Hello, I've had the Orbi since early summer, most of the time it works well, but the past few weeks I've been noticing severe spkies in network lag and after running a number of tests on dslreports.com I keep getting an 'F' grade for bufferbloat. I've searched around but found little on the internet for this issue with the Orbi router/satelite so I'm hoping someone here has some suggestions? The QoS page on the Orbi router isn't functional (I won't go into my gripes about how beta the router admin software still feels....) so there doesn't seem to be a way to prioriitze my wifi traffic. Any suggestions or help is appreciated.

Personally, I'm staying away from V2.1.1.16 . There seems to be quite few folks here complaining of odd issues afer upgrading. In any case, I would try to disable that new Disney parental control thing befause A) I don't trust it, and B) I don't need it. As far as I can tell, parental controls and ethernet backhaul are the "big features" of 2.1, and I'm not interested in either of them, so I'm content to stick with V2.0.0.76 for now.You might want to downgrade to V2.0.0.76 and see if that resolves the speed issues that started today. I'm not sure if it would have any impact on your original bufferbloat issue, though.

I also tested with the direct connection to the modem and the dslreports.com data showed an F for bufferbloat. I returned my Orbi and reverted to my old Apple Airport Extreme system, so basically returned to the pre-Orbi state. Then I updated my modem from the existing Motorola SURFboard SB6120 (DOCSIS 3.0) to a new MB8600 DOCSIS 3.1 modem. This seems to have fixed the upload bufferbloat. The results are still very bad for download, but as guzzijason pointed out to me and you, that seems more like the check engine light of bufferbloat tests, with no way to tell what's contributing upstream. Anyway, my non-scientific conclusion (polling the gamers in the family) is that the upgraded DOCSIS 3.1 modem helped. I'll be back on the trail of an improved router soon. I have no way to say, but I wonder if the ability of the Orbi to improve the connection speed on the end-node systems just exposes (and makes worse) the bufferbloat problems that were already present *without* the router. If so, then I'm hoping the DOCSIS 3.1 modem upgrade fixed the real problem as well as possible and a speedier router will not expose the problems again.

What sort of speeds are you seeing during the test? Bufferbloat is sort of a hard thing to pin down. In theory, it could be a problem on any network device between you and the speed test servers, so without more indepth testing, you can't really definitively say that the Orbi is to blame.FWIW, below are the results of my test, using Orbi AC3000, connected to a satellite, using V2.0.0.76 firmware:

Thanks for the response, my speeds are now shown to the left, they took a nosedive earlier today after I upgraded to the V2.1.1.16 firmware (I saw after the fact that others were having issues with this version). We're seeing pretty terrible lag across my network with any type of online gaming. I even disabled most of the wireless devices on my network to see if that helped, but there has been no change. These were the results before upgrading to the new firmware: <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/27340890"><img src="http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/27340890.png"></a>

Fortunately I didn't activate that Disney Circle feature so that's not an issue. The firmware downgrade may be an option, but the main problem now is that darn bufferbloat....

Severe bufferbloat/wifi lag with Orbi (recent)

26 Replies

guzzijason
Apprentice
Dec 26, 2017
What sort of speeds are you seeing during the test?

Bufferbloat is sort of a hard thing to pin down. In theory, it could be a problem on any network device between you and the speed test servers, so without more indepth testing, you can't really definitively say that the Orbi is to blame.

FWIW, below are the results of my test, using Orbi AC3000, connected to a satellite, using V2.0.0.76 firmware:
- bufferbloatOrbi
  Guide
  Dec 26, 2017
  
  Thanks for the response, my speeds are now shown to the left, they took a nosedive earlier today after I upgraded to the V2.1.1.16 firmware (I saw after the fact that others were having issues with this version). We're seeing pretty terrible lag across my network with any type of online gaming. I even disabled most of the wireless devices on my network to see if that helped, but there has been no change.
  
  These were the results before upgrading to the new firmware: <a href="http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/27340890">
  <img src="http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/27340890.png"></a>
  - guzzijason
    Apprentice
    Dec 26, 2017
    Personally, I'm staying away from V2.1.1.16 . There seems to be quite few folks here complaining of odd issues afer upgrading. In any case, I would try to disable that new Disney parental control thing befause A) I don't trust it, and B) I don't need it. As far as I can tell, parental controls and ethernet backhaul are the "big features" of 2.1, and I'm not interested in either of them, so I'm content to stick with V2.0.0.76 for now.
    
    You might want to downgrade to V2.0.0.76 and see if that resolves the speed issues that started today. I'm not sure if it would have any impact on your original bufferbloat issue, though.

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Severe bufferbloat/wifi lag with Orbi (recent)