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Forum Discussion
Orbi limiting Raspberry Pi Bandwidth
Hi! Im experiencing a really weird issue with my Orbi system. I have latest firmware on my router and satellites (2.5.1.8). My following installation looks like that: - Nokia fiber modem -> Orbi RB...
I think the problem is some QoS hidden features on the Orbi system. Ill try to switch off the two satellites and try again to see if a get another result.
I get buffer issues just sometimes, but when it happened, it does every 5 seconds...
I had another "weird" issue that was isolated. I got my IPTV decoder (From my ISP) to freeze every 2-3 minutes. Problem was on one of my computers ethernet card and "Wake on lan". It must be disabled to get my IPTV box working as normal.
So... this is the second weird problem with my Orbi system and sure i need to do again a step-by-step connecting just the Pi and one by one the other devices.
Ill try when i arrive at home today :)
The situation with Orbi and QoS is somewhat of a mystery. When Orbi first shipped, some people remember it having a menu entry for QoS. There no longer is. When I dump the Orbi parameters (over 1,300), there are bunches of entries with "qos" in the names. It appears that this is based on the port numbers used by specific internet video games. (There seem to be 18 "rules".) As far as I can tell, there is no concept of QoS by device (MAC or IP). I have a suspicion that QoS may be viewed as "unnecessary in this day of gigabit ISP speeds". When devices are competing for 10 mb of internet, QoS is a powerful tool.
(Confession: I know too little about QoS to do anything more than observe mysteries.)
- Finally i have returned the pi4 and changed to a Xiaomi Mi BOX S. Tomorrow ill get an usb-gigabit adaptor, but toda, with wifi... I got the same speed! Around 40-60Mb... The same as my other Pi3 đ€Ł
My mobile phone gets 380Mb at the same distance than the Mi Box. Definetly, the Orbi router is managing something really bad.
Ill update situation Tomorrow when i get the usb-gigabit adapter. Sorry the Raspberry Pi 4B is no longer available. Just did what I should have done before and searched for "raspberry pi speed test".
Installed "speedtest-cli", a command line program which uses the Speedtest.com API's.
My Raspberry Pi 4B reports 230mbs, which is almost exactly what my Windows desktop & Android devices report. (Would love to learn how a Pi works with a 500mbs internet link.)
So my position remains: the Orbi does not discriminate against the Raspberry Pi on internet downloads.
That does not mean to say that a Raspberry Pi 4B is adequate for all internet steaming applications. Remember that Firefox and Chromium reported WAY less throughput on my Pi 4B than the command line speedtest-cli does. In my case, the combination of using VNC to provide the graphic interface for Chromium/Firefox and all the "video business" going on with Firefox could eat up a lot of processor power.
I returned the Pi4 because it was restarting while playing some files, and the board got really warm without any "hard" process on it. But... come back to the "low-speed" issue. Im really surprised to see the Xiaomi Box getting also around 40Mb. If it was 40Mb all the time, i wouldnt have any problem playing online movies... But its not a solid 40Mb, it goes up and down, sometimes i get 10Mb... and there is the problem and when it happend, i get buffering issues.
Ill reset factory defaults today and disable both satellites. And give it a try without netgear armor and just the RBR50 to see what happen.
Heat is an issue for the Pi 4. I put mine in an aluminum case that seems to keep it cool without a fan.
I also keep forgetting about Armor. Have never activated it. My hunch is Armor is like everything else about Orbi. Thousands of users have it and never notice anything. The few who do sometimes show up on the community forum asking questions, just like the few who have specific issues with Orbi show up. I also never activated Disney Circle.
Issue found. I have reset my Orbi system to defaults and... magic! i got the expected speed. With a Raspberry Pi 3 i get around 300Mb download and 220Mb upload. When i enable the Armor on the router, the speed of some of my devices (Streaming devices) drops down to a ridiculous 45/34Mb.
Im happy with Armor, and ive paid a year subscription... But im disappointed with this issue, and i didnt find any "option" to fix it.
On the attached file i did first a speedtest, and another one after enabling armor, without reset the router.
Armor seem to be a problem for speeds and other apps for users over the past year or so.
Ive send a support ticket to Bitdefender... If it just work "as it" so i hope i can get a refund to this year subscription...
Good Luck.
Now that Netgear Armor has been identified as the relevant factor, I wonder what part Kodi plays in the mix. i.e. was Armor limiting bandwidth to (a) the Raspberry Pi, or (b) to any computer running Kodi (or some protocol that Kodi uses)? I would test Kodi on my Windows 10 machines, but I have never activated Armor (and looks like I never will).
