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RAX120 slow wireless download speed (24Mbps) with High Internet Speed (325Mbps)
On Xfinity Internet Service. Using a Netgear CM1200 cable modem Nighthawk RAX120 Using Nighthawk App, Wired and Wireless connections Nighthawk App reports 326Mbps; Speedtest.Net app on wired co...
Reinstalling firmware can help when something was corrupt during the install process. Factory resetting only removes the settings but doesn't load a backup firmware. So even if you factory reset, if the firmware was bad, its going to stay bad. The newest firmware is 1.0.1.100. Try downloading that, install over a hardwired connection, factory reset it, and see what happens.
https://www.netgear.com/support/product/rax120
Installed the .100 firmware.
Reset
Reboot
Download speed 1Mbps
Turned off QOS features, reboot
Download speed back to ~20-24Mbs.
So firmware update did not fix the issue.
I've tested two very different computers and the ipad. All within line of sight of the Router. Router is in the same spot my other routers have been in which had no problem getting north of 100Mbps through the entire house.
I've ordered a new router (different brand) to pick up tomorrow and try out.
The RAX120 is new enough you should either be within your 90 days of free support or your 1 year warranty to get it replaced. If the new one functions with the appropriate speeds, you might have gotten a bad device.
New Router:
Won't connect directly to cable modem and get Internet (will work on this later).
But set up as in bridge mode, cabled to RAX120 ethernet Port
So: Computer->New Modem Wireless -> cabled to RAX120 Ethernet
Speedtest (Mbps): 47.85, 244.57, 58.21, 52.83
Reconnect to RAX120 wireless
Speedtest: 19.08, 15.25, 16.76, 24.87
BTW, Upload speeds are consistently higher via new wireless router in bridge mode than connecting to wireless RAX120.
New Router: 21-35Mbps
RAX120: 11-21Mbps
I am making progress. I kept thinking "what could be the reason to throttle bandwidth?"
a) Wireless signal quality - nope, hardwire connection is similarly throttled though a higher speed
b) Wireless client capability - nope, multiple clients behave exactly the same, different router provided higher speeds
c) QOS - should be NOPE, because it's turned off, but I am suspecting this is not true. (and maybe QOS has a different setting for hardwired connection which would account for the increased but not full speed access).
I turned QOS back on and removed all rules, then added rules for specific mac addresses to make them Highest priority. Suddenly those computers have access to the full >300Mbps of my ISP connection.
In general, the admin area of QOS rules list is, at best, beta quality. You can't edit a rule, though it looks like you can. But editing a rule results in a duplicate rule and if focused on Mac Addressed, it won't let you edit/add a rule for a mac address that already has a rule. Deleting the rule causes the list of Mac Address devices to include two devices for the same Mac Address. It's all very confusing and clearly not working correctly. See attached image as an example when trying to create a QOS rule for a mac addresss.
I'm going to continue to see if setting these rules and then turning QOS back off keeps highbandwidth - in which case QOS on/off switch isn't working correctly.
