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R7000 2.4 signal and wifi speeds flaky (1.0.9.34)
Wifi became frustratingly slow again for me today. Speedtest registerd me around 15Mps rather than my normal 150+. I rebooted the router, but this did not clear the problem. I rebooted it again w/...
Final thank you to those contirbuting to my understanding.
The NG implementation of band steering, which doesn't support roaming between bands, really won't work for my home unless I disabled 5G altogether; we have some areas not covered by 5G, so every device would need to be on 2.4 to support occasional use from worst case location.
So either I invest in mesh replacement or leave smart connect off. The latter approach has been working well on 1.0.9.28 for almost a month now without any problems and without any router reboots.
I'm going to move forward with single SSID and disabled smart connect for now. It has been working well for my household since I bought the router, which is not surprising. Netflix HD streaming, for example, needs some 5Mbps, which is an easy reach for us if all 5 members of my household were sharig a single band. We occasionally host events where some 40 people are all using our wifi at the same time, but in this case none of their devices are driving high bandwidth applications, and noone has issues.
In conclusion, while my house is a candidate for mesh, the dual band r7000 is more than adequate for us provided that we levarage roaming between bands. I plan to use separate SSIDs if or when we actually run into a bandwidth challenge.
Thanks again.
Greetings,
I have no reason to roll back. The .34 build is working for me. Wired and wireless performance rivals 1.0.7.6 and the connections on both interfaces have been stable. (Lucky I know). I've dodged a bullet. Whew!
Almost 4 full days now, and 1.0.9.28 is behaving fine in my environment.
I have occasionally run speedtests, and all acceptible. I must admit that I'm too lazy to move my laptop around my house, so I'm only looking for clear anomalies and am ignoring expected 2.4 vs 5 and proximity variances. In other words, my internet is behaving well for me throughout the day. I work at home, so the wifi gets thorough exercise.
I did notice the Attached Devices issue metioned by @KY with the .34 firmware. There was one point where my iPhone was not showing up on .28, but it is now, and I am seeing a mix of 2.4 and 5 devices. I did not do an extensive reveiw of the device list, but the dozen or so devices is probably a complete list.
I have reservations regarding shadowsports suggestion of using separate SSIDs or enabling smart connect. I tried smart connect when I first bought the router, but it appeared to be playing games with the signals in that one of the radios would sort of disappear from my laptops perspective (Is/can it play games via beamforming, or was I experiencing signal dropouts?). Furthermore, I could not locate any clear description of the algorithm it uses, and am therefore reluctant to rely on it. My home is large enough that we need to use 2.4 in some rooms and in the back yard, I don't want to ask my family to manually switch to a new SSID, and frankly all of our PCs, iPhones, and macs are making solid radio decisions and automatically switching radios as devices move around my house. I have wired connections for my main router (erlite-3), TVs, and NAS, and the semi-frequent online gaming, Netflix streaming, etc has never caused any problems. All of that said, can somebody clearly articulate exactly how smart connect works? Does it handle roaming well, forcing devices down to 2.4 when the 5G signal gets week? How does it force a device to use a particular radio?
I reviewed release notes, and it appears that 1.0.9.28 has some (mysterious) security fixes that are probably not in 1.0.8.34, so I guess I stay at .9.28 barring further problems. But please offer any advice you might have on this matter. And why does the .8 release branch contain only one version?
Thanks guys!
I think the only thing to say here is you'll never know if you don't try. I'm not sure I understand what reservations you have? If you work at home, you can quickly and easily evaluate the performance of your wireless while experimenting with various settings.
Don't want force your family members to connect to a new SSID? What do they do when they visit a starbucks, an airport, a school or a friends house for the first time. Excuse you for inconveniencing them while you try to improve their wireless performance.
This will help you understand Smart Connect
Granted its a little vague. The next 2 go into deeper detail.
Basically it uses a combination of frequencies in the same band to optimize throughput. Note: 2.4Ghz broadcast has a greater broadcast range, but lower bandwidth. 5Ghz has a shorter broadcast range but increased bandwidth capability.
And a good App such as Wi-Fi Analyzer or even Genie for iOS or Android (both free) will instantly allow you to see how your network is performing, as well as what your neighbors are doing. Broadcast, signal strength, channel usage and more. They can help you tweak and further optimize your settings by providing quantitative results.
Don't sell yourself short. All the tools you need to verify, confirm and/or improve your wireless performance is at your finger tips. The choice is yours.
1.0.9.28 still running fine for me.
shadowsports do you have anything that descibes how smart connect works on the dual band r7000? Letting the router ballance between two 5G radios is compelling, but I would like to understand how it handles the situation when I go out back and the 5G radio is suddenly unavailable. Not positive, but I believe 802.11 leaves radio selection decision with the client, which would mean that the router must be playing some tricky game to force the client to use a particular radio.
Thanks.
- Look at my post above. I put a bunch of links in it regarding SmartConnect and the load balancing that happens behind the scenes.
There is no trickery. It simply looks at the connecting adapter and takes into consideration what is connected now and balances for best overall performance. It might put slower devices on your 2.4Ghz network, but if they are dual band and you move out of the 2.4's broadcast range, it's going to move them to the 5G broadcast. I personally like to control this myself which is why I use separate SSID names for my networks. You can try it and see how it works. If you decide its not right for your, then I would go with my original suggestion. 2 networks, 2 names.