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last week Cox installed the GigaBlast fiber optic 1 gig internet at my home. I'm running into an odd situation where their supplied R6300 router gets fast speed tests and my R8500 will almost never go over 500 up and down. Their R6300 will get 800s down and 900s up, as well as when I plug the ONT (fiber modem) directly into my computer ... but my R8500 is choking. The installed firmware on the R8500 is current, V1.0.2.64_1.0.62, and interestingly enough the firmware on the Cox-supplied R6300 indicates a firmware revision ending with "COX." I would suspect it's the custom Cox firmware but in other areas of this forum I've seen at least one person with an R8500 router getting excellent speeds on fiber. I've checked settings on both routers side by side screen for screen and they all match. I've tried different ports on the R8500, turning off the wi-fi, unplugging all other devices, etc. Any thoughts?
There are certain features that, when enabled, disable hardware acceleration. This forces the general purpose CPU to handle packet forwarding. Unfortunately, the CPU cannot handle Gigabit speed Internet service. These features include QoS, traffic metering, block sites, port forwarding/triggering, MAC address filtering (I think), MAC address cloning and maybe one or two other features. You should disable these and reboot the router. Then retry the speed test.
There are certain features that, when enabled, disable hardware acceleration. This forces the general purpose CPU to handle packet forwarding. Unfortunately, the CPU cannot handle Gigabit speed Internet service. These features include QoS, traffic metering, block sites, port forwarding/triggering, MAC address filtering (I think), MAC address cloning and maybe one or two other features. You should disable these and reboot the router. Then retry the speed test.
YOU ... are a genius. I disabled the only thing I had running that was on your suggested list, that being access control otherwise known as MAC address filtering ... everything else was already turned off ... and voila, 765 down and 954 up. Thing is - if Netgear is going to advertise this as a gigabit router etc. etc. and include these useful features to lure me to buy it then I figure said gigabit and features should be able to, you know, all be turned on at the same time, right? ARGH.
I hope Netgear is listening!
But thanks for your advice, you definitely hit the nail right on the head.
This is not NETGEAR's fault but the way CTF (Cut Through Forwarding) works. If you use something that needs to inspect/know packets, then CTF won't work due to its very nature being incompatible with it. NETGEAR can't "fix" this and it's the same across all other router brands that also use CTF.
The issue is what they don't print on the box. They usually have some * with a blip on speeds blah blah but don't say anything about how options could slow throughput.
