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Forum Discussion
Slow wired speed (Ethernet Backhaul)
Hello new here! :) Hello I have Orbi Mesh system and running Cat6 ethernet from Router to the Satellite as a wired backhaul. When I run speed test on my PC/Desktop, which is wired Cat6 from t...
I too have this issue. I observed it on Firmware V2.5.2.4. I've since upgraded to V2.7.2.104 and the issue remains. If I speed test my laptop off the CAT6 backhaul ethernet cable going in to my Orbi Satellite, I see transfer rates around 900mbps up and down. Without the ethernet backhaul, I get 400mbps down/ 250mbps up right beside my satellite, but with the backhaul ethernet cable in (and once the device status in the Orbi WebUI indicates the backhaul's in ethernet mode) then I observe around 80mbps down / 80mbps up. Fascinatingly, I noticed that if I plug my RBS50 satellite directly in to my gigabit ethernet switch (as opposed to the switch built in to in to my RBR50), the switch's LEDs indicate that the RBS50 connection is 100Mbit, which is totally reflected by the performace I'm setting.
I'm pretty stunned by this. Kind of ruins the value of an ethernet backhaul, which is actually why I specifically selected the Orbi for use in my home, my parents house, my brothers house and our family's cabin. I hope a future firmware update actually fixes this. Geez.
Ah, it does work! I figure it out. The problem was that something with my ethernet environment was forcing the connection to run at 100Mbit. The Orbi WebUI doesn't indicate if the backhaul's using 100Mbit or 1000Mbit (I wish it did). To get it going I decided to move the backhaul ethernet cable to my Netgear gigabit switch rather than the built-in switch on my main Orbi (which has no ethernet LEDs). My main switche's LEDs indicated that the connection was 100Mbit, not gigabit. I then facetimed myself with my iPad and left it aimed at the switches LEDs. I then giggled the cable on the Orbi satellite and the LED switched to indicate the connection has changed to gigabit. So this tells me I have an intermittent cable problem (pretty sure it's my RJ-45 wall receptacle). This would be why I could connect a laptop to the same ethenet connection used by my Orbi and then test way better speeds. Since my Orbi satellite is up away on a custom shelf the chances the cable will get bumped and drop down to 100Mbit is low, but I'll still look to refine that. Also, I'll just leave my Satellite plugged directly in to my Switch rather than in to the Switch on my main Orbi.
Anyway, now I can see the backhaul working roughly like I'd hoped. My ISP delivers about 920 down and 940 up (mbps) to my ethernet connected machines.
Here are speeds I had observed:
| Backhaul Connection type | mbps down | mbps up |
| 5G Wireless | 400 | 250 |
| 100Mbit Ethernet | 90 | 90 |
| 1000Mbit Ethernet | 450 | 250 |
My house is only 1000sqft, so having my AC3000's is a bit overkill in here. But, I also have lots of lathe and plaster walls (old house). The tests were run on an Apple TV 4K running the Speed Test app. The Apple TV was on the other side of a wall that my Orbi satellite is on, there's maybe 5ft from the Apple TV to the Orbi, but the wall probably hinders the signal notably.
Feature Request to Netgear
Please update the Orbi firmware to indicate in the WebUI what the Ethernet backhaul connection type is; 100MBit versus 1000Mbit. I'm assuming that your ethernet phy can tell you this. This would make it much easier for us to check the backhaul status in the future and know if it's getting poor quality connectivity. Even better would be if there was a benchmark routine that could occasionally test the transmission rate between a satellite and the main Orbi unit.
Here's a screenshot of what the WebUI could potentially look like to indicate the backhaul ethernet link type below:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/slash_b/OrbiAC300IndicateEthLinkType.png
My feature request mentioned here is now represented over here, feel free to go give it a thumbs-up if you want the WebUI to tell you that your backhaul is running at 100Mbit or 1000Mbit: