Re: Nighthawk(R) X4S R7800

VR-Pirate · ‎2024-02-19

Hi Folks have a question

I'm based in the UK and have subscribed to Virgin Business Voom Gig1

I've had several Engineers call out to confirm I'm getting 1 GB line speed, into the house if I plug directly into the Virgin hub speed test also confirms I get 1GB,

The fun starts when I plug my Nighthawk R7800 router into the Virgin Hub. If I do a speed test from the Nighthawk OS straight away the speed drops to 500k if I plug my laptop into the R7800 via cat5, the same 500k.

FYI. I'm also running a mesh network with 4 additional Mesh Extenders.

Is anyone else experiencing similar behaviour? or maybe a better question is anyone able to get a full 1GB from their Night hawk R7800 when using RJ45

cheers

michaelkenward · ‎2024-02-19

@VR-Pirate wrote:

The fun starts when I plug my Nighthawk R7800 router into the Virgin Hub. If I do a speed test from the Nighthawk OS straight away the speed drops to 500k if I plug my laptop into the R7800 via cat5, the same 500k.

Is the Virgin Hub in bridge mode? (No router bit active?) Or is the R7800 in access point mode?

You should avoid having two routers on the network.

Two routers on your network can cause headaches. For example, you can end up with local problems with address on your network. Among other things, the other router can misdirect addresses that the Netgear router usually handles, such as routerlogin.net or the usual default IP address for a router, 192.168.1.1.

This explains some of the other drawbacks.

What is Double NAT? | Answer | NETGEAR Support

Unless you have specific reasons for using two routers – to create two separate networks for example – it is often easier to use just one router and then to set up the second router as a wifi access point (AP) with a wired connection to the main router. Netgear advises this, as does just about every site you will visit.

FYI. I'm also running a mesh network with 4 additional Mesh Extenders.

The R7800 doesn't have Mesh technology, which relies on communication between the extenders. Is there yet another router in there feeding those?

Is anyone else experiencing similar behaviour? or maybe a better question is anyone able to get a full 1GB from their Night hawk R7800 when using RJ45

What do the LAN Port connection statistics look like for the R7800?

VR-Pirate · ‎2024-02-19

@michaelkenward Thank you for the reply

Is the Virgin Hub in bridge mode? (No router bit active?) Or is the R7800 in access point mode?

The Virgin Hub is a cable modem being used as an external gateway (Only provides an external IP)

The R7800 Has both an External & Internal IP (Using DHCP for Internal IP) and has been set to Router mode

The R7800 doesn't have Mesh technology, which relies on communication between the extenders. Is there yet another router in there feeding those?

Have I used the wrong terminology? Is this not mesh networking?

I have 4 Netgear extenders connecting to the R7800 using

Enable Smart Connect - Let the router intelligently select the best 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz WiFi band for your WiFi connections. Smart Connect requires that the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WiFi networks use the same WiFi network name (SSID), security options, and password.

What do the LAN Port connection statistics look like for the R7800?

michaelkenward · ‎2024-02-19

@VR-Pirate wrote:

The Virgin Hub is a cable modem being used as an external gateway (Only provides an external IP)

Not sure that I get that. I am not familiar with the "external gateway" label. It isn't something that Google helps with either.

I do know, from recent conversations here, that at least some versions of the the Virgin Hub have a "bridge mode" option. Maybe they all do.

Help_L3_T4_S8_A1_MODEM_MODE_HUB_3 | Virgin Media

I only wish BT didn't lock me into its nasty HomeHub.

Have I used the wrong terminology? Is this not mesh networking?

I have 4 Netgear extenders connecting to the R7800 using

That's not true Mesh. Every time you move from one wifi source to another, the devices have to negotiate a connect to the new source. This means "leaving" the first source and "joining" the new one. I have done this and it mostly works just fine. But it isn't a genuine Mesh network. (For that look at the MK## and Orbi ranges.) It shouldn't get in the way of your network.

Your connection statistics show that your R7800 is happily connecting to the router a 1000 Mbps.

You earlier talked about a "speed test from the Nighthawk OS". What did you do?

If you use the Nighthawk app on a mobile device, the speed test it runs maybe initiated over the wifi link but it tests the speed between the router and the modem that goes out to the Internet.

Kitsap · ‎2024-02-19

If you have been doing mix and match with hardware and operating modes, a firmware default reset is in order for your R7800. A full configuration from scratch is best, do not restore a previous configuration file.

Historically, smart connect can result in a slow Wi-Fi connection with extenders and etc. Recommend testing with smart connect disabled.

Does your ISP support IPv6? If yes, it would be helpful to enable it in your R7800.