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Forum Discussion
Nighthawk RAX120 - Fast Wireless Download Speed, Slow Wired
My ISP is Comcast/Xfinity with a 1-Gig subscription. When I hardwire my desktop directly to the Arris SB8200 modem, my download speed is approx. 940 Mbps. When I wire the desktop to the router and wi...
Bionanoscience, I am writing to share a hypothesis concerning the “fast wireless + slow wired” problem: namely, the network interface controller (NIC) in your desktop PC is failing to Auto Negotiate the link speed with the router at 1000 Mbps and, instead, is using 100 Mbps. The link speed can be viewed in the browser interface at ADVANCED | ADVANCED Home | Internet Port | Show Statistics | <LAN Port>. The fact that the problem occurs when using an RAX80 and well as an RAX120 with the same PC suggests that the latter may be the root cause of the problem.
You may also wish to set the Link Speed to “1000 Mbps/Full Duplex” (rather than “Auto Negotiation”) for your PC's NIC (see Device Manager | Network adapters | <NIC> | Right Click + Properties).
P.S.: The RAX120 User Manual may be downloaded from here. In particular, note the status information provided by the router’s Ethernet LEDs (see page 12).
Thanks, Topology (great subject by the way), I appreciate your thoughts.
I have an update:
When I returned home from work yesterday evening, my devices weren't able to load websites when connected through the router. As soon as I disconnected my phone from the router, for example, my phone was able to load the desired site. At this point, I'd pretty much had enough of this router, so I disconnected it, threw it in the box it came in, and intended to return it to Best Buy today. When I did this, it occurred to me to connect my desktop to the Arris SB8200 modem and do a speed test at https://speedtest.xfinity.com/ . Now, I had done this as described previously, but Comcast's speed test site has a way to select the IPv4 or 6 protocol you want to test, and I hadn't manually chosen which protocol previously with the desktop connected directly to the modem. Well, after manually choosing the protocol, it turns out that the desktop-to-modem connection was giving the same download speeds as the desktop-to-router-to-modem connection, i.e.:
approx. 50 Mbps when tested on IPv4
approx. 900Mbps when tested on IPv6
For some reason, when I would test the desktop-to-modem setup, the speed test would default to IPv6, whereas when I would test the speed of the desktop-to-router-to-modem setup, it would default to IPv4 (or so it seems). Given this, I thought to myself perhaps there isn't a download speed problem with the router. There is an open question as to why the change from IPv6 to IPv4 when the router is connected, but ultimately I became concerned that this is more an issue with Comcast, my ISP.
I called Comcast to ask them why my download speed wasn't what I'm paying for when I test IPv4 vs IPv6, and long story short they indicated as long as I have an IPv6 IP (which they have assigned), I should receive the full download speed regardless of whether the URL I type in has an IPv4 or IPv6 IP. I was concerned that if I go to sites that have IPv4 IPs, my download speed would reduce to the 50Mbps, which isn't exactly what I'm paying Comcast for. They assured me that because I have been assigned IPv6, that's all that matters. Whether that is true or not is above my pay grade.
Once I finished my phone conversation with Comcast, I reinstalled the RAX120 and was able to download websites again. I wish this was the end of the story, but, when I woke this morning, I attempted to download websites again, and once again I wasn't able to. Apparently the router will work for a bit after it's been power cycled. So, I'm now sitting in the parking lot of Best Buy with the router about to walk in and trade it in for an ASUS ROG Rapture AX11000. C'est la vie. I appreciate everyone's help and suggestions.
I have an update:
When I returned home from work yesterday evening, my devices weren't able to load websites when connected through the router. As soon as I disconnected my phone from the router, for example, my phone was able to load the desired site. At this point, I'd pretty much had enough of this router, so I disconnected it, threw it in the box it came in, and intended to return it to Best Buy today. When I did this, it occurred to me to connect my desktop to the Arris SB8200 modem and do a speed test at https://speedtest.xfinity.com/ . Now, I had done this as described previously, but Comcast's speed test site has a way to select the IPv4 or 6 protocol you want to test, and I hadn't manually chosen which protocol previously with the desktop connected directly to the modem. Well, after manually choosing the protocol, it turns out that the desktop-to-modem connection was giving the same download speeds as the desktop-to-router-to-modem connection, i.e.:
approx. 50 Mbps when tested on IPv4
approx. 900Mbps when tested on IPv6
For some reason, when I would test the desktop-to-modem setup, the speed test would default to IPv6, whereas when I would test the speed of the desktop-to-router-to-modem setup, it would default to IPv4 (or so it seems). Given this, I thought to myself perhaps there isn't a download speed problem with the router. There is an open question as to why the change from IPv6 to IPv4 when the router is connected, but ultimately I became concerned that this is more an issue with Comcast, my ISP.
I called Comcast to ask them why my download speed wasn't what I'm paying for when I test IPv4 vs IPv6, and long story short they indicated as long as I have an IPv6 IP (which they have assigned), I should receive the full download speed regardless of whether the URL I type in has an IPv4 or IPv6 IP. I was concerned that if I go to sites that have IPv4 IPs, my download speed would reduce to the 50Mbps, which isn't exactly what I'm paying Comcast for. They assured me that because I have been assigned IPv6, that's all that matters. Whether that is true or not is above my pay grade.
Once I finished my phone conversation with Comcast, I reinstalled the RAX120 and was able to download websites again. I wish this was the end of the story, but, when I woke this morning, I attempted to download websites again, and once again I wasn't able to. Apparently the router will work for a bit after it's been power cycled. So, I'm now sitting in the parking lot of Best Buy with the router about to walk in and trade it in for an ASUS ROG Rapture AX11000. C'est la vie. I appreciate everyone's help and suggestions.