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Picked up a new router. Was going to pick up the Netgear R800P, but I saw the TP-Link AC4000 was over $100 less. If it didn't work out, then I'd return it and grab the Netgear. Long story short, that solved the problem. Looks like the R6400 is just a little too weak. You really need to go all out with the router. I'm sure the Netgear would've worked the same, but I couldn't pass up on the price.
With the new router in the same location as the old one, I'm now getting 220-240 D/L and U/L speeds. When I place it at the vicinity of my PC, it clocks in at 280-300Mbps U/l and D/L. Didn't tinker with anything. Just worked right out of the box.
Thanks all! Glad I bricked my Netgear so I can just go out and buy a new one.lol
UPDATE: I hit 400Mbps in WiFi. I'm getting more than I'm paying for? That's a first. Not sure how accurate that is. On another test just a few seconds after, 230/172. Screen shots attached.
Other devices I've used are: Samsung Note 8, iPhone XS Max
Note: I placed my laptop right next to the wireless router (not plugged in), and was getting 140Mbps-175Mbps. By far the highest I've ever reached. I then tested and plugged it in, was getting over 300Mbps D/L, 250-300Mbps+ U/L.
I can't move my desktop so I can only test WiFI. I was getting 50Mbps-90Mbps D/L, 100-140Mbps U/L.
I tested the laptop from where my desktop was, and consistently getting the same speed as the desktop. I'm checking for interference, but there is none. It's all clear and nobody is on the channel I'm on. (WiFi Analyzer)
I moved the wireless router about 20ft from the dektop, (It's as close as I can get it) and the speed has increased to around 140-160Mbps. Still far below the 300Mbps while wired though.
I turned off QOS, and it made it extremely worse. Both desktop and laptop were clocking in at 20-40Mbps with QOS unchecked. I've put everything back to factory settings.
I have Factory Reset the wireles router about 4 times now.
Is the R6400 v1 capable of raching over full subscribed speeds or is there a cap placed on each device? If so, how can that capped be removed?
Troubleshooting AC speeds can be tricky. You've done some of the right things already. I can help you with a few others.
First of all, remember a few things:
First, expectations: over-the-air bitrate is not the same as throughput bitrate. An AC1750 router like yours is capable of 1300kbps on 5GHz AC and 450kbps over the 2.4GHz n, but not simultaneously. So 1300kbps is the highest over the air rate bitrate for any one device. And the bitrate in this sense means that when it is actually transmitting data, that is the number of bits that can travel per second. Wi-fi's protocol overhead eats up a lot of that, Preamble, guard spacing, interframe spacing, back-off periods, acknowledgements - all those slow down wireless a lot more than wired.
Your laptop's chipset sounds like it may be the best of the bunch. The other devices in a multi-device environment may slow things down considerably for all involved. I can't tell from what you're posting on the Intel one (I need the model number), but a lot of Intel ones that come built-in to PCs are pretty limited.
Even when you do have several devices with individually good chipsets, not all of them play well with others. Many chipsets and/or the way they are implemented or their drivers are written are done such that they exploit wi-fi protocols to make themselves faster at the expense of other devices. This is so that they can publish great stats for how well they perform in the "real world" when for their stats "real world" means their device connected on a wi-fi network all alone. All it takes is two of these on the network at once and the throughput of each drops by more than half.
The best speeds are on 5Ghz channels in AC, and those frequencies are attenuated even more than 2.4GHz by almost everything. At that frequency, even the humidity in the air attenuates the signal.
Some advice:
Test each device alone on the network, one at a time, at various ranges from the base station. Try, if you can, to see the actual link rate you are connected at and what that link rate is doing at various ranges.
Once you do the above, try and get a sense for how each device interoperates with each other device. Try device pairs on the network at a time, trying the different combinations. This can quickly spiral to a lot of testing, but it's useful to do for the main players (laptop + PC, for example)
QoS isn't the only setting that affects how multiple devices work with each other. There is also the Airtime Fairness settings, which attempts to give each device an equal time slot rather than letting each one operate at the speed it is requesting. This is a setting that Netgear put in due to my third point above. See page 122 of your device's manual on how to change this setting. You can also try with and without beamforming.
Not all the settings on your router will interface with all your devices well. For example, not all your devices will themselves support beamforming. I would suggest reserving the 5GHz one for only those devices that support 1300kbps rates, beamforming, and that work well with others. Then relegate those devices without high speed AC support or those that don't work well with others to the 2.4GHz N network.
