Orbi rbk50 90% performance drop over 2-3 days, memory leak?

[bariswheel]

I found another post, it seems there are hundreds of people reporting symptoms where their 300Mbps connection drops to 30Mbps. Completely unacceptable known issue. 

I updated the firmware but I can still reproduce the problem. It's not my cable modem, I have a 500Mbps line that consistently falls back down to 30Mbps.

This is exactly what's happening with my Orbi system. I called their technical support and they attempted to charge me $50 to look into the problem. I've owned this $300 pair for only 18 months, and Orbi cannot own a serious memory leak issue impacting CORE performance, primary problem this product is supposed to solve.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K4CZOBS/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is BBB worthy.

[FURRYe38]

Has a factory reset and setup from scratch been performed since last FW update? 

Is this wireless or wired speed testing? Wired is preferred for speed testing?

Compare speed results with different devices? 

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?

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 when wirelessly connected.

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?

Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

Try disabling the following and see:
Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).

What was the last version of FW that was working for you? 

[bariswheel]

Has a factory reset and setup from scratch been performed since last FW update? 

No.  Should I and try to repro?

Is this wireless or wired speed testing?

Wireless. Again after a power cycle, no changfes to anything, performance jumps back up to 200Mbps+

Wired is preferred for speed testing?

Doesn't matter as I already have a control, but sure I suppose I can plug in a laptop if I can find an ethernet adapter, but I can consistently reproduce the issue.

Compare speed results with different devices? 

Yes, same results. Ipad and mobile phone also reporty 30Mbps. Google 'memory leak' orbi and you'll notice very similar reports, same issue, many other people reporting identical symptoms.

What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too? Why does this matter? I don't know right now I can find out later.

Is the Orbi system operating in Router or AP mode? How do I find out?

What is the size of your home? Sq Ft? 2000 sq ft, again doesn't matter as I already get 200Mbps+ results consistenly until I have to power cycle.

What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between them to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected. Maybe 20 ft

What channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz. I don't remember.
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many? Doesn't matter, I can reproduce problem and experiment in a controlled experiment. But maybe 20 or so.

Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

Try disabling the following and see:
Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).

Ok I'll try all this above thank you.

What was the last version of FW that was working for you? 

the latest I downloaded a few weeks ago, the problem was happening before and after the firmware upgrade, so, sadly, the firmware upgrade had NO effect on the symptoms reported. The problme continues to exist.

[FURRYe38]

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@bariswheel wrote:

Has a factory reset and setup from scratch been performed since last FW update? 

No.  Should I and try to repro?

Yes please. 

Is this wireless or wired speed testing?

Wireless. Again after a power cycle, no changfes to anything, performance jumps back up to 200Mbps+

Wired is preferred for speed testing?

Doesn't matter as I already have a control, but sure I suppose I can plug in a laptop if I can find an ethernet adapter, but I can consistently reproduce the issue.

Just trying to narrow this down to wifi only if possible. If wired gets good speed constantly, then we can hopefully figure out what wrong with the wifi.

Compare speed results with different devices? 

Yes, same results. Ipad and mobile phone also reporty 30Mbps. Google 'memory leak' orbi and you'll notice very similar reports, same issue, many other people reporting identical symptoms.

What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too? Why does this matter? I don't know right now I can find out later.

Would like to know if this modem has built in router and wifi or not is all. 

Is the Orbi system operating in Router or AP mode? How do I find out?
Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Setting/Router or AP mode

What is the size of your home? Sq Ft? 2000 sq ft, again doesn't matter as I already get 200Mbps+ results consistenly until I have to power cycle.

What is the distance between the router and satellite(s)? 30 feet is recommended in between them to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected. Maybe 20 ft

20 feet is too close between the RBR and RBS. The wifi signal has too much over lap and maybe causing problems. 

What channels are you using? Auto? Try setting manual channel 1, 6 or 11 on 2.4Ghz and any unused channel on 5Ghz. I don't remember.
Any Wifi Neighbors near by? If so, how many? Doesn't matter, I can reproduce problem and experiment in a controlled experiment. But maybe 20 or so.

You maybe in a wifi congested area which also can cause problems such as interference and noise which would contribute to bad wireless behavior. I would try turning down the power output of the RBR from 100% to say 75 or 50% Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings.  

Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

Try disabling the following and see:
Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).

Ok I'll try all this above thank you.

What was the last version of FW that was working for you? 

the latest I downloaded a few weeks ago, the problem was happening before and after the firmware upgrade, so, sadly, the firmware upgrade had NO effect on the symptoms reported. The problme continues to exist. OK

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[bariswheel]

Factory reset is a bit heavy handed, I'd like to eliminate other simple reasons before we nuke and pave here. 

