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Forum Discussion
VPN setup on NETGEAR router causing high latency and reduced speed
Hi everyone,
I’m using a NETGEAR router (Nighthawk series) for home networking, mainly for gaming, streaming, and remote work. Recently I configured a VPN directly on the router to improve privacy and secure all connected devices.
After enabling the VPN, I’ve noticed a significant drop in internet speed and increased latency, especially during online gaming and video calls. I understand that VPN encryption and routing can affect performance, but I’m trying to figure out the best way to optimize this setup on NETGEAR hardware.
I also came across this resource explaining VPN behavior and performance factors: https://vpnmag.net/ — it provides a good overview of how different VPN protocols impact speed, latency, and stability.
So I’d like to ask the community:
- What are the best VPN settings for NETGEAR Nighthawk routers to minimize performance loss?
- Are there recommended firmware versions or VPN protocols (WireGuard/OpenVPN) that work - better?
- Is it generally better to run VPN on the router or on individual devices for better performance?
Any advice or real-world experience would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
2 Replies
Which specific Netgear router?
There are two ways to implement VPN on a customer router:
- VPN Host. This allows devices on the Internet to connect to the router through an encrypted tunnel, and thus have access to devices on the local network. This is the feature taht Netgear ofers with residential routers.
- VPN Client. This allows devices on the local network to access the internet through an encrypted connection to a VPN host such as NordVPN, ExpressVPN, etc. Netgear does not offer this feature on residential routers.
Unless a remote device is actively connected to the VPN, enabling this feature should have almost zero impact on performance of the router. If a remote device is connected to the router VPN in order to access the internet through the router, and thus 'appear' to be at the router location when the remote device may be somewhere else, performance is often affected by the upload speed of the ISP connection. Traditional cable networks, for example, often have very slow upload speeds. My Spectrum ISP offers almost 500Mbps download but only 11Mbps upload. (Yes, eleven) If I were to connect to my router over VPN and attempt to stream video from the internet, it would be horrible.
After enabling the VPN, I’ve noticed a significant drop in internet speed and increased latency, especially during online gaming and video calls. I understand that VPN encryption and routing can affect performance, but I’m trying to figure out the best way to optimize this setup on NETGEAR hardware.
I'd start by turning off the VPN on the router, and instead running the client software on a high-performance PC. Then measure the performance there.
That will let you know the fastest speed and lowest latency your VPN provider can deliver to you (removing the router hardware from the equation). Test with a couple of servers (different countries) - that will give you some idea of what server is the best option for your location.
Once you have that sorted out, then you'll be in a better position to optimize the router performance.
