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Forum Discussion
Netgear Nighthawk XR500 slow speeds
We recently purchased a XR500 and after setting it up with the aid of he only video currently available on youtube (Thank you Sim) we are now finding that our 2 hardlined devices are seriously not getting any speed. So let me elaborate on this a bit, we have the router connected and from that we run 2 CAT 6a cables out the back, 1 to my laptop and 1 to our xbox one, when we first got the router the xbox was showing download speeds of 380mbps and my laptop being an old girl was pulling in about 175mbps. Here we are several days later and many visits from our internet providers tech guys and they keep saying the same thing, we show you getting 524mbps but we are like...umm nope! Now the weird thing is I can do a speedtest on my Note 8 and sure enough I pull 383mbps, but go back to the hardwired devices and the speed is trash. It has to be something in the settings and honestly I do not know enough to try and figure out what we did other than to do a master reset on this thing, that is not something I really want to do. I have checked out cables and it is not that, we even bought a new one for the sake of arguement and still the same trash speeds.
47 Replies
- Hi Misskitty, first set your bandwidth to what you're supposed to get. Then set Anti-Bufferbloat to 'Never'. Reset distribution on Bandwidth Allocation for both download & upload. Also make sure share excess for both download & upload on Bandwidth Allocation are ticked. Then remove/disable anything in Traffic Prioritization.
Then for an accurate test make sure to do a wired speed test from a PC from speedtest.net (console tests are often inaccurate). If you don't get your full speeds after that then disable QoS completely within Anti-Bufferbloat's settings.I followed your instructions and I see no change in my computer but it may just be that it is old and on it's last legs, my cell phone tested at 293mbps so I think that is pretty great :). I did test the xbox, I know it is not accurate but well curiosity kills the cat everytime, and it showed 188mbps. So my question is this, when I was in the QoS and selecting never on the antibloat it advised it could slow dow my gaming queue, but will it cause lag while I am in game? My husband is a COD player and that is the sole reason we bought this router, so of course I want this to run as it should for him :)
- Okay great! So how the QoS solution works is that by lowering your download/upload (which lowers your speeds) it allows all the devices in your home room to use the internet without lagging/buffering. Here's what I suggest:
Set Anti-Bufferbloat to 'When High Priority Traffic Detected' and then set the download/upload sliders to 70%. In Traffic Prioritization enable DumaOS Classified Games.
What this means is that you will get your full speeds when your husband isn't playing his Xbox. Then when he starts to play Traffic Prioritization will kick in automatically, prioritizing his gaming so that he gets the best possible ping. That will then set off your Anti-Bufferbloat to ensure that no one in your home experiences any lag/buffering (you will get slightly slower speeds). This way everything is automatic and everyone is happy.
I noticed on my XR500 that if I set the download and Upload excactly to what I have, 300 down and 20 up, my speeds measured are lower, i.e 275 down and 19 up as per speedtest. If I set the download to 400 and upload to 25 in the Duma software, I get 356 down and 24 up. Consistently. Is somewhat strange I thought, but these are my findings. And I went back and forth numerous times. Just my 2 cents.
- Hi Lynx, that likely means that you have higher than you think as a router can not give you higher speeds that your ISP provides. So if you set it to 356 down and 24 up then at 100% on Anti-Bufferbloat you should also achieve that speed.
Thank you, I tried that but my speeds are still slower for some reason. I get the maximum speed by increasing it past that 356 down and 24 up. It is strange. And this is hardwired in from my ISP router to XR500 to S8000 (uplink and port #1 set to gaming preset) and then to my PC. If I go straight from my ISP router to my PC I get 356 down and 24 up.
- So, I had an amazing experience with the router first day but then the next day I started experiencing nasty lags. I already set my anti bufferbloat to 70 each for download and upload, as well as setting the geo filter to 1000 miles. Am I experiencing this problem because not all of my devices I had connected to the previous wifi are connected to my xr500? Or is it because of something else? Please help I bought this router mainly for gaming on my ps4, but I have it setup on wifi because my modem is located in the living room, and my ps4 is in my room.
- If not all your devices are connected behind the XR500 then QOS can not take effect properly as it will not be able to control all devices. ALL devices need to be connected behind the XR500 for QoS to be most effective and stop any local congestion. Make this change and have Anti-Bufferbloat set to Always.
- So I’ve tried what you told me to do, but I am still experiencing bad lags when I’m gaming.
SOLUTION: Re-run DumoOS the Setup Wizard.
I had a similar issue where the speeds directly from my cable/fios modem were ~100mbps up/down but when connected through the XR500 they were about ~20mpbs.
I tried disabling the QoS settings but that did not help.
I noticed on the QoS page on DumoOS that it showed my download speed at 23mpbs and I couldn't find any place to re-test or customize the values but felt what I was seeing on the QoS page was quite a coincidence to what I was seeing in speed test reports.
I re-ran the setup wizard on the XR500 and it started doing some speed test of its own. Once it completed now my speeds are at 100mpbs! up/down.
I strongly suggest is that NetGear add a new button on the menu "Calibrate Speed" or "Speed Test" or if QoS is enabled that it periodically do a speed test to make sure the router is optimized.
Well done for fixing this. And that's definitely a feature we will look to add in the future.
- To piggyback on what he said, I had the same problem. I upgraded my package from 150mbs to 400mbs and no matter what my speed wouldn’t get over 160-170mbs.
Turns out my problem was the router doesn’t accommodate under QoS for faster speeds than original setup conditions automatically.
I had to manually go into the pull down within QoS and change the speed limit from 170 to 500. And now I’m getting 450-460mbs.
This should definitely be looked at, as it’s not something that jumps out at you and for a novice end user, this wouldn’t even be something that they look at.
So i have had this modem for a couple of months now and have had no issues. Recently my speeds have dropped dramaticly and i cant work out why.
When i plug straight into the modem i get my normal speeds, but as soon as the router kicks in everything slows down.
The XR500 router tested the correct speed during the initial setup. For whatever bizarre reason the downgraded speeds were setup in the QoS menu under Anti-Bufferbloat. Click on the three horizontal lines left of the wording and manually enter your speeds. Using Comcast Gigabit; so I set download at 1000 and upload at 40. Go into settings Admininstration->reboot. This will correct the "slow" speeds from the router. Do a speed test like Fast.com to verify speed.
- steggs - make sure you set your correct speeds in Anti-Bufferbloat’s options (in QoS). While you’re there, best disable QoS too and then run a speedtest and see if that works.
Also try setting your modem to bridge mode or modem mode if possible.- Thanks. It’s seems to have worked itself out. Not sure what happened but I will check those things you mentioned
