Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

FolioGraphic
Aspirant

Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

After upgrading to 1Gb Fibre at my home I was happy to get speeds over wifi of about 200Mbs on my old Orbi system but when more than a couple devices were being used I would see that drop to levels that I'll admit a more than acceptable but still far lower than I hoped and with more and more 4K video streaming and gaming between 5 people at the same time I didn't want to ever see lag again now that I have 1Gb Firbre. At great expense I upgraded to the new WIFI 6 Orbi model hoping that it would at the very least be able to handle more 200Mbs connections before slowing down but I've actually com to see my speed drop to around 175Mbs instead. Not worth my $1000 Cdn to get worse speeds. I have an AORUS X570 wifi pro which claims wifi 6 and so I was actually expecting to jump up to at least 400Mbs over wifi on this machine if not even closer to the 800 that would be the upper limit.

 

Now the speed test in the Orbi app is showing over 800Mbs but everything on wifi is down below 200 now. I need help trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong either in my computers wifi settings or the Orbi settings OR to figure out why I spent $1k?

 

So far I've:

updated the orbi drivers - no change

all drivers on the computer are updated - no change because they are always kept up to date. (unless it's an optional update I'd have to go looking for)

looked into X570 bios updates - nothing lists WIFI 6 changes in newer bios but if I have to I'll update it.

tested speeds on my phone - Slower now than they were on my previous orbi.

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Message 1 of 13
theoak
Luminary

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

Your home devices are also a factor.  What wifi do they support?  Single stream, multi stream, etc, etc.  For example, if all your devices are on the 2G band, they you are going to be lower than 5G.

 

Have you tried different locations for your Satellites?  Just because with the Orbi WiFi 5 the router and satellite location(s) worked, it still may mean that you have to adjust the satellite location for your Orbi WiFi 6 setup.

Message 2 of 13
FolioGraphic
Aspirant

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

Thanks for the reply, I am looking for any help to see if this is worth a $1k investment before I return it.

I have an AORUS X570 wifi pro (Motherboard on my new PC) which claims wifi 6 (I've also reached out to their forums about this looking for any suggestions as well) that has 15' straight LOS with the satelite and 1 wall and 25' from the main unit. Both Orbi's are exactly where the previous units were when I was gettting consistant wifi speeds over 200Mb/s.

 

Other devices are not expected to perform over this rate BUT the whole point was that with 4 devices using 200Mb/s at the same time the WIFI 6 should keep them all at that speed rather than slowing down because of total load. That has shown not to be the case so far AND I'm seeing a drop in speed on my wifi 6 PC with nothing else having changed except the new ORBI system. Every device in the device manager is on the 5Ghz channel or plugged directly into the unit but I'm looking specifically at wifi only. Multiple tests over several hours are all showing slower speed (Just now 165 which is way below the consistent 200+ I was getting) so it's HIGHLY unlikeley that some background dowloading or updating of devices is causing a slowdown.

 

Looking at this from the perspective of a non technical user, 0 benefits and 1 drawback so far. And if as you suggest this new device may not perform the same as its predecessor in the same locations, most users would benefit from knowing their old Orbi works better than the newest one priced 3 times higher.

 

Again, thank you for your response, I'll take anything that might be helpful.

 


@theoak wrote:

Your home devices are also a factor.  What wifi do they support?  Single stream, multi stream, etc, etc.  For example, if all your devices are on the 2G band, they you are going to be lower than 5G.

 

Have you tried different locations for your Satellites?  Just because with the Orbi WiFi 5 the router and satellite location(s) worked, it still may mean that you have to adjust the satellite location for your Orbi WiFi 6 setup.


 

Message 3 of 13
theoak
Luminary

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

25 feet between the router and the satellite may be a little close; especially, now that you have wifi 6 in the mix with newer/better hardware and capabilities.

 

Can you take the satellite out of the mix for a test and just use the router?  What do you get with just the router?

Message 4 of 13
FolioGraphic
Aspirant

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

That was a good suggestion. Ensuring that the wifi 6 PC was connected to the main unit rather than the satelite brought the speed back up to 250. That's back to and better than the 200 of the older unit.

 

I'll have to look into how to force my PC to connect only to the main unit now. And here are my "but"s

 

BUT, isn't wifi 6 supposed to be better than 250 in this situation? Again, I was expecting to get up to at least 400 and if I disconnect everything else I would expect it to approach it's 800 top end.

 

another BUT, that doesn't say much for the usefulness of the satelite and it's exclusive backhaul channel.

 

I'd still have to say that I'm not impressed at all with this, especially given the promises and price difference. 50mb/s faster (25% up rather than 100-200% I was expecting) but ONLY if the device is connected directly to the main unit?

