Wireless speeds are atrocious (XR300 Nighthawk)

[Ukiechi]

Hi everyone!

Hope this finds you well. I have a Nighthawk XR300 that is hooked up to our fiber internet service. I replaced our old Apple Airport Extreme a few months ago (woohoo!). I have 2 devices wired to it, my desktop PC and a Playstation 4. Those devices regularly get about 520Mbps download and upload with Ping that always hovers between 1-5 ms. All in all, very happy. 

That being said, I live in a 800 sq foot apartment. When I am in my living room, maybe about 30 ft away from the router, my iPhone and any other wireless device (iPad, work laptop, etc.) I never crack above 10Mbps download or upload. When I am right next to the router, I improve to about 20Mbps download and 75Mbps upload which is a dramatic performance decrease compared to the old Airport. 

I've hopped on Netgear support and they actually replaced my router thinking it was a faulty device after a few hours of troubleshooting. Unfortunatley, it's the same exact issue with the new hardware making me think it's something with my settings. Is anyone able to help me troubleshoot? 

Thank you!

[plemans]

are you connecting to the 2.4ghz or 5ghz?

What speed do you get for each? 

[Ukiechi]

The speeds mentioned above are all 2.4 ghz. 

When I connect to 5GHz, the speeds increase to 180Mbps download and 80 Mbps upload from the living room. 382 Mbps download and 264 Mbps upload when standing next to the router. 

Is this a matter of moving over as many devices as we can to the 5ghz? 

[plemans]

I'd recommend moving as many as possible to 5ghz. 

Problem with 2.4ghz is that its much slower than 5ghz right off the bat. Plus its more sensitive to interference. Which if you live in an apartment, tends to have many routers/devices broadcasting on the 2.4ghz network. 

You can try changing what channel your 2.4ghz broadcasts on and it might help a little. 

I used to live in an apartment and had the same issue. I literally wouldn't buy a device if it didn't have 5ghz because of it. 

[Ukiechi]

Interesting. We have some small devices in the house (like security cameras connected via HomeKit or Apple Watches) that tend to straight up lose connection randomly. Not sure if I can switch these over to 5ghz but was always under the impression that anything that didn't require a ton of data should be on the 2.4 ghz. I do live in a building with a few other units and find myself close to a ton of other routers as I'm near downtown Chicago. Do you think the atrocious wireless speeds on 2.4 are just a consequence of living in an area with many devices nearby? 

[plemans]

it can be. Because 2.4ghz can broadcast further and through more materials, it tends to be worse in crowded environments like apartments/condos.
you're correct in that low bandwidth devices are fine on 2.4ghz but not if you're in one of those crowded environments that causes so much interference.
And again, you can try changing what channel the 2.4ghz broadcasts on to see if there's one with less interference. I'd recommend 1-6-11

[Netduma-Fraser]

Disable Smart Connect and connect devices to 5GHz manually for higher speeds. Use a WiFi analyzer to find the least congested channel on 2.4 & 5GHz and then change to that. It should improve performance for you.

[Ukiechi]

Hello! 

So after 2 months we still struggle with internet speeds. If I'm on my PS4 and desktop PC (which are both plugged in), I get about 400mbps download and upload) per second (paying for 1Gbps) but then anyone in the living room about 20 feet away is getting less than 50mbps on on the 5ghz location. 

It's hard to believe my girlfriend tells me to shut off one of my devices so she can facetime her family from the living room. anyone have any other recommendations for tweaks I can make in Duma? 

[Netduma-Fraser]

Did you adjust the channels as advised? Is the router surrounded by other electrical devices?

[Ukiechi]

Yes, unfortunately adjusting the channels didn't really solve much at all. 

And yes, the router is in the same room as my PC, PS4, and now recently a Peloton within the past few days. 

[Netduma-Fraser]

Just to test, put the router in AP mode, then test what you get through WiFi, is it higher or the same?

[Ukiechi]

Hi! 

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Access Point mode make my Nighthawk an extender? The modem I have it connected to isn't a router on its own so would I even be getting any connection connecting to it wirelessly in AP mode? 

Let me know! If I'm mistaken or misunderstood, I'm happy to try it out tonight once my partner and I are off work. 

