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Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

billcook
Tutor

Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

I have an Orbi Router and Satellite running the .34 firmware.

 

My Wi-Fi Smart TV, work laptop, Android phones all work perfectly fine.

 

My Windows 10 laptop, though, does not. It connects just fine to Orbi and the internet and everything is groovy. I can go to speedtest.net and see 30-35 Mbps download speeds, always slightly above what I contract for. I can use the laptop to surf the internet and it will be just fine for a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days.

 

Then instantly and out of nowhere, with no pattern to what I might be doing, my internet speed will drop to 1 Mbps or even less. The ping test I did today returned 1,267 milliseconds.

 

It does not recover by itself (I've waited hours to see if it would) Rebooting does not solve the problem. The only way I've found is to do a "netsh int ip reset" and then reboot, after which everything is fine until it happens again (and again, I might be good for a few days or just a few minutes--no way to know).

 

Oddly, this also happens on my wife's Windows 10 laptop, but not at the same time. I can be at 30 Mbps happily surfing along and her speed will drop to <1 Mbps, or vice versa.

 

My previous router was a Linksys EA6900 AC1900 and I did not have any problem like this (only spotty coverage throughout the house)

 

 

The Orbi auto-updates the firmware, so I don't know when it switched from the previous firmware to .34, but I've had this problem for some time. At first I thought it was my ISP but they did everything to resolve it and I'm quite satisfied it's not them. It happens any time of day, whether I'm connected to the router or satellite (this last point is an assumption, I'm either sitting next to the router or satellite and they're far enough away that I assume I'm connecting to one or the other).

 

Nothing is running on my computer that might cause this kind of symptom (and even so, would probably just suck up bandwidth, not kill it).

 

The Orbi logs do not show anything.

 

I thought I had seen discussion on this before, but could not find it. If there was and I can be pointed to it, great. Otherwise...any thoughts on what might be causing this or how to troubleshoot it?

 

I really, really want to love this device, but this problem is standing in the way of that. Thanks for your thoughts...

Message 1 of 19
bobpenn
Star

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

Happening with my iPhone and iPad all the time. Not sure what is the cause yet. Running .34 firmware, too. I hope they will resolve it with the next update.

Message 2 of 19
billcook
Tutor

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

Interesting.

 

I'm curious, how do you know that it's dropping on those devices? Are you using an app or website to confirm what the drop is?

 

It's "good" news for me (and you) because with all the pieces of the puzzle it could be, it's good to know it's not just iPads or not just Windows 10 laptops. I'm fairly certain it's some software defect in the router itself but would never be able to prove that myself, so yes, I'm hopeful that Netgear is working on this one.

Message 3 of 19
DarrenM
Sr. NETGEAR Moderator

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

Our engineers are aware of the issues with IOS devices and are working to fix this. I do not have a ETA on the fix or firmware but I will post when I hear something about this.

 

DarrenM

Message 4 of 19
billcook
Tutor

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

By that, I'll assume you don't know of that issue on Windows 10 Smiley Indifferent

 

By way of troubleshooting, I bought a Netgear A6100 Dual-band USB Network Card to test with. It's only been, oh...24 hours of online time but I haven't had a problem yet. Perhaps Orbi doesn't work as well with an 802.11n card built into my laptop.

 

I'll do my best to remember to update this thread in a week or so about whether I've additional problems.

Message 5 of 19
billcook
Tutor

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

As noted above, I added a Netgear A6100 Dual-band USB network card to my laptop to see if that made a difference. Connecting via 802.11ac (obviously).

 

After five days and about 15+ hours of usage, I've not had one instance where the speed drops. My wife's laptop, with an 802.11n card, on the other hand is almost permanently slowed.

 

It seems that Orbi doesn't do so well with the 802.11n card? Or maybe just this specific card or driver for some reason? I'm going to update her laptop tonight. If it solves the problem, then we have the answer. I'll update this thread.

Message 6 of 19
Mgomez85
Apprentice

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

I started a tread about speed dropping also, it only seems to happen to me when my devices switch to the sat unit! The funny part is! When I look at the sat unit after a reboot, I get a blue light, and the status page says my connection is good (blue) but if I go where my router is and my phone switches back my speed bumps right back up! I dunno what could be causing this! As there is no way to change any major settings in the sat unit!! Hey billcook do you notice this issue when ur connected to the sat unit or the router? Am wondering if your experiencing the same issue I am having!
Message 7 of 19
Mgomez85
Apprentice

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

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Message 8 of 19
Mgomez85
Apprentice

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

This test was done on my iPhone 7 plus and I haven't moved off my bed! Lol 😂😂 took that test after I notice my fb video playback started to buffer.  Both test was done same day, just a few mins or hours apart and there is a serious problem there dunno why the sat unit does that but yea router works fine tho

Message 9 of 19
billcook
Tutor

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

@Mgomez85 For me in my house, I'm either near the router or near the satellite. I'm rarely far from one or the other. So, to be honest, I just assume that's what I'm connected to (and haven't even bothered to check--I'm not even sure where to check!). In my case, it doesn't matter.

 

However, my suggestion to you is:

 

1. Contact Netgear support. You might simply have a defective Satellite unit.

2. As @DarrenM notes above, Netgear is working on this or a similar issue. Tech support should be able to confirm whether or not your situation matches that and if you should therefore expect a fix.

