WNDR3700 slow 2.4 GHz performance and no GUEST network

[sh00t4par]

I just got my WNDR3700 in the mail and I am very disappointed with the speed I am getting on 2.4 GHz. I tested it on speedtest.net and it confirmed that I am slower. What I did is compare my old Linksys WRT54G to the WNDR3700 and I was shocked by the results.

On the old router I am getting:
4427 kbps for D/L and 5377 kbps for U/L with a 102 ms ping.

With the WNDR 3700 I am getting:
1585 D/L and 3842 U/L with a 199 ms ping.

I have both 2.4 and 5 ghz radios on. Also I am using WPA2 aes. The routers were tested in the same location with the same security settings. The only connection to the router was my laptop on the 2.4ghz. I haven't changed any of the default settings.

The other issue I have is when I enable the guest network on either band it turns the radios off and won't function. Once the guest network is turned off and I factory reset everything starts working again. I checked the Netgear forums and saw other people having this issue. It seems to be a recent developmen with the latest batch of these routers. I opened a support case with Netgear and it sounded like they were aware of it and they escalated my case to level 2 so we will see what happens.

If anyone is wondering I am running the latest firmware version. I am almost more concerned about the 2.4 ghz speeds than I am the guest network issue. If anyone has any tips on how to get the 2.4ghz speeds on the Netgear the same as my old Linksys I would appreciate it.

Sorry for the long post but I am frustrated and regretting trying a different brand at this point. I should have stayed with Linksys since I never had any issues with my WRT54G.

Thanks!

 

[stevech]

I offer opinion

Speedtest.net across the Internet is NOT the way to assess WiFi speed. Because internet speed and latency is highly variable.

What you should care about is what WiFi mode and wireless link speed is reported, and in each direction.

Then do file transfers from some windows share on PC1 from PC2, where these are on a gigE LAN. Instead of speedtest.net.

And getting
4427 kbps for D/L and 5377 kbps for U/L with a 102 ms ping.

Seems odd. 102mSec ping is rather long - implying a lot of hops to the server you chose. And speedtest's hosts performance vary widely. The downlink is typically MUCH faster than the uplink from most ISPs.

Cable modems on speedtest.net get 10-20Mbps down and 1Mbps or so up, unless your provider has DOCSIS 3. DSL is much slower. Verizon FIOS can be faster than cable modems.

 

[wats6831]

The Netgear forums are full of people having this same issue. I just got the router this weekend and also had extremely slow 2.4ghz throughput. I did several side by side tests with my TEW-633GR with indentical conditions and came up with the same results you did. I could not get more than 1 Mb/sec throughput on the 2.4ghz band. I tried everything, turning off 5 ghz radio, SPI, NAT etc etc on and on.

I believe this to be a problem with the current firmware, I think the best thing right now is to pray that the person currently developing a DD-WRT release for this router comes through. That is if you plan to keep it. Personally I am getting the TEW-673GRU as TRENDnet has been extremely good for me.

 

[Nivk]

On the old router I am getting:
4427 kbps for D/L and 5377 kbps for U/L with a 102 ms ping.

With the WNDR 3700 I am getting:
1585 D/L and 3842 U/L with a 199 ms ping.

Aside from the high ping, is that kilobyte or kilobit? If it is in bits then your ISP connection is only like 5Mbps down? If it is in bytes then your WRT54G is performing above its theoretical maximum .
Have you tested it with say a utility like Lan Speed Test?