[plemans]

What modem do you have? 

[Ukiechi]

When I first started experiencing these issues, I had Comcast Xfinitiy service with 650 mbps using this router and a Cisco DPC3008 modem. 

Now I have RCN Fiber Internet Service (1Gbps) using their proprietary modem as they told me there is no modem available that supports their new fiber internet. 

Either way, across both services/equipment, I have had the same speeds/issues with my wireless connection. When I switched to fiber, my wired speeds definitely increased (especially my upload speeds), but the wireless has remained the same less than 10mbps from my living room 20 feet away. 

[plemans]

What proprietary modem is it? 

If it is a gateway/router then putting the XR300 in ap mode is a valid test. Reason why is ap mode disables several features that could potentially be slowing it down. 

Always worth a shot. 

[Ukiechi]

To be honest, I can seem to see any sort of marker or indicator on it. I’m attaching a photo of what it looks like. White box on the left is where the fiber cable comes through from outside and black is the modem.

I set my router into AP mode and two things. One, I’ve never had a faster wired connection to my router from my PC. We’re now around 950 mbps upload and download. Two, nothing works at all via Wifi. I can’t even get back into Duma via routerlogin.net or router login.com .
All my devices see my router and I can connect to it but there is no internet connection.
How do I undo this?

[Ukiechi]

Hello again! 

So, I went ahead and factory reset my router. I couldn't get any internet connetion via Wifi on any device in AP mode. I also couldnt access any router settings or duma again. 

To recap, my wired internet speeds in AP mode shot up to: ~900mbps download/upload (highest I've ever seen them)

Now after a factory reset, my wired internet speeds on my PC are: ~775mbps download/850mbps upload. 

My iphone right next to the router via wifi, via speedtest iOS app: ~280mbps download/260 mbps upload

My iphone in the living room: ~150 mbps download/80mbps upload. (Even with the dropoff, this is still the highest I've ever seen it but I can update tomorrow to see if it has remained that way). 

Again, my living room is 20 feet from my router. I'm in a 800 sq foot apartment and I never had this tremendous of a drop off in my speeds using my old Apple Airport Extreme before purchasing this Nighthawk which almost always delivered the speeds I paid for (aside from this fiber which I never used it with). 

Any ideas on next steps? 

Thank you!

[Netduma-Fraser]

I would recommend upgrading to the same version using TFTP (this will bypass any issues in the boot process) and then do a factory reset for the freshest install possible and see if that helps: https://kb.netgear.com/000059634/How-to-upload-firmware-to-a-NETGEAR-router-using-Windows-TFTP

[Ukiechi]

We're back to normal I believe. That being said, it's the same issue. Day 1 of rebooting from scratch and setting up again was a bit faster via Wifi but there was still noticeable drop off by the time I left the room. And by today, we're back at the same low numbers. 

Wired Speeds: ~910mbps download/upload. 

Wireless next to router (2Ghz): 30mbps download/ 50 mbps upload

Wireless next to router (5Ghz): 300mbps download/upload

Wireless in living room (20 feet away) (2Ghz): 9mbps download/upload

Wireless in living room (5Ghz): 50mbps download/upload  

[Netduma-Fraser]

Sorry to hear that @Ukiechi is that after doing the TFTP install followed by a reset?

[Ukiechi]

Hi!

Apologies for the delay. I've just returned home after the holidays! No worries at all! 

Unfortunately, yes, that is after a TFTP install & reset. 

[Netduma-Fraser]

Once you've done a reset are you changing any settings at all after the initial high speed results?

[Ukiechi]

Anti-bufferbloat is set to "never" 

QOS has all bandwidth allocation the same among all devices. 

Haven't updated anything since the reset though. 

I've been online the past 3 days and can't even consistently stay connected to a Microsoft  Teams or Zoom Video chat with my laptop on the 5G network 2 feet from the router. 

[Netduma-Fraser]

Take the MAC address of the Airport and apply that to the XR300 in Internet Settings, then reboot the router, are speeds more consistent then?

[Ukiechi]

Unfortunately, I sold off my Airport when I got my Nighthawk a little over a year ago. I'm not sure I can obtain what the MAC address was for it.