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Forum Discussion
NightHawk CAX 30 slows until Factory Reset or config restore
I have experienced this issue with this router since buying it at Costco in July 2021. My firmware is up-to-date with version 1.4.10.8. I do not have any special port forwarding or access control con...
How are you testing speeds?
Wired?
Wireless?
Are you testing over the 2.4ghz or the 5ghz?
What device are you testing on?
Per my original post, "After initial setup, I get 350 - 500Mbps directly from the router over Xfinity that is provisioned for 400 Mbps. Within hours, the rate drops to 120 - 150 Mbps."
I want to test the router's ability to handle what is provisioned. This means I logged into the router's Netgear administrative console to test internally from the router itself to avoid any potential network or wireless issues in getting to the router. I used the speed test tool on the router itself. As such, this test is neither wired nor wireless, and wireless frequency is not relevent.
The device I'm testing on: directly from the router
Here is a link on how to check the speed between your ISP and your router: https://kb.netgear.com/000038894/How-do-I-check-my-Internet-speed. This speed test should be fairly constant, and should not be influenced by resetting the router to factory defaults, or simply reloading the current config.
"directly from the router" isn't always the best choice as it doesn't let you choose which server it tests off.
And if it chooses a slower server, you get slower speeds showing even if they aren't accurate.
its why if you look on here, you see us recommending people wire a pc/laptop into their router and test that route.Because then you can try different speedtest sites and even servers on those sites.
Thanks for the advice.
Unfortunately, I do not have an Ethernet adpater for my laptops. However, I can say that testing from 2 Dell laptops (1 is band newand a Galazy 21 phone (Wifi 6 conection) through the CAX30 using Speedtest consistently mirrors what I get on the router's console within +/- 20 - 30 Mbps from multiple testing and multple target servers. My laptop and phone are connecting through 5G from a distance of about 8 - 10 feet.
Again, I am able to reliably fix the slow speed within about 3 - 4 minutes by simply re-loading the saved config file and rebooting. We're talking about improving from 120Mbps pre-fix to a post-fix 400 - 500 Mbps speed in only about 4 minutes' time. The reliability of the fix proves out over across the 4 testing devices (including the router console).
I am not the only person to report this issue and the same fix. https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/CAX30-Slow-Internet-Speeds/td-p/2132543.
Anthing you can recommend?
I screen captured some tests for you to see I am not crazy. Each test is time-stamped.
1. I performed two "Pre-reset" tests. In the first test, I used Speedtest on the console and Speedtest running on my 5Ghz connected laptop simultaneously, wiht the laptop connected to my ISP as the test server. In the second test, I tested the console and my laptop connection simultaneously using a local university as the test server for my laptop.
2. I then re-loaded my saved backup config of the very configuration running on the router at the time of the tests. The screencaps are timestamped.
3 I then repeated the speedtests from the console and my laptop, with the laptop testing against the same test servers as before.
Result: I doubled my download speed within a few minutes by re-loading a backup config and rebooting. Again.
I get the same result if I perform a hard reset and reconfigure the router manually. It's just a lot more work.
See attached.