Not achieving Wifi 6 speeds with RAX200 on iPhone 11 or Intel Wifi 6 laptop card
I just received and set up my RAX200, and am not getting expected WiFi 6 speeds on my (only) WiFi 6 capable devices: an iPhone 11 Pro Max and an Intel WiFi 6 card in my Dell XPS 15.
I was previously using a Netgear Nighthawk R8500 for WiFi. I have gigabit internet service from Xfinity. On Ethernet, I average about 950+ Mbps. On WiFi, I averaged around 350-380 Mbps on most capable devices.
I did a simple swap-out, replacing the R8500 with the RAX200 (plugged into the same switch port on a Nighthawk S800). I used the same SSIDs so most of my devices will reconnect without issue.
After connecting the RAX200, my WiFi speeds are the same (at best) and often a little slower at times than the R8500 using the iPhone 11 and WiFi 6 card on my Dell XPS. I've restarted my modem (a Netgear CM1000), the router, the devices I'm connecting with, etc. I'm also using the latest firmware available as of October 2.
In the RAX200 setup, I'm using WAN Preference: Internet Port (1Gbps). Not sure if I'd see any improvement selecting either of the Multi-Gig options here, since my Xfinity service is 1Gbps.
In the RAX200 Setup > QoS Setup, the built-in Speedtest reports Download speed of 937Mbps, so it's seeing that speed from my modem, it's just not delivering anything close to that speed to my WiFi 6 devices.
I left most of the other RAX200 settings at default. Is there anything simple I'm overlooking for not getting virtually any WiFi speed increase on devices supporting WiFi 6?
Re: Not achieving Wifi 6 speeds with RAX200 on iPhone 11 or Intel Wifi 6 laptop card
Leave your wan preference at the 1gbps preference. The CM1000 doesn't support link aggregation and it only has a 1gig port. You won't see a benefit to changing it.
In terms of speed increase a couple questions.
1. Do you have 160hrz channels enabled?
2. What 5ghz channels are you using? 160ghz requires that dfs channels be used. If you aren't using these, you won't get the benefits.
3. Did you update the driver on your intel card? intel was pushing out quite a few updates when they first released it. make sure its on the latest driver from intel (not from dell) and make sure 160hrz is enabled within its settings.
Thanks for the advice. I'm not sure how to enable 160hz channels, I don't see much online related to that or how to enable it.
For channels, I'm currently running:
WiFi (2.4Ghz): Auto
WiFi (5Ghz 1): Channel 44 (from a choice of 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60,64)
WiFi (5Ghz 2): Channel 100 (from a choice of 100. 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128)
I don't see the option to select anything around 160hz.
I'm running the latest driver for the Intel AX200 card as of today.
>>>>>>>>> iphone 11 only support 2x2 up to 80MHz band so the max link rate is 1200Mbps
>>>>>>>>> regarding 160 or 80Mhz selection, you will find "the mode" up to xxxMbps. if you see up to 4800Mbps, the bandwidth is 160MHz. if 2400Mbps, it's 80Mhz
Re: Not achieving Wifi 6 speeds with RAX200 on iPhone 11 or Intel Wifi 6 laptop card
There are just too many problems with this unit. Two days in a row now I've woken up in the morning to find my WiFi network has just disappeared overnight. It may not have been a big deal if I just had a mobile phone or two connecting, but waking up to half a dozen Echo devices around the house with Alexa barking that she's "having trouble connecting to the internet"--and my wife and toddler not understanding why the internet isn't working again--is just too much to take for a $600 flagship product.
It went back to the store today. I've been a loyal Netgear consumer for years now, with several of their products in my home, but the next WiFi 6 router I look into is going to be from ASUS or another manufacturer. Netgear lost me on this one.
There are just too many problems with this unit. Two days in a row now I've woken up in the morning to find my WiFi network has just disappeared overnight. It may not have been a big deal if I just had a mobile phone or two connecting, but waking up to half a dozen Echo devices around the house with Alexa barking that she's "having trouble connecting to the internet"--and my wife and toddler not understanding why the internet isn't working again--is just too much to take for a $600 flagship product.
It went back to the store today. I've been a loyal Netgear consumer for years now, with several of their products in my home, but the next WiFi 6 router I look into is going to be from ASUS or another manufacturer. Netgear lost me on this one.
Did you ever contact NTGR support team? I believe they're willing to support you to fix all issues you have today.
