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R7800 - DL speed 1/3 that of UL Speed over WiFi
Hello! I've recently upgraded to gigabit fiber in my home and as a result, have upgraded my network hardware. I have an Ubiquiti Edgerouter Lite feeding a brand new R7800 in AP mode. Connected via ethernet directly to the back of the R7800, I get consistent speeds of 850-950 Mbps both UP and DOWN (very symmetrical). However when I unplug my computer and connect to the 5ghz network instead (from less than 10' away, direct line-of-site, with a late 2016 15" MacBook Pro w/touchbar), d/l maxes at about 320 Mbps, but u/l is still around 900+ Mbps. I can't figure out why d/l is so much slower than u/l over Wifi?
Things I've tried:
- Switching 5 ghz channels (I've tried them all, pretty much all about the same, +/- 20 Mbps)
- Updating to latest firmware
- Reflashing with latest firmware
- Having no other wireless devices connected
- Called Netgear Tech Support (not much help, they had me try a bunch of odd things (changed preamble, changed CTS/RTS threshold, changed channels, etc), which made no difference and then in the end said everything was functioning normally, but their explanation made no sense, I don't think they actually understood the issue.
320 Mbps d/l is still really fast, but why is it so slow compared to u/l of 3x that over the same wifi network and same device when I can get the full symetrical speed if I plug into the same device instead? I honestly don't think that there's anything wrong with the device, but I may borrow a Synology RT2600 to see if it has any different results.
Thanks!
Thanks for that suggestion. Might be worth a shot.
After trying the Synology and Unifi AC HD and getting essentially identical performance from all three, I'm thinking this could be some sort of limitation of my computer. As a result, both the Synology and Unifi were sent back and I'll plan to keep the R7800 for the forseeable future. So trying out 3rd party FW seems like a logical next step to try when I have time.
22 Replies
I'd start with the obvious stuff..
Enable WMM
Disable HT160 (if it's enabled) and re-test.
Disable MU-MIMO (if it's enabled) and re-test.
I'm going to assume it's nothing on the Mac side, that is giving you grief..
Are you able to run iperf between your Mac and another wireless client or a wired 1000Mbps client to check throughput? (as opposed to running a speedtest).
Another thing to try, is run the 7800 in router mode, but disable DHCP etc, (give the 7800 a static IP Address) to see if that improves your throughput.. There was a bug on some of hte R Series routers, where in AP mode (and plugged into the WAN port),would casue throughput degerdation. Not sure if the 7800 suffers from this problem, but you could try this, as a last resort.
Or... get a Unifi AP HD!
Hi netwrks. Thanks for the help. I tried basically everything you mentioned with exactly the same results each time.
- HT 160 is already disabled
- Disabled MU-MIMO with no effect
- Tried iPerf3 with one gigabit computer connected via eithernet and the other new MacBook Pro via 5Ghz wifi and it gave me the same results again when the wired machine was the server. When swapped them and the wifi machine was the server, again same results, it was much faster.
- Also tried setting it in router mode. No difference.
I'm stumped. I may check out the Unifi if I can't figure this one out or the Synology gives me the same thing. I'd love to get the R7800 to work, but it seems to be some sort of hardware or software limitation.
Have tried disabling the traffic monitor.
Someone reported for his x6 he had similar issues with both wired and wireless reporting 450/450mbps. Once he disable the monitor it jumped back to 930+mbps
It's pretty remarkable to get 900+ Mbps on Wi-Fi. That would require a transfer efficiency of almost 70% on a connection running at a PHY rate 1300 Mbps. This is almost unheard of. 30% to 60% is more typical.
What PHY rate is your Macbook running at? It's reported as the Tx Rate by Option clicking the Wi-Fi symbol at the top right.
Hi TheEther,
Thanks for that. I'm at work now, so I'll have to check tonight and get back to you on the PHY rate. But I've run many tests where I'm getting right around 900 Mbps u/l over wifi. Both via speedtest and iPerf via a local wired device acting as server. So that's why I keep getting stumped, if I can get that fast UP, why can't I get even close to it going the other direction? I feel like I must be missing something...
But I'll check on that later tonight and report back.
FYI, I'm getting near spot on speeds with my 2008 MBP OSX 10.10.5 on 5Ghz about 15-20feet away from the router with 1 wall in between. ISP 100/3
Last Result:
Download Speed: 87566 kbps (10945.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 2933 kbps (366.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 10 ms
Jitter: 3 ms
5/11/2017, 11:25:36 AMI have MU-MIMO, HT160 and Traffic Meter disabled. Dynamic QoS and Bandsteering enabled.
5ghz set for UpTo1733Mb on manual channel 48 using WPA2 and AES only.
Not sure if newer generation MBPs will support higher data thru put speeds which differ from PHY connection rates. There not the same. My MBP connected at 54-80Mb while at this distance and would probably be expected for my configuration and distance with building materials in the way will cause signal drop on 5Ghz.
You can see the connection rate of your MBP if you hold down the OPT key and then left click on the wireless icon, this will show you more to the wireless connection with your MBP.
LAN wired speed testing is always preferred.
