MR60 Mesh Router Slow Wifi Testing

[Sirecks]

Okay, the set up.

Netgear Nighthawk Mesh Wifi 6 Router MR60 from Costco with two working satellites just purchased last month.

Cspire fiber optic plan for 1 Gig speed.

A direct line from the street that runs directly into the router.  No modem (according to the person who installed our line for CSpire it wasn't needed).

So my Nighthawk app shows download speeds of 600+mbps and upload speeds of 500+mbps with a ping of 30+ when tested on my iPhone 11 Pro when the phone is connected to the Wifi with full signal strength showing.

The problem is every device in my house tests at only 100 mbps download and upload when tested via any independent testing resource from the web.

I have no idea what type of ethernet cable the installer used, but with the Nighthawk app testing as well as it does, it has to be up to date seeing that it was installed within the last year.  The rest of the wires used in the house are all 5e cables.  We have a 5e connecting the router to a hub and 5e wires out of the hub that powers all the ethernet wall outlets.

I've disconnected the 5e line from the router to the hub to only deal in the signal coming in from the street giving me only a pure Wifi signal and still only get 100 mbps when testing any device getting a Wifi signal.

I'm trying to understand the disparity between the Nighthawk app the the third party testing resources.  Why the app shows 600+ mbps and the third party resources only show 100 mbps?  Does anyone know what might be up?

[michaelkenward]

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@Sirecks wrote:

No modem (according to the person who installed our line for CSpire it wasn't needed).

How does the Internet arrive at your place?

The MR60 is a router. This usually gets the Internet from a modem (cable or DSL) or an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) from a fibre network. Maybe that's what you have.

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So my Nighthawk app shows download speeds of 600+mbps and upload speeds of 500+mbps with a ping of 30+ when tested on my iPhone 11 Pro when the phone is connected to the Wifi with full signal strength showing.

If you are using the speedtest on the Nighthawk app, your phone it may be connected to the router over wifi, but it checks the hardware speed it sees on the Internet.

If all your other tests are done with wifi, then it is down to them the speeds that they get. Are they faster when you use them on different wifi sources away from your network?

[plemans]

A couple questions. 

1. are the satellites hardwired in with a wired backhaul or are they using the wireless backhaul?

2. are those tested speeds over 2.4ghz or 5ghz?

3. What speeds do you get hardwired into the router? 

4. What speeds do you get hardwired into the satellites?

5. what "independent" site are you testing off? 

[Sirecks]

"How does the Internet arrive at your place?

The MR60 is a router. This usually gets the Internet from a modem (cable or DSL) or an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) from a fibre network. Maybe that's what you have."

I have a junction box out at the street that leads to a locked box on the side of our house, that has a wire running into the house.  The end of that wire is an ethernet connection.  It is plugged directly into the back of the router.  

"If you are using the speedtest on the Nighthawk app, your phone it may be connected to the router over wifi, but it checks the hardware speed it sees on the Internet.

If all your other tests are done with wifi, then it is down to them the speeds that they get. Are they faster when you use them on different wifi sources away from your network?"

We kind of figred that the Nighthawk app was testing the router itself, which is why it shows over 600 mbps on the speed.  But three different laptops, multiple iPads and iPods, all our phones, and two brand new, high end computer towers, all testing at 100 mbps?  I have not been out of the house near another wifi signal to test that wifi signal since posting this.

[Sirecks]

A couple questions. 

1. are the satellites hardwired in with a wired backhaul or are they using the wireless backhaul?

2. are those tested speeds over 2.4ghz or 5ghz?

3. What speeds do you get hardwired into the router? 

4. What speeds do you get hardwired into the satellites?

5. what "independent" site are you testing off? 

This is an evolving situation at the house here.  Here's what we've learned so far.

I have an older switch in my household system.  A Netgear JFS524 that is only capable of 100 mbps.  So all my wall outlets are limited.  Possibly can get 200 mbps out of them, but not sure if that's an automatic feature or if we have to enable that, or what.

When we go upstairs and stand next to the main router in the mesh system, we get amazing speed test results.  When we are downstairs by the satellites, we get 100 mpbs.  

When we use my sons laptop and plug the ethernet cable from the router to his computer, blazing speeds of about 900.  When we do the same with the sattelites, 100.

I can see where 2.4 and 5 are an option on the web based Netgear set up screen (the 192 IP address account access page.). Is there a way to disable the 2.4?  I can see on the Nighthawk app where it is telling me what devices are hooked up to 2.4 and 5.  My iPhone 11 Pro, for instance, is showing on the 5, but only getting 100 mbps when downstairs, and over 600 mbps when upstairs, near the main router, not the satellites.

As far as what are we using for testing . . . we have two brand new, top of the line computers my sons just built, so testing from them.  We have downloaded apps, and using any number of web based testing sites that come up from an internet search.  Also, a Playstation 5, which can test the signal it's getting.  It seems like we are getting different results based on where we are standing in the mesh system, and if a wall outlet is being used or not.

[michaelkenward]

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@Sirecks wrote:

I have an older switch in my household system.  A Netgear JFS524 that is only capable of 100 mbps.  So all my wall outlets are limited.  Possibly can get 200 mbps out of them, but not sure if that's an automatic feature or if we have to enable that, or what.

I was going to suggest that 100 Mbps smells a bit like some "fast" (as in slow) Ethernet links in the chain. Everything at exactly 100 Mbps is suspicious. (We've seen it here before.) If it were just a client side thing I would expect some variation between different devices.

Even Netgear is guilty of still selling routers with 100 Mbps ports whereas the industry standard has been 1000 Mbps for years.

If the satellites are wired to the router over the ethernet circuit, setting them up with a wireless backhaul might improve things.

Is it just the switch that does 100 Mbps? If the cabling is up to it, dumping the JFS524 for something more modern might unblock the bottleneck.

[Sirecks]

So we thought the same thing.  We disconnected the satellites from the ethernet wall cables.  Turned them off completely.  Read the signal straight off the main router and the signal was great.

I plugged the satellites back in, one at a time and reintroduced them back into the system.  So far, all the WiFi speeds are back to a higher level, and each device is testing well higher than 100 now.  300 to 500 in some cases.  

So, it seems like if I want to keep my wall outlets up to date, I need a new switch.  It also seems like a simple power down and reboot of the satellites have fixed the seeming limited 100 mbps.

[michaelkenward]

Well done. Good research there.

The good news is that switches are pretty cheap. I use a 16-port unmanaged switch. I have never seen the need for anything fancier.

[Sirecks]

We are ordering an 8 port 1 Gig switch as when we walked around the house we only had 4 truly dedicated wall connections going on. Cost $25. So, problem solved and soon my important wall outlets will have screaming internet.

[plemans]

Hope it works great for you!

[michaelkenward]

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@Sirecks wrote:
We are ordering an 8 port 1 Gig switch as when we walked around the house we only had 4 truly dedicated wall connections going on. Cost $25. So, problem solved and soon my important wall outlets will have screaming internet.

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Good move. Let's hope the embedded cable is up to it.

Then again, I don't do much that I that needs Gb ethernet. Traffic doesn't slow down unless lots of stuff comes together, like making multiple backups to a stack of local NAS drives.