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Re: R7000 Quality of Service Speed Test 50% of Actual Speed

barbarosa
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R7000 Quality of Service Speed Test 50% of Actual Speed

Recently started Comcast Gigabit service (about which more later) and the speed test option that appears if you check enable Qos, reports 400 to 500Mbps down and 10 to 40 up. Using a PC connected via cat 6 to the router gets 923 down . My question is why does the QoS bandwidth test underreport by about half?

 

Back story--

I sign up for Comcat gigabit service but do not see more than about 400 from any PC wired or wireless ac. Comcast rolls truck and says you have 1 gig at the drop but you need a new modem which I expected. Arris and Comcast disagreed by about half on the actul speed of the DOCIS 3 Surfboard. Tech suggests trying a Comcast gateway which I do. Still cant get above 400 from any device whether I use the gateway or bridge to my R7000. I buy a Netgear CM100. No change. Then upload speeds fall to 10 so I call comcast again and spend a pleasant hour or two chatting with a nice rep while we swap modems, connect directly etc. Finally she says there is an issue on the line and my second level says we need to roll a truck. 

 

I await the truck and ech from the first truck roll calls and asks me to try one more swap and test. Fortunately I have 2 50' brand new cat 6 cables on hand so I can run around or too anything in any combination.

 

When the truck arrives it is a different tech and he said that it might be line noise problem.I  told him that when I called in I mentioned that the X1 box was sluggish and sometimes froze and was told to exchange it for a n ew one. 

Ah ha said he ha is a sure and certain symptomof a line problem. He declared the coax downstream of the 2 way splitter to be junk (they came in the box with some comcast equipment).

Then he methodically checked the noise at each jucntion and replaced the coax from the splitter to a wall box and from the wall box to the X1 DVR. Each step showing a visible reduction in in spikes on the analyzer's graph.

 

Then he changed the fittings at the drop and at the box across the street as well as moving the MOCA filter from the drop to the splitter.  The X1 box became faster than it ever was, and a PC connected to the modem or to the switch reported speed test results >900Mbps. 

 

On the internet side the trouble shooting involved modem swaps, cable swaps, switch in and no switch, switch connected the router and no switch connected to the router eliminating one by one eveything but the R7000 and a reset to default values.

 

Now the last act, reset the router to factory defaults, then make the changes originally in place and speed at hard wired PC >900, link speed for a wireless connection 1.3 gigabits. But the router's reported Q of S   bandwith only increased to 500. 

 

I'm happy now except for hours taken to indentify and fix the line problem and a strong desire to know why the router reports about half the speed as an attached PC.

Model: R7000|AC1900 Smart WIFI Router
Message 1 of 6

Re: R7000 Quality of Service Speed Test 50% of Actual Speed


@barbarosa wrote:

Recently started Comcast Gigabit service (about which more later) and the speed test option that appears if you check enable Qos, reports 400 to 500Mbps down and 10 to 40 up. Using a PC connected via cat 6 to the router gets 923 down . My question is why does the QoS bandwidth test underreport by about half?

 


Forgive me if I don't read the rest of your long message, but the general advice is that with Gigabit internet, QoS is a pointless distraction that just slows you down. You simply don't need something that prioritises different services when your internet is that fast.

 

Indeed, there is a growing consensus that anything above 300 Mbps or so will suffer if QoS is turned on. The internal activity that QoS entails just slows things down.

 

Likewise traffic meters.

Message 2 of 6
barbarosa
Aspirant

Re: R7000 Quality of Service Speed Test 50% of Actual Speed

Thank you for replying. Let me clarify that I did not actually enable QofS. On the Basic tab of the menu select Quality of Service. If QoS is not enabled the page the only option is an Enable QoS check box. If you check the box other options appear, one of them being a speed test. You can run the test but but unless you check the Apply button before leaving the page QofS is not enabled. If you run a test and uncheck enabled the page the test results and optional settings vanish. Later if you return and check the Enable box the stored results appear.

 

Thus the mystery- QoS menu page speed test 400 to 500mbps but test numbers on an attached pc of >900.

 

 

The cure was one or a combination of two things. Resetting the routere to the factory defaults and elimination of line noise in the coax going to the modem and the X-1 DVR.

 

Prior to the line work we saw briefly 600 and 700mbps from the router, then it settled at around 400 and then dropped to around 190 down and 12 up.

 

The rest of the post was to point out that line line noise on the coax was was a sort of geewiz for those with comcast service

Message 3 of 6
barbarosa
Aspirant

Re: R7000 Quality of Service Speed Test 50% of Actual Speed

Hi Michael-

I guess i can't edit a post but I wanted to say the bold type I used wasn't any form of rudeness but intended to make it easy to pick out key points Kipplinger style. I appreciate that you replied.

 

Model: A6100|WiFi USB Mini Adapter
Message 4 of 6

Re: R7000 Quality of Service Speed Test 50% of Actual Speed


@barbarosa wrote:

If QoS is not enabled the page the only option is an Enable QoS check box. If you check the box other options appear, one of them being a speed test.


That clears up a few things missing from your first message. It always helps to have the full details.

 

That QoS speedtest is famously broken and does not work in some new firmware for other devices.

Message 5 of 6
barbarosa
Aspirant

Re: R7000 Quality of Service Speed Test 50% of Actual Speed

Thank you, I can live with "famously broken" as the explanation.

 

Message 6 of 6
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