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Forum Discussion
Old RBK50 wifi faster than new RBK852
Hello everyone,
I have a 1 gig fios internet speed and we have a older Orbi RBK50. My wife does a lot of telahealth from home now and we have a few wifi 6 devices so I thought it was a good time to ugrade to a Orbi RBK852 system. So I ordered one on Amazon last week and before it came I ran 3 different speedtest.net test in many locations around the house before the new one came for refrence. This old unit has worked good for the last 5 years or so but Im not getting the wifi speeds I want. For example on my coffee table my average wifi speed was 512mbps. If I hardwire my wifi 6 macbook to my modem ill get about 880mbps up and down. So the new 852 came and I installed it and let it updated its firmware to the latest (V4.6.3.16_2.0.51). I then ran the same test from the coffee table. I got an average of 376 mbps. I contacted support and it wasn't a great experience. The first person changed a few settings and told me to wait till tomorrow to see if it gets better and it didn't. The second day I called in again and spoke to the same person, this time her changed something else and said the same thing ... wait to see if it gets better. It didn't so I called a third time (day) and spoke to him again and this time he said he would send it to lvl 2 support and asked for a few screenshots. he said they would call me tomorrow. No one ever called so I called in on the 5th day now and the lady told me she needed more information so I uploaded it. I ended up calling in about 3 more times before I spoke to a lvl 2 tech. By this time I already returned the RBK852 for another 852 in hopes it would not have issues. I was wrong.... the second unit was about 100mbps faster than the first set. So now Im getting about 480-505mbps wifi and only 744 hardwired to the Orbi router. The level 2 tech tried to change the MTU size to 1472 but it didn't help. He said he would send the issue to a hardware tech and that is where I stand. So I am hoping someone had the same issues and fixed it or are these things faulty? Im extremely disapointed in these Orbi's...I can't beleive my old Orbi is faster than these new wifi 6 orbi's. Sorry if I didn't provide all the information but asked and Ill try to provide it. I appreciate all the help. Oh.... today I did also bought an Asus XT8 to test to see if Ill have the same issue with a different manufacture. I can't test until my wife is done with her telahealth. thank you again
4 Replies
What are your wired speeds at the RBR?
When testing wireless speeds, turn OFF the RBS first to ensure it connects to the RBR first and run speed tests there.
What model Mac do you have? 20##?
What OSX version is installed?
What is the Mfr and model# of the Internet Service Providers modem/ONT the NG router is connected too?
What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router and 📡 satellite(s)? 30 feet or more is recommended in between RBR and RBS📡 to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected.
https://kb.netgear.com/31029/Where-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite 📡Heres what I get with my Mac Book Pro OSX 12.2 beta, connected at the RBR at 1300Mpbs:
Hello, I am testing on my new macbook air M1 2020 running the latest operating system. I also test from my iphone 12 pro max and see the same speeds wireless of course. I'm concentrating only on the router and I tested both wired and wireless. I test straight from the modem and the RBR. The ISP speed is about 880 and the wired RBR is about 740-770. The modem is a simple MoCA ethernet adapter and again I'm getting the correct speeds out of it.I test wireless right next to the RBR and on my coffee table 4 ft away ... I have already went through level 2 of the netgear tech support and they can't figure it out. We have a 2 story 2500 sqft home and understand that each house has different issues that can slow the wifi speeds but Im standing right next to the the RBR when testing OR 4 ft away on thr coffee table. Nothing is blocking the router. I appreciate any help provided
I do use a MoCA Ethernet adapter (FCA251) for my modem (set to WAN - not sure if that is the correct setting between WAN/LAN/FULL).... this is what frontier gave me so I don't know if this is causing my speeds from the wall to the adapter to slow. My speed from the wall is between 750 and 800 today. So I go from coax to MoCA adapter then out ethernet to the Orbi router. I called frontier and someone will be out on Tuesday .... lets hope they like thier job and want to help instead of brush things off. Frontier around here isn't very helpful sadly. Even if my fios speed were 750 mbps I think I should get 600 mbps near the Orbi. Im getting 450-470 right now on wifi.
Capth4u wrote:This old unit has worked good for the last 5 years or so but Im not getting the wifi speeds I want. For example on my coffee table my average wifi speed was 512mbps. If I hardwire my wifi 6 macbook to my modem ill get about 880mbps up and down. So the new 852 came and I installed it and let it updated its firmware to the latest (V4.6.3.16_2.0.51). I then ran the same test from the coffee table. I got an average of 376 mbps.
You may be chasing down expected wireless speed differences if you are comparing 512 Mbps vs. 376 Mbps. Realize that wireless devices will never get to the same wired speeds due to wireless speed limits, so don't compare to your wired speed of 744 Mbps.
Youur wireless device can connect to your Orbi via 2.4Ghz, 5Ghz AC, or 5Ghz AX. Each of these have different inherent wireless maximum limits: https://kb.netgear.com/31211/At-what-speed-and-bandwidth-can-my-Orbi-system-transmit-data. Even that 866 Mbps is a theoretical max number that may not account for encryption overhead (we all turn it on) and other factors. In my experience, the best 5Ghz devices using WiFi 6, e.g., iPhone 11 or later), reach 500-600 Mbps. AC devices that using 5Ghz will see less and 2.4Ghz devices even lower.
There are also many environmental factors that will cause your wireless speeds to fluctuate during the day (using the same router, same channel, same device). I will often see lower speedtest numbers due to traffic, channel competition, etc. 400+ Mbps is pretty good for my best devices using WiFi 6.