I should also note I have 23 clients, with at least 10 sonos devices, but all on 2.4GHz . My iphone, ipad, mac pro, all on 5GHz . The Orbi mobile app consistently shows 500Mbps, so no problems going out to the internet, but the **bleep** Orbi devices are throttling the hell out of my connections to my actual clients. What a lousy product, I'm pretty sure the root cause resolution is a firmware upgrade addressing a memory leak. 

Fast.com is showing 10-20 Mbps again. Awful. So much for my business line. I have some other business today but when I have some time to waste on this I'll reply back. Orbi, get your act together and root out these memory leaks, these are serious. 

[bariswheel]

" I would try turning down the power output of the RBR from 100% to say 75 or 50% Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings.  "

Helpful advice here. I just knocked it down to 75%, let's see if that increases performance. today.

Ok, so I think that power cycled or did something because now I'm back to what I usually see after a power cycle, 150Mbps . I expect it to go to sh$t back down to 10-15Mbps in a few days. 

Under ADVANCED WIRELESS SETTINGS, I also noticed this, none of those were checked. Seems like the first one is a no-brainer, but I''m not putting any checks in anything and changing things one thing at a time. 

Enable Implicit BEAMFORMING - Boosts WiFi speed, reliability, & range for all mobile devices

Why would anyone want that disabled? That seems like choosing 'disable good things'.

https://kb.netgear.com/25348/What-is-implicit-beamforming-and-how-do-I-enable-it-or-disable-it-on-my...

[bariswheel]

Screw it, I also put a checkmark in 'enable implicit beamforming'. The KB article says it's enabled by default, but it was disabled on mine, first time I'm seeing this so now way I turned it off. 

[dferreira1]

Hi,

I'm facing the same issue you have. The only option left for me is resetting the router to factory.
My router is a RBR40, 2.3.5.30 firmware version. I saw other people with same issue with RBR40, but got no solution to it.

A little brief about the issue:

I updated the router, everything went well. After some days I saw my network speed down to 10Mbps (file copying, inside the network wired to wifi ), I noticed that my wireless speed was something between 14mbps and 30Mbps... I rebooted the router and got 866mbps again. After few days (5 or 6 days) the wireless connection dropped to 10-30mbps again. 

[ekhalil]

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@bariswheel wrote:

......... I expect it to go to sh$t back down to 10-15Mbps in a few days. 

.........

---

@bariswheel, To me this looks like a build-up of loops in the system.

What type of devices do you have in your Orbi network?

Are your Sonos wired to Orbi? or are they wireless? What other wired devices do you have attached to Orbi?

[bariswheel]

As expected, a few days later, no difference. We are back to 30Mbps speeds, rebooted the router, and back to 150Mbps+ but expect it to go down again in a few days.

I changed my 5GHz channel to 40 and 2.4GHz to Channel 11, since all my Sonos speakers are on there.

I have at least 10 Speakers on 2.4GHz. But my work is on 5GHz, the only thing on 2.4GHz are my speakers. 

Still think this is a memory leak. Fix it Netgear!!!

[el-bori]

I’m having the same issue. I got a gigabit connection and I only get 50-100 download and 10-25 upload. I reset the router to factory setting a few time too.

[ekhalil]

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@bariswheel wrote:

.....

I changed my 5GHz channel to 40 and 2.4GHz to Channel 11, since all my Sonos speakers are on there.

.....

---

Do you use SonosNet? This is used when you have one of the speakers wired and all other speakers wireless.

If not then why are you changing the Orbi channel to 11 which the Sonos is on. Sonos should change the channels according to what you set Orbi to use and NOT the other way around!

[FURRYe38]

Did the factory reset and setup from scratch resolve your problem then? 

---

@dferreira1 wrote:

Hi,

I'm facing the same issue you have. The only option left for me is resetting the router to factory.
My router is a RBR40, 2.3.5.30 firmware version. I saw other people with same issue with RBR40, but got no solution to it.

A little brief about the issue:

I updated the router, everything went well. After some days I saw my network speed down to 10Mbps (file copying, inside the network wired to wifi ), I noticed that my wireless speed was something between 14mbps and 30Mbps... I rebooted the router and got 866mbps again. After few days (5 or 6 days) the wireless connection dropped to 10-30mbps again. 

---

[FURRYe38]

A factory reset and setup from scratch needs to be effected before we can place the problem in FW. 

---

@bariswheel wrote:

As expected, a few days later, no difference. We are back to 30Mbps speeds, rebooted the router, and back to 150Mbps+ but expect it to go down again in a few days.

I changed my 5GHz channel to 40 and 2.4GHz to Channel 11, since all my Sonos speakers are on there.

I have at least 10 Speakers on 2.4GHz. But my work is on 5GHz, the only thing on 2.4GHz are my speakers. 

Still think this is a memory leak. Fix it Netgear!!!

---

[bariswheel]

Tonight we are at 9.5Mbps on this 500Mbps line. Atrocious. Going to restart every few days.

