Orbi ethernet speed significantly slower than wifi

Question

My wifi is working great. I pay for 100 mbps download and get at least that through the Orbi wifi.

However, when I plug a laptop directly into the ethernet ports it's a whole different story. I get 5 to 9 mbps (90+ percent slower than wifi). I tried plugging the laptop into both the router and satellite and get the same result.

I've attached two speedtest screenshots - one of them is using the wifi and the other the ethernet. Interestingly, the upload is virtually the same while the download is 15x slower over ethernet (unusable)

Ethernet resultsWifi results

tucsontico · Answer

Not to seem pedantic, but have you checked the ethernet cable? It is possible you have a bad cable or an older cable (Cat 3). Try another cable with same computer. It is obvious you WiFi connection is giving you better SpeedTest results so I would be very suspect of the ethernet cable in the hard-wired scenario.

Prismatic · Answer

I did think of that and I did try a different cable. I had several devices plugged into it via etherent cable and all the devices (two desktop monitors and one IP phone) all resulted in the same extreme low speed.&nbsp;

tucsontico · Answer

Hmmmm? That is really odd. Most of the complaints on this forum are about WiFI speeds being slow and hard-wire are fine. I suggest you factory reset the Orbi and reload the most current firmware. Hopefully that will clear its "brain". It is possible you got a defective system. If it is still under warranty you might try a return/replace. Sorry I'm not much help, but as I mentioned, it is usually the wifi that has difficulty and not the hard-wire section.

tucsontico · Answer

Just thought of another possibility: Have you reset your cable modem or whatever device you use to connect via your ISP? I had to reboot my cable modem (including removing the battery for 3-5 minutes) to get "normal"&nbsp;speeds (WiFi and Ethernet) after the latest firmware update (Ver 1.12.0.18).

Prismatic · Answer

Thank you for the advice. I believe you effectively ruled out Orbi as the culprit. Not only did that suggestion not solve the problem but it also caused my Oribi wifi now to significantly slow down (down to the 30s now - still 5 times greater than my ethernet speed). I got the idea to just plug my latop directly into the modem and after several modem reboots (both with and without the ethernet cable first plugged in) I finally got it to work straight off the modem but at the super slow rate of 5 to 8 Mbps. This means all these problems are modem related, not Orbi. I called Spectrum (I just set up new service with them last week) and they will be here this evening.&nbsp;Still bizarre and unexplained:&nbsp;why have I been getting such a good speedtest.net result off the Orbi wifi (100+ Mbps) if I couldn't even get a good speed test with wired laptop directly to modem? (that question&nbsp;may have to be left to the internet connectivity gods)Thank you for your help - without your suggestion I may have faught this a few more days before realizing I needed to get my ISP technician out here to sort this out.&nbsp;

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Orbi ethernet speed significantly slower than wifi

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