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Forum Discussion
Orbi RBR850 Extremely high wifi ping/latency
My Orbi system has very poor performance. Symptoms include:
* Extremely poor ping times
* Extremely long dns resolution time
* speedtest still shows full 200Mbps connection rate
* Streaming video is fine but can take a long time to start
* rebooting the orbi and netgear cable modem dailiy seem to have an effect but it could be only psychological.
firmware version V4.6.3.16_2.0.51
I have a 4500 sqft house with 3 floors plus a basement and the walls are plaster and lath. All my wifi tests are performed in the same room as the router but the symptoms are consistent throughout the house. Base station and sattelites are over 30 feet apart with router on the second floor and the sattelites on the opposite sides of the first and third floors. My neighborhood has a lot of WiFi coverage from houses and the city's system but I have my system on two surprisingly empty channels. There are 24 devices currently connected to my network and 3 or 4 I haven't managed to get set back up after the latest factory reset.
Here's a ping sample over wifi:
$ ping 192.168.1.1
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp_seq 1
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=2762.054 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=1761.484 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=761.153 ms
Here's a ping sample wired to the same device via a switch and cable
$ ping 192.168.1.1
PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.627 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.778 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.726 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.812 ms
Things I have tried:
* daily reboots
* reducing power output
* changing CTS/RTS threshold
* leaving one sattelite off
* enabling/disabling IPv6
* factory reset and re-install
* wired backhaul (sattelites disappear from network map when wired)
53 Replies
What device is being used for the WiFi ping tests?
Is it connected to the Orbi at 2.4G or at 5G?
I agree that the WiFi ping results are ghastly and the wired ping results are exactly what one would expect.
My guess is that (a) the device is connected to Orbi's 5G WiFi, and (b) there are a lot of nearby 5G WiFi systems on the same channel. Only one radio can broadcast at a time and it doesn't matter which system it is. If it's on the same channel, then it competes for air time.
If this is the case, then wiring everything possible is the only solution (which sucks).
The internet has lots of advice on how to scan for 2.4G WiFi channels to pick the one with the least interference. I (personally) do not have a lot of confidence in this method because over time most routers perform a similar scan and sometimes change channels. What was great yesterday may not be great today.
5G WiFi is a frustrating situation because there are only a couple of 80mb wide slots available for home WiFi. Page 139 of the RBR850 user manual indicates that all Orbi's operate at specific frequencies (different for US & China and the rest of the world).
https://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/RBK852/RBK852_UM_EN.pdf 5.18 to 5.24 GHz translates to channels 36-48 for the user facing radios. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels
There are some tools that can be used to confirm/deny this hypothesis. Android has a bunch of "WiFi Analyzer" apps that will report every nearby system and show the channel being used. For Windows, I like WiFiInfoView by Nirsoft https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wifi_information_view.html ( No idea about iOS or MacOS, sorry.)
I'm ping testing from my MacBook Pro which, according to the "connected devices" list is currently connected on the 5GHz channel but this problem is not limited to 5GHz as far as I can tell. The Orbi app shows nearby networks and which ones to choose and the ones I'm on have been consistently marked "best" by the app.
I see a few apps for android and MacOS but they don't seem to offer much more than the orbi app.
When I look at my Orbi 'app' WiFi Analytics panel and scroll over to Channel Interference, it shows that there are 7 nearby networks on Channel 48 and the Clarity is Poor. What does your Orbi app show?
