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Weird RBR960 Ethernet Port Speed Problems
Hi all, The 1G Ethernet ports 2&3 on my RBR are slow. I noticed that I was getting really slow speeds on my wired SATs recently and started trouble-shooting my jacks/outlets/wiring and inadverte...
I received a replacement RBR960 from support. This time I was a bit more methodical with the setup than I was when I reset my old RBR960. Rather than set it up, connect everything, and restore my backup config, this time I set it up and before anything else, I tested the port speeds. How disappointing to see the same diminished performance on ports 2&3.
And then I remembered reading something about people with the Xfinity XB7 and XB8 modems having issues with the highspeed port, specifically the lower right port that supports 2.5 Gbps.
And for me, if I plug the RBR into that port I indeed get 2.5Gbps performance...mostly, but it also breaks ports 2&3 on the RBR960. I if move the connection to any other of the three 1Gbps ports on the XB7, all is good...other than I'm paying for 2GB and get 1GB!
So there ya go.
The workarounds are:
- live with degraded performance, and to be honest 1000/300 is not bad at all, other than that I am paying for better.
- use wireless backhaul - this also not terrible, just annoying and inconvenient.
- add a small 4-port switch to the 2.5G port for the Satellites - ugh!
Ugh! Hopefully Netgear can fix this. But I fear there will be finger pointing at Xfinity and vice versa and it will go nowhere. Not excited about the small switch workaround. 😞
And I believe there are plenty of XF customers out there using there own modems with out causing problems.
Also can reduce modem rental fees. Users like this.
Remember donawalt posted this a while ago with his 960 series and he's on CC/XF Services:
I don't rent my modem from Xfinity, it's included in my plan as is unlimited data. As I mentioned, I don't know if I'm required to use their modem for that plan or not - or if I just need to have it sitting around. My fear is that I get them to provision an alternative modem and then they kick me out of my plan. At any rate, it won't save me any money - best case.
Beyond that concern is me spending another $300 to solve some a problem that of incompatibility in an already expensive setup. I'm willing to try the cheap switch solution while I wait for a Netgear Support response.
I could also fall back to 1 Satellite on the 2.5G port and just forget about those other ports. All I need for that is a good port for the Sat and a good port for the 16-port main switch, as well as the WAN port. And I have all that. If I had enough spare ports on the main switch, I could wire the Sats to that as that works too, but I don't enough ports.
I wonder if this is a Xfinity only compatibility issue or if it happens with other ISPs too. It could explain some of the odd performance issues I have seen people post about that made no sense.
If you get a MS series non managed mutli gig switch, then you could have both RBS ethernet connected. 5 port would all that you'd need. Something to try as well, put a multi gig non managed switch in between the XB modem and RBR. Might help with this. Seen others, not with this situation, put a switch in between and seem to help resolve odd issues between ISP gateways or modems and NG routers.
Might ask the ISP about any changes in plans prior to doing something.
This issue isn't seen with SparkLight. Though I don't user there modems. They use Hitron modems for there installations.
bullm00n if you want to, check out the DSL report's Comcast forum, you could ask users here about your specific plan:
https://www.dslreports.com/forum/comcast
Even better, on reddit the Comcast forum is watched by Comcast employees who are technical and very good. You could ask your question here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Comcast_Xfinity/
You will be prompted to select a "flair" for the message, choose "Technical" - it will then be addressed by a Comcast employee. They will likely then ask you to send them a DM (direct message) with your address/account info, and they will answer your questions. They are very good, I have used them several times with WEIRD problems with great success that they got solved without rolling a truck!
So the little 2.5G switch I got from amazon is interesting...
In between the Orbi and XB7, all ports on the RBR960 drop to from 900+ to 600'ish. I figured this would not help, but surprised that it does this.
On the 2.5G port, all speeds of the ports on the 2.5G switch are also diminished - I don't recall how badly, but slow.
On Port 1 on the Orbi, all ports on the 2.5G switch get 900+ so I can use that as a way to connect both Satellites and the Main Netgear 16-port switch to the router. It basically gives me the extra ports that Ports 2&3 would normally be there for.
What I will probably do is Sat1 to 2.5G port, 16-port switch to Port 1, and Sat 2 wireless backhaul to Sat1. And this works really well as Sat2 over wireless backhaul gets 800+ versus 900+ wired backhaul, so it's barely a performance hit and likely is irrelevant for the devices I have.
All these speed tests are 100% reproducible instantly and repeatedly so I have high confidence they are correct.
Of course, Netgear wants me to contact Xfinity about it - I'll try the suggestions above to reach them, but I don't expect much from them with me using 3rd part gear. Upside is now that I see what is going on and what workarounds there are, it's all working well. And I'm still on .31 firmware that support wanted me to install - no obvious issues with that either so far.
