WNDR3700 performance

[wombat2k]

Hi there,

I just upgraded from an Airport Extreme (the non dual-band version) to a WNDR3700 and I'm having some odd performance issues. I've been mostly using ping and Kismac to gauge performance as well speedtest.net although this will of course be less reliable. My router is downstairs and I'm pretty much right above. I'm in a neighborhood with APs aplenty, so interference is of course on my mind. I'm using a Macbook Pro for my tests.

With the Airport Express I would get an SNR in the low 30s. My pings would be fairly consistently between 5-10ms. On Speedtest.net I would get results that matched pretty much what I expected. I would be able to download a linux distro cd is in less than 30 minutes. I was mostly happy this setup. with, but would get the occasional glitch when streaming and Rhapsody would not stream unless I lowered the quality of the bitrate to 64bit.

After installing the WNDR3700, the SNR is better. It is consistently in the high 30s-lower 40s for the 2.4ghz band. The 5ghz band tends to be in the low 20s. Pinging is a disaster, instead of a fairly constant ping, I get an odd pattern of a very quick ping (~1ms), a slower ping (~50-100ms) and a way slower ping (~500ms). The average ping is 171ms, nothing like the 7ms I was getting with the Airport. This happens on both bands. Downloading an ISO from the 2.4ghz is slow and the speed will fluctuate constantly. Speedtest reports a download speed of 1.5mbps, way less than what is reported on the Airport. The 5ghz seems to be more stable, but not by much.

Any ideas? Is it possible I'm not measuring things properly or using the wrong tools? I expected the performance on my netgear to be at least as good the airport, especially considering the reviews that I've seen on here.

Sorry for the long post!

 

[wombat2k]

Well I'll be damned. I reverted to using the Airport and was seeing the same horrible numbers if not worse. Switched back to the WNDR3700 and now I'm getting pings with an average of 3.5ms and a fantastic overall performance. This is on the 5ghz band. I guess that makes me happy for now!

 

[wombat2k]

The router has been performing superbly Today until this evening when things started to become unstable again. I'm thinking there must be some interference, but I find it odd it is also affecting the 5ghz band. Looking at Kismac, no other router around seems to be set up for 5ghz

 

[wombat2k]

For some inexplicable reason, the 2.4ghz is now all but unusable. I'm getting a SNR of less than 10 whereas it used to be almost 40. I also discovered that it's not a good idea to ping the base station while kismac is running.

Started using inssider on Windows 7. For some reason, it indicates a max rate of 54g on both the 2.4ghz and 5hz rather than the expected 130 and 300 respectively.

 

[wombat2k]

After using iperf for a while to test, I'm getting a clearer picture. There is definitely something not right with this router. I'm getting very respectable speeds using my non dual-band Airport Extreme. In the 2.4ghz band, I'll get around 30-40Mbps upstairs which I think is decent. on the 5ghz band, I'll get a tad less which is also not surprising.

On the WNDR3700, the 2.4ghz is unusable. I get at best 1Mbps if I'm able to connect. With the 5ghz band, the numbers are somewhat similar to the Airport with a slightly advantage to the Airport, but it seems the connection is a little bit more stable (streaming works better).

 

[wombat2k]

For those interested, I got a new unit. This one works. I wouldn't say performance is earth shattering (you always want more!), but it's night an day compared to the old unit.

 

[wats6831]

I had much the same experience you did. Except that when I put my old TEW-633 back in and things were back to normal.

I'm considering trying a WNDR3700 again with DD-WRT.

What vendor did you get yours from? Is there more than one hardware version?

 

[wombat2k]

I got it from Newegg. I've heard through the grapevine there might be a new revision in the works, but don't know how solid that is. I get the impression that my unit just "went bad". When I first installed it, I saw 2.4GHZ performance that looked similar to what I have now and then it just suddenly deteriorated.

Very happy with it now. Performance compared to the Airport is not outstandingly better, but streaming works perfectly now and performance is more consistent.

I've been tempted with DD-WRT, but on the other hand, things are working so well now it makes me a little nervous to change things.

 

[fbx]

Mind if I ask what your modem speed is and what you get from speedtest or speakeasy for a Mbps speed? I don't get how people are getting 30-60 Mbps for streaming unless they all have fiber?