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Night Hawk AX6000 8 Stream 2.4 Ghz wifi really slow
Signed up for Xfinity with 600 down, and bought a SB8200 with the Nighthawk, and am experiencing very slow wifi speeds. I already tested the internet speed from the modem, and from an ethernet co...
You will not get anywhere near 600 Mbps on any router on 2.4 Ghz. With 40 MHz enabled expect around 150-160 Mbps with your NON AX WiFi clients as most are 2 antenna devices like laptops/phones. Some laptops may have 3 antennas so maybe around 200 Mbps max for those. With HT20 speeds will be lower like 60-80 Mbps. HT20 on 2.4 Ghz is preferable as if you live in a neighborhood with many routers there will be more interference and resulting inconsistency in connection. The router automatically switches down to HT20 mode if it detects multiple APs nearby with strong enough signals.
With AX based 2 antenna clients 2.4 Ghz clients you may get like 200-240 Mbps max on HT40 and maybe around 120-160 Mbps in HT20 mode. My testing was mostly on a laptop with an Intel AX200 WiFi card. Mobile devices and other laptops may or may not perform as well and my home characteristics and router placement will be different from yours so you may not necessarily see similar speeds.
With AX based 2 antenna clients 2.4 Ghz clients you may get like 200-240 Mbps max on HT40 and maybe around 120-160 Mbps in HT20 mode. My testing was mostly on a laptop with an Intel AX200 WiFi card. Mobile devices and other laptops may or may not perform as well and my home characteristics and router placement will be different from yours so you may not necessarily see similar speeds.
Thanks avtella, that's a lot of valuable info.
Couple questions.
What are HT20 vs HT40? Is something I can control from my routers configuration?
After doing a tad more reading, it looks like the Wifi 6 ecosystem is slowly growing, with newer clients being built the the appropriate antenas more and more. I am testing on a variety of devices, specifically two Macbook Pros (work and personal), an iPhone 11 pro, an iPhone X, and an Apple TV. What expectations should I have for these devices, on 2.4 Ghz? With the added complexity of not only the router configuration, but also the consideration of the clients having their own configurations, based on antenas, I am not sure how to interpret between good and bad speed for each device.
Finally, I am not getting those speeds you mentioned for those devices above. iPhone 11 gets ~100, and the macbook pro (both 2019 models) suffer at ~25-50. What is to be done?
Thank you
Sorry I didnt clarify ealier. HT40 is the 600 or 800 Mbps setting in the 2.4 Ghz Wifi settings section. HT20 is the selection below that. HT20 just meands 20 Mhz of bandwidth and 40 Mhz means 40 Mhz of bandwidth. There are 11 total 20Mhz channels in the 2.4Ghz band that we can use. However 1/6/11 are non overlapping channels so preffrered to use those to prevent interefrence when multiple routers or Acess Points are there. If you force the use 40 Mhz you pretty much take up 2/3rds of the available spectrum and may cause increased interference and unstable connections in a WIFi dense neighborhood. Normally the router will only use 40 Mhz if the WIFi environment is clear enough, which would be rare in most homes, unless you are spaced pretty far from your neigbors or live in a rural area. Theres usually a lot of congestion in the 2.4 Ghz band due to neighbors routers and APs so your speeds could take a big hit due to that, not much you can do other than see which channel is least congested and try to select that as the one to use, to improve speeds.
With AX clients (most laptops and phones have 2 antennas) on 2.4 Ghz I would expect not more than 200-240 Mbps at beast in realworld transfer tests.
Remember that this is a 4 antenna router so when they mean for example 2400 Mbps on HT80 or 4800 Mbps HT160 on 5Ghz thats just a link rate or theoretical peak and that too for 4 antenna clients. So for a two antenna client for example on 5Ghz at HT80 you would have a max link rate/connection rate of 2400 Mbps on HT160 and 1200 Mbps on HT80. Real world speed tests and transfer tests will be usually no more than 65-75% of a given link rates at best even in ideal conditions, due to various overheads.
Thank you avtella, for the information. I still haven't received an adequite answer however, for my problem. As I said, I am testing these speeds on an iPhone 11 Pro, and my 2019 Macbook Pro. I am 6 feet from my router, in the same room, with nothing between the devices, and still getting slow speeds.
> Finally, I am not getting those speeds you mentioned for those devices above. iPhone 11 gets ~100, and the macbook pro (both 2019 models) suffer at ~25-50. What is to be done?With AX clients (most laptops and phones have 2 antennas) on 2.4 Ghz I would expect not more than 200-240 Mbps at beast in realworld transfer tests.
I need to know if there is something I can do to improve these speeds. As far as I can tell, I've done everything. If there are no more suggestions, I must request a new device, or simply return it.
- Yeah your speeds they do seem a bit low compared to their capabilities. Try manually switching 2.4Ghz channels between 1/6/11 instead of setting channel selection to auto.
iPhone 11 —- On 2.4 Ghz Apple does limit their devices to 20 MHz for good reason to prevent interference and I wouldn’t expect to get more than 100-200 Mbps.
The MacBook Pro has 3 antennas but doesn’t support AX on 2.4 Ghz I wouldn’t expect more that 100-150 Mbps.