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Forum Discussion
WNDR4300 getting 75% speed loss with Quantum fiber vs. direct connection
I've had this WNDR4300 router for years. Since 2020, I've had the wifi radios disabled since I setup a Google Nest mesh wifi in the house. So my network topology has been:
ISP (cable modem) -> WNDR4300
Both my desktop PC and my mesh router have wired connections to the Netgear device. I've always been able to see full ISP throughput from speed tests on my PC. For the last year, we'd been on gigabit Xfinity service that regularly showed 900-950Mbps down (around 11Mbps up) on Speedtest.net.
We got 1-gig Quantum fiber installed a couple weeks ago, and other than the ISP devices none of my networking hardware changed. Only difference is there's now a Lumen C5500XK smartNID plugged into the WAN port on my router instead of a cable modem. I did not install any Quantum wifi pods, wanting to keep my existing mesh setup.
I had the install tech set the the smartNID to transparent bridge mode with appropriate VLAN tagging.
Every speed test utility I run in this configuration shows around 220-240Mbps down and around 330 up. If I pull the patch cable from my PC out of the netgear router and plug it directly into the smartNID, the speed tests show full throughput of around 985Mbps both down and up.
In my mind, that rules out the smartNID, my PC's NIC, and its patch cable, as the root of this problem - leaving just the WNDR4300.
I've power cycled the Netgear device, tried running it without the Nest router attached, tried plugging my PC into all the different LAN ports on it, tried using different patch cords (5e & 6) to connect the smartNID. None of it makes any difference.
I know the router is capable of moving gigabit traffic as it's been doing so for years with cable internet.
Quantum support is nearly useless, as their hardware appears to be working correctly.
I'm nearing my wit's end with this. Anyone have any idea what might be causing the throughput drop or what else I might try to diagnose the issue?
Router firmware is v1.0.2.104
Config is vanilla except:
- wifi radios off
- static DNS points to my Pihole
- one static route for traffic to my Nest mesh subnet
- one external port forwarded for my kiddos' Minecraft server
4 Replies
If you have a google nest, why use the WNDR4300 at all? its old wireless N tech from 2015. the Nest is going to be more capable. Adding the WNDR doesn't benefit the system.
Because my PC isn't on wifi at all, it's wired. The Nest router doesn't have an available LAN port.
Also, the configurability of the Nest system is kindergarten-level garbage. As a longtime sysadmin type, I'm accustomed to having low-level control of my hardware configurations..
MegaDadTron wrote:
Because my PC isn't on wifi at all, it's wired. The Nest router doesn't have an available LAN port.---A cheap gigabit switch fixes that
Also, the configurability of the Nest system is kindergarten-level garbage.----the netgear isn't much better. As a longtime sysadmin type,----so you'd know the benefit to using current devices/firmware. The WNDR4300 was EOL a while ago. I'm accustomed to having low-level control of my hardware configurations..-----then switching to a business class devices/AP would be more beneficial to you. Versus staying with generations old tech that is EOL and then complaining that it isn't hitting your gigabit speeds. Even higher spec'd devices struggled with gigabit speeds as gigabit wasn't prevalent when those devices were coming out.