I'm disappointed I have to factory reset. I will do it when I have an hour or so this weekend. 

[ekhalil]

@bariswheel Not sure if you saw my earlier question: 🙂

Do you use SonosNet? This is used when you have one of the speakers wired and all other speakers wireless.

If not then why are you changing the Orbi channel to 11 which the Sonos is on. Sonos should change the channels according to what you set Orbi to use and NOT the other way around!

[Nteck]

Lots of people- including me-  have same problem with Mobi RBK53. High speed when first you set up. But it only lasts a day. You need to reset to get back to that performance. These so called tech advisers here ( like ekhalil or guru) are either iliterate themselves or think other people are. If I was a manager at Netgear I would have fired them; they are damaging your image. I have followed their advise in other posts. Same things to everybody, and it's not working. Nobody seemed to have fixed the issue doing that - including me! Don't you understand, you have made a crappy product. It has a major problem which can't sudtain the speed.

In my case I got 35mbps from a 1 gig speed service. Speed is right with ethernet at cable modem. I did everything possible recommended including factory reset, etc.

Will return this crap to store tomorrow! a standard router can do way better. 

[SW_]

@bariswheel , interesting theory about memory leak!

Please point the browser at http://192.168.1.1/debug.htm and verify this theory.  For those who ran into this problem, please check your respective Orbi debug.htm page for memory usage and upload these info here if possible.

Basic Infomation
 	CPU Load	                13.9706%
        Memory Usage(Used/Total)	138MB/495MB
        Flash Usage(Used/Total)	        2945MB/4096MB
        Network Session(Active/Total)	44/65536

[SW_]

...some folks reported that it's impacting only the Satellite and not main Orbi itself.  If that's the case, please get the debug.htm from the affected Satellites.  Here is an example of my healthy Satellites debug info:

Satellite-1:
Basic Infomation
 	CPU Load	                17.2577%
        Memory Usage(Used/Total)	124MB/495MB        Flash Usage(Used/Total)	        2945MB/4096MB
Satellite-2:
Basic Infomation
 	CPU Load	                22.2222%
        Memory Usage(Used/Total)	123MB/495MB        Flash Usage(Used/Total)	        2945MB/4096MB

[SW_]

One factor that could negatively impact throughput/speed is high CPU usage.  To monitor Orbi/Satellite CPU usage, please do this:

1. Enable telnet via debug.htm page
   • http://192.168.1.1/debug.htm
2. telnet into Orbi
   • telnet 192.168.1.1
3. type this cmd at the telnet window
   • top

Repeat the same steps and replace Orbi IP address with IP address of the Satellite you want to monitor.  CPU usage should be less 30% and should not anywhere near 100%.

[Nteck]

I will give it this last try later today. I hope that's the case! which seems to be the cause based on your description. Then what is the solution?

[FURRYe38]

Has a factory reset and setup from scratch been performed since last update?

What Firmware is currently loaded?
What is the Mfr and model# of the ISP modem the NG router is connected too?

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 RBR and RBS to begin with depending upon building materials when wirelessly connected. https://kb.netgear.com/000036466/How-far-should-I-place-my-Orbi-satellite-from-my-Orbi-router

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?

Try enabling Beamforming and MIMO(MIMO may or maynot be needed) and WMM. Under Advanced Tab/Advanced Settings/Wireless Settings

Try disabling the following and see:
Armor, Circle, Daisy Chain, Fast Roaming, IPv6 and Set 20/40Mhz Coexistence to 40Mhz only. Save settings and reboot the router and satellite(s).

---

@Nteck wrote:

I will give it this last try later today. I hope that's the case! which seems to be the cause based on your description. Then what is the solution?

---

[FURRYe38]

Any progress on this? 

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@bariswheel wrote:

Tonight we are at 9.5Mbps on this 500Mbps line. Atrocious. Going to restart every few days.

I'm disappointed I have to factory reset. I will do it when I have an hour or so this weekend. 

---

[SW_]

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@Nteck wrote:

I will give it this last try later today. I hope that's the case! which seems to be the cause based on your description. Then what is the solution?

---

It's hard to speculate what the solution is until we can confirm the reason for CPU hog or memory leak.  Assuming that's the case, we could kill the offending process by turning off the associated feature if we could identify it.  Otherwise, we could roll back to a prior FW version that didn't suffer from this problem.

[dferreira1]

Hey guys, I've got an update on my side... 

I could see when I disconnect my MBP or other device and reconnect it, the RX/TX rate came up to 866Mpbs again.

So, I don't know what happenning on router when I disconnect, but disconnecting/reconnect is better than rebooting the router each 3 or 4 days.

I reseted it to factory, reconfigured all the settings again and this issue still happen.

When I see the problem again, will try the telnet solution above to see CPU/memory activity on RBR.