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Disclaimer: both of my R7000s are more than 2yo so they are not under warranty.
Preambule: I had Comcast 100/20. Switched to WoW 500/50. I have two R7000. RouterA acts as a router (DHCP/ACL and so on); RouterB acts as an AP.
Issue: Once switched to WoW I was not able to get more than 350mbps down when wired into RouterA. When wired into the cable modem directly - I'm getting 500mbps down.
What was done: currently not using RouterA absolutely - WoW rented me a Gateway that acts as DHCP server now. RouterB is still hardwired into this gateway via Gigabit switch.
WLAN: Cable Gateway -> Gigabit swith -> RouterB (in AP mode) -> WLAN device
I have four devices hardwired into Gigabit switch - all are showing 500mbps down. Once I take one of these devices and hardwire it into RouterB's gigabit LAN port - down speed is capped at 350mpbs. Makes no sense since R7000 in AP mode makes no routing decisions and has QoS and WAN settings disabled by default.
Anyone had this issue before? Is it firmware issue? Bug? Or some setting that had been set before the router was switched to AP mode and it got greyed out?
This is a known issue. AP mode disables hardware acceleration between the WAN and LAN ports. The workaround is to connect the R7000 to the network via one of its LAN ports. IOW, leave the WAN port disconnected. Note: You will lose the ability to log into the router's setup pages. Move the cable back to the WAN port for maintenance. Alternatively, disable AP mode and disable the DHCP server. Assign a sensible, unused IP address in the subnet. Then connect via the LAN port.
Seems like you are experiencing a similar issue to what I am seeing on the R9000, in that WAN to LAN routing is causing a reduction in bandwidth. In my situation if I connect directly to the modem then my download speed is roughly 960Mbs, but if I connect via the R9000 then I can only see around 820Mbs.I dont have any answers but you are not alone. I am thinking of trying dd-wrt to see if this is a firmware thing or a hardware thing.
Seems like you are experiencing a similar issue to what I am seeing on the R9000, in that WAN to LAN routing is causing a reduction in bandwidth. In my situation if I connect directly to the modem then my download speed is roughly 960Mbs, but if I connect via the R9000 then I can only see around 820Mbs.I dont have any answers but you are not alone. I am thinking of trying dd-wrt to see if this is a firmware thing or a hardware thing.
Amen to that, brother. I'm considering two options at the moment:
1. Resetting my routers to factory defaults (hard reset)
Solved an issue on my RouterA (which was acting as a router). It seems like disabling "AIRTIME FAIRNESS" feature brought the download speeds on this router to full 500. RouterB, however, (the one that is acting as an access point) is still capped at 400mbps even with this feature disabled. I'm continuing investigation.
This is a known issue. AP mode disables hardware acceleration between the WAN and LAN ports. The workaround is to connect the R7000 to the network via one of its LAN ports. IOW, leave the WAN port disconnected. Note: You will lose the ability to log into the router's setup pages. Move the cable back to the WAN port for maintenance. Alternatively, disable AP mode and disable the DHCP server. Assign a sensible, unused IP address in the subnet. Then connect via the LAN port.
@TheEther wrote: This is a known issue. AP mode disables hardware acceleration between the WAN and LAN ports. The workaround is to connect the R7000 to the network via one of its LAN ports. IOW, leave the WAN port disconnected. Note: You will lose the ability to log into the router's setup pages. Move the cable back to the WAN port for maintenance. Alternatively, disable AP mode and disable the DHCP server. Assign a sensible, unused IP address in the subnet. Then connect via the LAN port.
Yep. That seems to be the case.. Here's what I found 20 minutes ago online.
With the way netgear routers do their AP mode, you still lose the acceleration. The only way I found to get the benefits of AP mode, and not lose throughput, is to change the router's IP to something else, (e.g., from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.10), then disable the DHCP server on the router, and then do a LAN to LAN connection.
This allows the WiFi radio to still function normally, as well as the network shares, and you still be able to log into the router, and not lose any performance.
Already tested it. I still can get to router's set up page by using the IP address I've assigned to it (not routerlogin.com) though. Thanks for your input. Also, have to add, that upon further testing Access Control feature is what's affecting throughoutput severely as well when the router is in regular mode.
DD-WRT doesn't support hardware acceleration, period.
Other firmware, such as Tomato and Asuswrt-Merlin, do support hardware acceleration but, AFAIK, they suffer the same problem. It's simple enough to disable the DHCP server and use a LAN port. The only downside is that you lose a LAN port. Nothing that an inexpensive Gigabit switch can't make up for.
In my case RouterA is acting as DHCP server. RouterB was just an access point. So when I performed all the actions by falling RouterB back to the router mode (not AP), RouterA was still acting as DHCP server. RouterB is a simple pass-through hop for IP assignment. When wireless device connects to RouterB the IP address request is sent to DHCP server on RouterA, RouterA returns it back to RouterB, and then RouterB passes it to the wireless device.
Right, but in my case where I only have the one router I cant use the workaround as I will need the router for DHCP and as such will continue to experience the internet performance hit due to the lack of hardware accelleration. Is that correct?.
Right, but in my case where I only have the one router I cant use the workaround as I will need the router for DHCP and as such will continue to experience the internet performance hit due to the lack of hardware accelleration. Is that correct?.
So your R9000 is connected directly to the modem? If this is the case - are you using Access Control on your router? If you do - try disabling it and see if it resolves the issue. In my case on my RouterA (which was connected directly to the modem) I was getting 350mbps (out of 500) until I disabled Access Control. Once disabled - it went up to 500mbps.
My cable gateway is a motorola mb8600. Can it function as router? I dont see anything I can configure on it.
Sorry, I'm confused, too. Your OP stated that your cable gateway was functioning as the DHCP server. And the way it's set up, gateway->switch->devices+AP, is typical for a gateway that has a built in router.
The mb8600 is, in fact, a pure modem, in which case your set up is broken. It should always be modem->router->switch->devices. Convert your AP back into a router and reconnect as I have shown.
Yeah, I should have started another post as I initially responded to this post and then thought the solution proposed would also apply to me. My config is Motorola 8660->R9000 and I am experiencing the same WAN->Lan speed drop, and it looks like this is due to the lack of hardware acceleration and there is nothing I can do to correct it. Bummer.....
LOL. I didn't notice that you are not the OP. In addition to the features that slash1981 mentioned, you should also disable MAC address cloning. I believe port forwarding/triggering/UPnP are also not hardware accelerated, but only for those ports in question.
It might be simplest for you to reset the router to factory settings. Then perform a minimal setup. Wi-Fi and LAN settings, no more. Don't use the USB ports, Readyshare, Plex, etc. Just use it as a router.