I'm not sure if the original R6400 supports other advanced wi-fi parameters, like short preamble, since the manual I'm looking at doesn't mention them. I think your model does support those settings. Some of those can affect how well single and multiple devices perform on the network and may be useful to play with. Keep in mind, with some of them it is easy to make the network work better for one or even two but worse for other devices.
Get as many devices off the wireless networks as you can, especially fixed assets like PCs. Good ole wired will always be better in and of itself and will relieve air congestion.
Remember, wi-fi ALWAYS is a trade of performance for convenience, no matter what the marketing guys say.
Sorry for a "and another thing" post, but I do want to add one point. That is, make sure you get Netgear's WiFi Analytics app. It is the best tool I have for network analysis. Lots of times you think tnhere aren't other networks on your channels and there are. Go to the "Channel Graph" tab, select all networks, and keep going back and selecting all networks as you walk around your home. Lots of times it takes a few minutes and some house wandering to get a true sense of all the other networks around.
Hi. Connecting to 5ghz. I've connected to this band with only one device when testing.
So I've used several devices to test, but the 2 main devices are my desktop and laptop.
Laptop: Acer E5 575G Intel i5-7200 2.5GHz 2.70Ghz Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377------this is a 1x1 AC solution. with max link speed of 433mbps. that's not throughput, its just link. Throughput is roughly 55% of link speed.
Desktop: B450 Gaming ITX/ac
Ryzen 7 1700 Octacore 3.0Ghz
Intel 802.11ac WiFi+BT 4.2--------Which one? intel makes 1x1 and 2x2 antenna solutions?
Other devices I've used are: Samsung Note 8, iPhone XS Max
Note: I placed my laptop right next to the wireless router (not plugged in), and was getting 140Mbps-175Mbps. By far the highest I've ever reached. I then tested and plugged it in, was getting over 300Mbps D/L, 250-300Mbps+ U/L.------Based on the 1x1 antenan configuration, might be decent without optimizing.
I can't move my desktop so I can only test WiFI. I was getting 50Mbps-90Mbps D/L, 100-140Mbps U/L.------Again, unknown wifi in desktop.
I tested the laptop from where my desktop was, and consistently getting the same speed as the desktop. I'm checking for interference, but there is none. It's all clear and nobody is on the channel I'm on. (WiFi Analyzer)
I moved the wireless router about 20ft from the dektop, (It's as close as I can get it) and the speed has increased to around 140-160Mbps. Still far below the 300Mbps while wired though.
I turned off QOS, and it made it extremely worse. Both desktop and laptop were clocking in at 20-40Mbps with QOS unchecked. I've put everything back to factory settings.-----Qos isn't recommended at speeds >250mbps because it disables CTF (allows speeds >250mbps).
I have Factory Reset the wireles router about 4 times now.
Is the R6400 v1 capable of raching over full subscribed speeds or is there a cap placed on each device? If so, how can that capped be removed?
Do I need to upgrade my PC's wireless chipset?
Thank you.
A couple points above. See the highlighted sections.
I'd advise taking a look at smallnetbuilders review of the R6400. it can hit faster speeds but it needs devices capable of it.
Another thought. Are you using access control or traffic monitoring?
Try reloading the newest firmware, factory reset 1 more time, and then manually install it (not from backup). during setup, only setup the wireless name/password, and whatever you need to get online. Don't change any other settings and see how it does.
Also, make sure you're testing on a site like dslreports.com i've found speedtest.com doesn't always choose the best server to test on and gives inconsistent speeds.
Well, I downgraded my firmware, then upgraded. In the process, I bricked this thing. Headed to the store right now to get a different, hopefully better, router. Any suggestions before I get there? Was looking at another Netgear or maybe a TP-Link one. AC1900.
Picked up a new router. Was going to pick up the Netgear R800P, but I saw the TP-Link AC4000 was over $100 less. If it didn't work out, then I'd return it and grab the Netgear. Long story short, that solved the problem. Looks like the R6400 is just a little too weak. You really need to go all out with the router. I'm sure the Netgear would've worked the same, but I couldn't pass up on the price.
With the new router in the same location as the old one, I'm now getting 220-240 D/L and U/L speeds. When I place it at the vicinity of my PC, it clocks in at 280-300Mbps U/l and D/L. Didn't tinker with anything. Just worked right out of the box.
Thanks all! Glad I bricked my Netgear so I can just go out and buy a new one.lol
UPDATE: I hit 400Mbps in WiFi. I'm getting more than I'm paying for? That's a first. Not sure how accurate that is. On another test just a few seconds after, 230/172. Screen shots attached.
Right. I actually scoured the pages to check on how to unbrick and found those articles. It was a big help! I was able to restore it. 🙂 Thanks again. I didn't want the 6400 to go to waste.
