Hi everyone! Hope this finds you well. I have a Nighthawk XR300 that is hooked up to our fiber internet service. I replaced our old Apple Airport Extreme a few months ago (woohoo!). I have 2 devices wired to it, my desktop PC and a Playstation 4. Those devices regularly get about 520Mbps download and upload with Ping that always hovers between 1-5 ms. All in all, very happy. That being said, I live in a 800 sq foot apartment. When I am in my living room, maybe about 30 ft away from the router, my iPhone and any other wireless device (iPad, work laptop, etc.) I never crack above 10Mbps download or upload. When I am right next to the router, I improve to about 20Mbps download and 75Mbps upload which is a dramatic performance decrease compared to the old Airport. I've hopped on Netgear support and they actually replaced my router thinking it was a faulty device after a few hours of troubleshooting. Unfortunatley, it's the same exact issue with the new hardware making me think it's something with my settings. Is anyone able to help me troubleshoot? Thank you!

are you connecting to the 2.4ghz or 5ghz?What speed do you get for each?

The speeds mentioned above are all 2.4 ghz. When I connect to 5GHz, the speeds increase to 180Mbps download and 80 Mbps upload from the living room. 382 Mbps download and 264 Mbps upload when standing next to the router. Is this a matter of moving over as many devices as we can to the 5ghz?

I'd recommend moving as many as possible to 5ghz. Problem with 2.4ghz is that its much slower than 5ghz right off the bat. Plus its more sensitive to interference. Which if you live in an apartment, tends to have many routers/devices broadcasting on the 2.4ghz network. You can try changing what channel your 2.4ghz broadcasts on and it might help a little. I used to live in an apartment and had the same issue. I literally wouldn't buy a device if it didn't have 5ghz because of it.

Interesting. We have some small devices in the house (like security cameras connected via HomeKit or Apple Watches) that tend to straight up lose connection randomly. Not sure if I can switch these over to 5ghz but was always under the impression that anything that didn't require a ton of data should be on the 2.4 ghz. I do live in a building with a few other units and find myself close to a ton of other routers as I'm near downtown Chicago. Do you think the atrocious wireless speeds on 2.4 are just a consequence of living in an area with many devices nearby?

it can be. Because 2.4ghz can broadcast further and through more materials, it tends to be worse in crowded environments like apartments/condos.you're correct in that low bandwidth devices are fine on 2.4ghz but not if you're in one of those crowded environments that causes so much interference.And again, you can try changing what channel the 2.4ghz broadcasts on to see if there's one with less interference. I'd recommend 1-6-11

Wireless speeds are atrocious (XR300 Nighthawk)

33 Replies

plemans
Guru - Experienced User
Sep 08, 2020
are you connecting to the 2.4ghz or 5ghz?
What speed do you get for each?
- Ukiechi
  Aspirant
  Sep 08, 2020
  The speeds mentioned above are all 2.4 ghz.
  
  When I connect to 5GHz, the speeds increase to 180Mbps download and 80 Mbps upload from the living room. 382 Mbps download and 264 Mbps upload when standing next to the router.
  
  Is this a matter of moving over as many devices as we can to the 5ghz?
  - plemans
    Guru - Experienced User
    Sep 08, 2020
    I'd recommend moving as many as possible to 5ghz.
    Problem with 2.4ghz is that its much slower than 5ghz right off the bat. Plus its more sensitive to interference. Which if you live in an apartment, tends to have many routers/devices broadcasting on the 2.4ghz network.
    You can try changing what channel your 2.4ghz broadcasts on and it might help a little.
    
    I used to live in an apartment and had the same issue. I literally wouldn't buy a device if it didn't have 5ghz because of it.

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Wireless speeds are atrocious (XR300 Nighthawk)