 

Message 10 of 19
billcook
Tutor

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

Last update on my situation. Hopefully someone will find the information useful. Also that Netgear tech support make note of it.

 

As noted above, my wife's laptop was having the same slowness, but even worse than mine was.

 

I installed the Netgear USB card into her computer and instantly the problem went away: it ran at full speed, the speed never dropped and seemed rock solid for the 3-4 hours she was online (testing for work at 9:00 pm -- boo!)

 

So it appears that at least that's some sort of answer. The 802.11n card I had did not seem to work too well. The 802.11ac card resolved it.

 

Our laptops are getting old and we're talking about upgrading (I'm dying for a Microsoft Surface) but for now a $30 network card upgrade buys a few months.

Message 11 of 19
B747driver
Star

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

I read the following review on Amazon last night and thought it miight be helpful to some here.

 

"A very sleek looking system that NOW gives me a reliable and fast internet connection throughout my four-story townhouse.

I downgraded one star because I almost sent the system back. When I first set it up, the connection would go dead every twenty minutes or so. The online forums, both Netgear's and independent ones, included posts from others with similar experiences and various convoluted solutions that sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.

I decided to call Netgear, and the patient customer service person walked me through a fairly simple solution that I thought I should share here. As with most computer hardware when first hooking it up, step one is to update the software, which seemed to work perfectly. However, it turns out that the automatic update worked only for the base module and NOT the satellite, which has separate software. This mismatch of software releases apparently caused the intermittent dropping of the network. After manually loading the satellite software update from the Netgear website and installing it, the system worked flawlessly, and has ever since.

It would have been helpful for this to have been explained somewhere in the materials sent with the product, but of course nowadays you get virtually no documentation at all."

 

EDIT:  How to manually update Orbi satellite firmware

Message 12 of 19
saronian
Star

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

Thanks for posting.

 

I received an email from "emarketing@e.netgear.com" on 1/31/17 explaining the issue you describe along with a remedy.

 

"We have found an issue where the auto firmware update for your Orbi satellite might not complete properly"

Message 13 of 19
billcook
Tutor

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

Interesting.

 

That doesn't seem to be the problem here as the problem went away with the upgraded NIC, but that's definitely something that anyone watching this thread will want to check out.

 

Thanks.

Message 14 of 19
loomis1975
Luminary

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

We have an older Lenovo gaming laptop (guessing its around 4 to 5 years old now) thats been updated to Windows 10 that had built in 802.11N 2.4GHZ only wifi that did not play well with Orbi (and Linksys Velop as well, I test a lot of Wifi gear and then setup stuff for friends and family).  I am not sure what it is about some of these newer Routers and Whole Home Wifi systems, but this particular laptop would drop speeds all the time, just lose internet connectivity every couple minutes to an hour, where you had to click to turn wifi off, then back on manually to get internet access back, or just straight disconnect and reconnect erratically sometimes.

 

At some point, you have to try something else, and I got a simple AC450 nano adapter that isn't a problem leaving in a usb port on a laptop all the time (think same size as a logitech unifying usb receiver).  And its working like a charm.  Bonus on the particular nano adapter I got is one, its cheap, and two, its 5 Ghz only, so its not even able to switch to 2.4 Ghz, which helps with troubleshooting.  It connects consistently at its top speed 433 Mbps on the network (its usb 2.0 so 480 would be its ceiling anyway) and when the network is quiet, I see all of my alloted internet bandwidth show up on speednet tests.

 

Now I got my eye on another new Nano usb 3.0 adapter that is AC1200 802.11AC Wave 2 MU-MIMO capable that I want to try out with the Orbi and Velop.

Message 15 of 19
billcook
Tutor

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

Interestingly, my laptop is also a Lenovo. And the solution was the same: a new NIC.

 

You (and others) have mentioned two problems:

 

- WI-FI connectivity slowing down.

- WI-FI connectivity dropping completely.

 

 

I strongly suspect that the second one is a symptom of the power-saving features of most laptops that can turn off the WIFI card to save battery. I've routinely turned this off and I think that's why I don't see it that particular issue. I also suspect that the drivers for newer cards are much more intelligent about this (I'll admit that the pwer saving is at least partially managed at the system level, not the card level, so I'm just spitballing here) and may be part of the reason the dropping problem goes away with the upgrade.

 

Anyway, excellent information. I had trouble finding anything on this issue, which is why I started this thread. I think it will be helpful to the next poor schmoe that comes along.

Message 16 of 19
Mgomez85
Apprentice

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

Hey bill my sat unit is not defective, its brand new, I just recently replace it with a bad unit so I know it's not defective, also the problem only seems to be affecting iOS devices, not other devices on my system so if I was to make a educated guess I'll say it seems to a software issue instead of a hardware, guess I gotta wait for those firmware that's coming been months now and still haven't seen a update, I hope that new firmware involves a lot of fixes since it's taking forever 😩
Message 17 of 19
DarrenM
Sr. NETGEAR Moderator

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

NETGEAR is aware of an issue affecting some users where wireless client devices frequently disconnect/reconnect from the Orbi WiFi network. We’re actively working on the issue and hope to have a solution soon.

 

Thank You

DarrenM

Message 18 of 19

Re: Internet Speed Drops Suddenly

Re iOs devices. I was also having issues with iOS. Wondering if you can provide the latest status update from the engineers on this issue. 

 

Thanks.

Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
Message 19 of 19
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