via NordVPN?
I'd really appreciate anyone who could take a few minutes to post their thoughts or contribute their findings along this line. Thank you ALL.
-Elrendhel
I just set up NordVPN on my RT-AC5300, and worked with their support folks on tweaking some aspects of the configuration, and finally got everything working except the bandwidth. I am very lucky to have access to 1G Fiber, so I usually get 930Mbit Down & 900Mbit Up under normal circumstances (non-VPN). Originally I was told that I could expect a 30% drop in bandwidth, and I'm fine with that. But in reality, with VPN enabled I'm getting 67Mbit Down and 60Mbit Up.
I got bounced around a lot towards the end of the support chat, but the guy that I worked with last seemed like he really didn't want to be bothered to dig-in and provide any real support. After confirming I was set to UDP and had already changed the VPN Server IP once before, he quickly threw-up the white flag. He even had a prepared response that he just copy/pasted on me:
The downside to OpenVPN is that in its current architecture, it is not scalable. It runs as a monolithic process and cannot run multi-threaded. This means that if you have a beefy processor with 8 cores and each of the core has 8 threads, OpenVPN will use only a single thread in one of the available cores. Regarding routers - they do not have powerful CPUs, thus encrypting and decrypting OpenVPN traffic is a real challenge for them. For that reason, the speed can drop by a large amount. You could try increasing your speed by connecting to a few different servers (preferably to the ones in yours or neighbouring country) or changing between TCP and UDP. If these changes do not help and you are getting better speeds while connected to the same servers with our software on your computer, then, unfortunately, your router's hardware cannot encrypt the internet traffic fast enough and this is the reason for speed drop. In this case, there is nothing that I can suggest you, unfortunately.
I have no doubt that OpenVPN is not very efficient, but I was expecting that I would at least be able to get about 300-650Mbit out of the connection with VPN enabled, especially with the more heavy-duty RT-AC5300 in my corner. I asked him why then does my CPU only show 3 to 5% utilization? He never replied back after that. So just out of curiosity:
1.) Is he being lazy, or does anyone think that 67Mbit Up & Down the probably the best I can hope for with an RT-AC5300 and NordVPN?
2.) What is the best bandwidth speed you could obtain on what ASUS/Merlin router via NordVPN?
I'd really appreciate anyone who could take a few minutes to post their thoughts or contribute their findings along this line. Thank you ALL.
-Elrendhel