Re: Orbi Satellite Slowdown

Bandito · ‎2018-12-30

I continue to have problems with one Orbi satellite that after two-three days of use slows it's throughput dramatically. I can normally connect and get a full 300 Mpbs connection via the satellite, but after it has been running for a couple of days the throughput will drop to about 30-40 Mbps. Simply restarting the satellite restores the full speed connection. It is very consistent.

I have tried some different locations for the satellite and that has no impact to this problem. I have reflashed it, reset to factory defaults, and reconnected it to the router, but nothing makes any difference. After two-three days of running normally, its throughput drops down to about one-tenth of normal. I even replaced this satellite with a new one and it does the exact same thing. I have tried enabling and disabling daisy-chaining, but neither setting makes a difference. My satellites are laid out in a star configuration. Whenever the throughput slowdown kicks in, I check the connection status of the satellite to the router and it reports that it is "Good", whatever that means.

I have an RBK53 system with one router and two satellites. The other satellite works as expected and experiences no slowdowns in throughput. I am at my wits end with this one and cannot think of anything else to try. It shouldn't be this difficult to build a reliable wireless network. I have spent too many hours trying things out and waiting to see if there is an improvement, all to no avail. I have tried several other brands of mesh systems and while they seem to be more stable, they are all considerably slower in throughput, so the Orbi wins out overall with regard to throughput, but reliability is non-existent in my setup.

If anyone has something additional that's rational for me to try, I'm all ears.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-12-30

I would contact NG support about this. If one satellite is working and the other isn't and you've already tried different things, it's just probably a bad satellite that needs to be replaced.

@Blanca_O

Bandito · ‎2018-12-30

As I mentioned, I already replaced the satellite and it made no difference. The new one does the same thing as the original one did. Also, I’m not inclined to pay the support fee as there isn’t anything else that they can do to my knowledge. Netgear promises fixes in future updates and strings you along until your warranty is up and then you’re on your own.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-12-31

SO if you turn off the the working satellite and use the new one, same thing still happens? What is the setting currently on Daisy Chain?

Try setting it for checked as enabled.

Are you using manual channels on 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz? Try 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4 and 36 thru 48 on 5Ghz.

Seems that if one satellite doesnt' work and a 2nd one doesn't, wondering if the router could be faulty...

Bandito · ‎2018-12-31

Yes, exactly. The original and replacement both experience the slowdown after a couple of days in operation.

I don’t believe the router is at fault as the other satellite works at full speed and if I go and link directly to the router itself, I still get a full speed connection.

Thanks for for the suggestion. I think it’s highly unlikely to be the culprit, but it is a possibility.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-12-31

Might try a FW re-load on both router and the one satellite using IE11 or FF. Do a full factory reset and set up from scratch on both. Turn OFF The working satellite and see if the one in question shows the problem or not...

Blanca_O · ‎2019-01-03

Hi @Bandito

We’d greatly appreciate hearing your feedback letting us know if the information FURRYe38 provided has helped resolve your issue or if you need further assistance.

If issue still persist, please PM me your name, email address, phone number and device serial number so we can have our support team look into this issue further.

Regards,
Blanca
Community Team

ekhalil · ‎2019-01-03

@Bandito wrote:

Yes, exactly. The original and replacement both experience the slowdown after a couple of days in operation.

I don’t believe the router is at fault as the other satellite works at full speed and if I go and link directly to the router itself, I still get a full speed connection.

Thanks for for the suggestion. I think it’s highly unlikely to be the culprit, but it is a possibility.

@Bandito, one question, do you have any wired devices connected to the "bad" Satellite? Any mesh speakers (e.g. Sonos)? 🙂

Bandito · ‎2019-01-04

The only thing wired to the ORBI satellite is a Blu-ray player that generally is turned off.

I do have Sonos speakers, but they connect via a Sonos Boost.

ekhalil · ‎2019-01-04

@Bandito wrote:

The only thing wired to the ORBI satellite is a Blu-ray player that generally is turned off.

I do have Sonos speakers, but they connect via a Sonos Boost.

And where’s the Sonos Boost wired to?

Bandito · ‎2019-01-05

The Sonos Boost is connected to the Orbi router.

ekhalil · ‎2019-01-05

@Bandito wrote:

The Sonos Boost is connected to the Orbi router.

Have you tried to disconnect it and see if there will be any improvement?

Bandito · ‎2019-01-05

No, I haven’t. Why would I want to? Is it known to cause issues?

Even if it caused issues, shouldn’t it work with all network equipment?

I can’t currently test for this as I have taken down the Orbi system to test out the Linksys Velop. It seems to be working well, so far, but the throughput is quite a bit slower than the Orbi.

Please let me know your thinking about the Sonos Boost. When and if I go back to the Orbi system I will consider testing without it.

ekhalil · ‎2019-01-05

@Bandito wrote:

No, I haven’t. Why would I want to? Is it known to cause issues?

Even if it caused issues, shouldn’t it work with all network equipment?

I can’t currently test for this as I have taken down the Orbi system to test out the Linksys Velop. It seems to be working well, so far, but the throughput is quite a bit slower than the Orbi.

Please let me know your thinking about the Sonos Boost. When and if I go back to the Orbi system I will consider testing without it.

I noticed -as well as others have also reprted- that wiring Sonos to Orbi causes different network issues and affects the performance of the system. The latest SW releases in Orbi were focused on fixing Ethernet backhaul and -my guessing- is that intruduced some bugs affecting wired devices.