 

all my "but"s aside, how do I enforce a connection only through the main unit and keep the outdoor range boosting of the satelite?

Message 5 of 13
theoak
Luminary

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

Can you find a farther position for the satellite?

 

Also, is your Orbi in Access Point mode?  Do you have another router in the mix?  Does that router have any sort of QoS bandwidth capping in the mix?  Maybe that needs to be set to 1 gig to match your ISP?

 

Edit:

 

If your older unit was giving you 200 ... and you are now at 250 ... that is a 25% improvement, which is not bad if you look at from that perspective.  Now ... if that 25% is worth $1k ... only you can decide that.

Message 6 of 13
FolioGraphic
Aspirant

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

Moving the satelite is not desireable because it's placed for convenience of other devices such as a printer to plug into it and remain on the same network as everything else.

 

I was debating about the AP mode versus Router mode but anything I looked up didn't indicate it would impact speed so I left it in Router mode. I will change it if you think it'll help.

 

As for the router provided by my ISP, if the orbi is plugged into it and it can test at over 800GB/s in the app then shouldn't that indicate there's no QoS capping on the gateway router? I'd rather not mess with the ISPs router if I don't have to.

 

I'd be happy with only 25% (was previously stuck at 13Mbs for my entire life so all of this is complaining about being in heaven because the sky isn't blue enough) if I knew for sure that the Orbi was maintaining that speed even with multiple high demand connections. That would be a worthwhile upgrade, so I'll have more testing to do once I've got this figured out.

 

And thanks again for taking the time to help.

Message 7 of 13
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

 

This was with a first wired speed test with my Orbi AX:

1st-Speed-Test.png

I do see near or over 900Mbps on my 1G plan. Wirless sees anything from 400-500Mbps on my iPhone 6sP. I don't have any AX mobile phones for pads as of yet. 

 

Be sure to visit and post about any Orbi AX stuff here:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi-AX/bd-p/en-home-orbi-ax

Message 8 of 13
FolioGraphic
Aspirant

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

Ya, wired is fine and what you're showing is what I'd expect and am not getting. Standing right next to the main unit my iPhone X is getting 230-250. And yours is in Router mode also. I wouldn't be suprised if I'm missing something obvious. There are 3 wireless routers all next to eachother because of the ISP routers having their own (Not so fast) wifi as well. Do you think interference between the 3 could be the problem?

Message 9 of 13
FURRYe38
Guru

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

Ya. Having too much wifi signals near by can cause problems. 

I have two routers online my self, not near each other and using manual far separated wifi channels. 1 an the other is on 11. I also turn down the power output on the 2nd router as to not cause anymore noise and I don't use the 2nd routers wifi as much, mostly for testing and such. 

 

Load up WiFi Sweet Spots on your phone to see the connection rate. Turn OFF ALL other wifi temporarily and all RBSs. Test the phone again with the RBR alone. 

 

Message 10 of 13
theoak
Luminary

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?


@FolioGraphic wrote:

Moving the satelite is not desireable because it's placed for convenience of other devices such as a printer to plug into it and remain on the same network as everything else.

 

I was debating about the AP mode versus Router mode but anything I looked up didn't indicate it would impact speed so I left it in Router mode. I will change it if you think it'll help.

 

As for the router provided by my ISP, if the orbi is plugged into it and it can test at over 800GB/s in the app then shouldn't that indicate there's no QoS capping on the gateway router? I'd rather not mess with the ISPs router if I don't have to.

 

I'd be happy with only 25% (was previously stuck at 13Mbs for my entire life so all of this is complaining about being in heaven because the sky isn't blue enough) if I knew for sure that the Orbi was maintaining that speed even with multiple high demand connections. That would be a worthwhile upgrade, so I'll have more testing to do once I've got this figured out.

 

And thanks again for taking the time to help.


 

If your ISP modem is bridged, do you have your Orbi in Router mode?

 

If your ISP modem is NOT bridged, but functioning as a router (hence DHCP, etc), I recommend putting your Orbi in Access Point mode.

Message 11 of 13
FolioGraphic
Aspirant

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

I don't know if the ISP modem is bridged it is functioning as a router but my Orbi was in Router mode. I changed it to AP mode and that made things worse. My phones speed at 2' went down to speeds around 100MBs.

 

I'm at a loss, I will have to contact my ISP and see if they have any input about their modems and what may be a problem.

Message 12 of 13
theoak
Luminary

Re: Uprgrade from RBR50 to RBK852 and now getting slower Wifi - any suggestions?

Okay ... in AP mode, try just the Orbi router, turning off the satellite.

 

(You recently tried the just the Orbi router in Router mode, with the satellite off.)

Message 13 of 13
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