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Forum Discussion
RAX80 capping wifi speeds at 450Mbs
Router: RAX80
Firmware at the time of posting: V1.0.1.70_1.0.30
What is the first thing you do after you get gig internet?
You check your speeds!
My wired desktop is achieving the full promised gig speeds from the ISP. (Thanks Webpass)
Wired desktop download speed: 920Mbs
Wired desktop upload speed: 940Mbs
My plethora of wireless devices seem to have their download speed capped at 400Mbs. This is odd because the upload of my wireless devices exceed that. Usually around 865Mbs.
I have been messing with the routers settings but nothing seems to let my wireless devices hit full speeds. First I would blame the wireless devices, but after testing a bunch I believe it is the router.
I have turned off QOS. I have turned off AX mode. I have turned off the 2.4 ghz network. I have messed with the channel that the 5 ghz network is on. None of these things individually or in conjunction made a difference. Wireless is always capped 400Mbs on my expensive Wifi 6 router :(
Please let me know if someone has a fix for this. There was a topic from June 2019 that is closed now where the poster was also experiencing this same issue and no resolution came from it. (https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-Routers-with-WiFi-6-AX/Nighthawk-RAX80-Middling-WiFi-Speeds/td-p/1759654)
Wireless devices tested:
Galaxy s10
Wifi 6ax
Speed shown in options: 1100Mbs
Download speed: 390Mbs
Upload speed: 810Mbs
Mac book pro (2017)
802.11ac
Speed shown in options: 1300Mbs
Download speed: 400Mbs
Upload speed: 870Mbs
Lenovo Yoga pro (2013)
802.11ac
Speed shown in options: 780 Mbs
Download speed: 410 Mbs
Upload Speed: 670Mbs
6 Replies
berger0 wrote:
My wired desktop is achieving the full promised gig speeds from the ISP. (Thanks Webpass)
Wired desktop download speed: 920Mbs
Wired desktop upload speed: 940Mbs
My plethora of wireless devices seem to have their download speed capped at 400Mbs. This is odd because the upload of my wireless devices exceed that. Usually around 865Mbs.
Wifi speeds are in the hands of the wifi clients. For most wifi clients, 400Mbps would be excellent.
Your upload speeds of 865Mbps are unlikely. Indeed, you may well be looking at link rate, which is by no means that same as transfer speed.
Link Rate and Transfer Speed | Answer | NETGEAR Support
I recommend a careful reading of this somewhat technical explanation of wifi speeds.
Understand Wi-Fi 4/5/6 (802.11 n/ac/ad/ax)
A good test is to take these wifi clients to different places and see how fast they are there.
Wifi speeds are in the hands of the wifi clients. For most wifi clients, 400Mbps would be excellent.
Your upload speeds of 865Mbps are unlikely. Indeed, you may well be looking at link rate, which is by no means that same as transfer speed.
Link Rate and Transfer Speed | Answer | NETGEAR Support
I recommend a careful reading of this somewhat technical explanation of wifi speeds.
Understand Wi-Fi 4/5/6 (802.11 n/ac/ad/ax)
A good test is to take these wifi clients to different places and see how fast they are there.
Thank you michaelkenward for the response. I have always enjoyed Duckware's realist attitude towards wireless speed. I try to heed the advice from that article when making my wireless network decisions.
In my tests I posted the link speed (PHY speed) to report the strength of the connection to the RAX80. I too doubted the 865Mbs upload speed, until I did more tests. My ISP does 'promise' 1000Mbs down and 1000Mbs up.
So here are some more test results to bolster my case. My argument is the router seems to be capping my wireless devices at 450Mbs down. I have turned off QoS for all of these tests.
I am running all of these tests about 5-8 ft from the RAX80. It is within line of sight.
Macbook Pro (2017)
802.11ac
PHY/Link rate: 1300Mbs (at the time of testing)
https://speedtest.xfinity.com/
Speed Down: 448.6Mbs
Speed Up: 831.4Mbs
Speed Down: 400Mbs
Speed Up: 660Mbs
Speed Down: 370Mbs
Speed Up: 805Mbs
Samsung S10 (2019)
Wifi 6ax
PHY/Link rate: 1200Mbs (at the time of testing)
https://speedtest.xfinity.com/
Speed Down: 320.6Mbs
Speed Up: 616.2Mbs
Speed Down: 410Mbs
Speed Up: 480Mbs
Speed Down: 380Mbs
Speed Up: 780Mbs
Can you test a 'download' lan to lan instead of wan to lan?
Tranfer a big file between PC's. With a file on a PC (ethernet), and grab it from a PC (wireless), like MacBook -- Then I assume MacBook have something similar to Windows Task Manager / Networking where you can figure out Mbps?
Goal: Try to eliminate anything with the Internet as the (possible) cause.
I am having similar issue. At launch of iPhone 11 I was getting 750Mbps to 850Mbps down. I get 900Mbps on Ethernet.
I had QoS issue so had to Enable and then Disable QoS after reach reboot to get max speeds. On most recent firmware now I have to Enable QoS and leave it on to get max speeds.
Now recently with QoS off it barely gets above 300Mbps on WiFi or Ethernet. With QoS on I get 900 on Ethernet before, but WiFi seems to be capped at 450 to 550 now.
I only have 5 devices on 5Ghz and on channel with low interference. I tried switching to DFS channel but did not make difference.
I also tried Enable and Disable MIMO or Beamforming but did not see a difference. I think issue may still be related to the QoS issue somehow... all year got faster speed with QoS off and now only get faster speed with it on ... something is still not right.