I had too many issues when I had my speakers wired to Orbi and all issues just disappeared when I selected to connect my speakers wirelessly instead. I have now both a stable Orbi and a great robust wireless audio system since the wifi coverage is awsome everywhere at home and all 10 speakers have stable connections.

Bandito · ‎2019-01-05

Okay. I have not experienced any issues with the Sonos system, so have never been concerned with it. I added the Boost long before I had the Orbi system as the router had too weak a signal for some of the Sonos speakers. With the Orbi system that should no longer be the case. Also, I have never used a wired backhaul, so don’t know about any issues related to that.

My understanding is that the backhaul on the Orbi utilizes the 5 GHz band, so I would question why the Sonos on the 2.4 GHz band would have any impact on it. My thinking here is that I suspect that something is going on with the backhaul that causes the satellite to lose throughput. This is only conjecture as I have no direct evidence of this. When checking the slowed satellite’s status it always reports a ‘Good’ status for the connection.

On another note, the problem with the satellite slowing down has been ongoing for a long time and has continued over many firmware updates

ekhalil · ‎2019-01-05

I'm not sure how the Sonos Boost or Sonos Connect work and why these -somehow- affect Orbi when wired, but please have a look at a similar issue to yours in the following post:

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Orbi/Wired-back-haul-better/m-p/1652855/highlight/true#M43700

Bandito · ‎2019-01-11

Well, I redeployed my Orbi system and moved the Sonos speakers over to WiFi and off of Sonosnet and then turned off the Boost. The system has been running like this for two days now and when I went to do app updates on my iPhone today, I noticed that they were slow. I did a speed test and sure enough, the satellite has slowed down as usual.

Thanks for the suggestion ekhalil, but unfortunately that isn’t the problem that I’m encountering.

Any other ideas?

Bandito · ‎2019-01-14

I have been contacted by Netgear Technical Support and we are working on try to resolve the issue. If we figure out what’s going on, I’ll update here.

mdbrit · ‎2019-02-18

Any update on this?

My Orbi system is doing the exact same thing. After a restart I get 4-500mbps. Eventually over time I will check it and it's down to 20-30. I have gigabit fiber internet. Really frustrating. ABout to give up on it as what's the point of paying for gig ethernet otherwise??

FURRYe38 · ‎2019-02-19

What FW is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too?
Is the Orbi system operating in Router or AP mode?
Are you speed testing wireless or wired?

What is the size of your home? Sq Ft?
What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between them to begin with depending upon building materials.

What channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz.
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many?
What WPA security modes are you using?

Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO.

Try disabling the following and see:
Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6

@mdbrit wrote:

Any update on this?

My Orbi system is doing the exact same thing. After a restart I get 4-500mbps. Eventually over time I will check it and it's down to 20-30. I have gigabit fiber internet. Really frustrating. ABout to give up on it as what's the point of paying for gig ethernet otherwise??

Bandito · ‎2019-02-22

Netgear has me on beta firmware currently, but it does the exact same thing. Every 2-3 days the speed drops drmatically.

it would appear by the connection speeds that the backhaul is dropping down to one of the 2.4 GHz bands, but the system still reports that it’s connected via 5 GHz. It’s really frustrating and ruins the experience of an otherwise great system. <Sigh>

ekhalil · ‎2019-02-22

@Bandito wrote:

........

it would appear by the connection speeds that the backhaul is dropping down to one of the 2.4 GHz bands, but the system still reports that it’s connected via 5 GHz. It’s really frustrating and ruins the experience of an otherwise great system. <Sigh>

Backhaul links in Orbi use DFS channels. It can be that periodically your Orbi detects radar signals and changes the backhaul to other channels which will affect the throughput.

There is a log file in Orbi that logs radar detections with timestamps. Please follow the following steps to print your radar detection logs and see if the times correspond with when you think the speed goes down:

From browser go to the router's debug page (http://192.168.1.1/debug.htm). Use your router's IP address or http://orbilogin.com/debug.htm
Enter admin as user name and your router’s management password
Tick "Enable Telnet" option
Use Telnet to connect to your Router telnet 192.168.1.1 and enter admin and the same password as above
Enter the command:
1. root@RBR50:~# cat /var/radardetect.log

Bandito · ‎2019-02-24

I checked for the radardetect.log file, but it doesn't exist.

root@RBR50:/# cat /var/radardetect.log

cat: can't open '/var/radardetect.log': No such file or directory

I also browsed through the /var directory to see if there was anything else that came close to the radar name, but there was nothing.

I didn't think that this was very likely as we live in the middle of a large development with slow speeds and are about a mile away from the nearest highway.

Thanks for the recommendation. It's always good to check everything, but unfortunately it appears to be another dead end.

bobluck · ‎2019-07-05

Won't be buying another one of these things. Reboot router fast WiFi for a couple of days ~200mbs then straight to ~40mbs, reboot rinse and repeat. Hardly what I would call a joyful experience. Wired connections maintain ~220mbs so looks like memory corruption or some other issue on the WiFi side of things. Netgear please look into this.

Bandito · ‎2019-07-05

Not to rub salt in your wounds, but I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one suffering from this problem.

I have been working directly with Netgear Engineering on this now for several months, but so far no luck in figuring out the problem and getting it resolved.

To add insult to injury, every few months the router will get confused and stop passing some traffic between WiFi and the hard-wired LAN. This gets really confusing when it occurs because some things behave normally and some on the hard-wired LAN don’t work, but some do. It might be related to DHCP and renewing the connection failing somehow, but a reboot of just the router gets things going again <SIGH>.

I wish someone else would come out with a nice tri-band system that was as fast as the Orbi’s are. Maybe one of the new WiFi 6 systems will be better.