Slow Wifi for FTP transfers?

[smokedporkroast]

I just upgraded my router system to the Orbi rbk853 which is a wifi 6 ax6000 kit with a router and two satellites. My speeds for internet are fine, but my laptop, with an intel ax200 wifi 6 chip isnt getting more than 160 mbps when i sit next to the router. I have a fresh install of windows and new drivers for everything. My transfer is of a 1gB .bin file which transfers at ~600mbps over a 200ft cat6 line. I have read that people are getting 800mbps over wifi with the wifi 6 setup but Im nowhere close to that. Also, I have an access point 15 ft away from me in the form of a netgear nighthawk ac2350 which I wired up when I switched to mesh. My signal on the orbis is always 1.2gbps. And if I switch to the nighthawk Im at 867 mbps.

 

Any help is would be awesome,

Thanks

[Falcon1986]

46 minutes ago, smokedporkroast said:

I just upgraded my router system to the Orbi rbk853 which is a wifi 6 ax6000 kit with a router and two satellites. My speeds for internet are fine, but my laptop, with an intel ax200 wifi 6 chip isnt getting more than 160 mbps when i sit next to the router. I have a fresh install of windows and new drivers for everything. My transfer is of a 1gB .bin file which transfers at ~600mbps over a 200ft cat6 line. I have read that people are getting 800mbps over wifi with the wifi 6 setup but Im nowhere close to that. Also, I have an access point 15 ft away from me in the form of a netgear nighthawk ac2350 which I wired up when I switched to mesh. My signal on the orbis is always 1.2gbps. And if I switch to the nighthawk Im at 867 mbps.

 

Any help is would be awesome,

Thanks

1. How far are the Orbi satellites from the base station? And is their connection to each other over a wired or wireless backhaul?
2. Are you connecting over the 5GHz client band or the 2.4GHz client band when your laptop is getting a 160Mbps link speed?
3. Why are you using the Nighthawk if you’re already using the Orbi mesh system? Which wireless channels are your radios using on the Nighthawk and the Orbi mesh? Are they overlapping?

The quoted speed of these devices are “best case scenario” speeds. You’ll never get the full speed. Please read the FAQ sticky thread.

[Electronics Wizardy]

How are you testing speeds? Try using iperf.

 

Did you check channel usage? 

 

What is the phy speed?

 

Are other devices using the wifi?

[smokedporkroast]

13 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

1. How far are the Orbi satellites from the base station? And is their connection to each other over a wired or wireless backhaul?
2. Are you connecting over the 5GHz client band or the 2.4GHz client band when your laptop is getting a 160Mbps link speed?
3. Why are you using the Nighthawk if you’re already using the Orbi mesh system? Which wireless channels are your radios using on the Nighthawk and the Orbi mesh? Are they overlapping?

The quoted speed of these devices are “best case scenario” speeds. You’ll never get the full speed. Please read the FAQ sticky thread.

The channels dont overlap, the nighthawk is on 157 and the orbis are on 48. Im always connected to 5ghz, and the orbis are within 30ft of each other, plus the web interface says that the backhaul is over 5ghz and is "good" which is the highest it will go. The nighthawk was put in too fix the slow speeds problem, since I thought it was that Im too far away from the router. But it didnt do anything and Im the only one on the network. I know that the rated speeds are not realistic, but I should at least be getting 500mbps since im connected at 1.2gbps and that's what I get over cat6.

[smokedporkroast]

13 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How are you testing speeds? Try using iperf.

 

Did you check channel usage? 

 

What is the phy speed?

 

Are other devices using the wifi?

I am testing using my ftp server which gives speeds of ~600mbps over a 200ft cat6 line. The channels are not being used by anyone else since I don't have neighbors within 500ft.

Ive used iperf and it gave the same result, I think its on the laptops end where the problem lies.

[Falcon1986]

@smokedporkroast

1. What are the Orbis and Nighthawk connected to? I assume an ISP device; what make/model?
2. Is the SSID the same on the Orbi network and the Nighthawk network?
3. Can you run WiFi Analyzer and post the graphical output from the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz bands?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, smokedporkroast said:

I am testing using my ftp server which gives speeds of ~600mbps over a 200ft cat6 line. The channels are not being used by anyone else since I don't have neighbors within 500ft.

Ive used iperf and it gave the same result, I think its on the laptops end where the problem lies.

600mbit over gigabit seems very low, try using anouther system to test the wired link, there seems to be a problem there.

[smokedporkroast]

8 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

@smokedporkroast

1. What are the Orbis and Nighthawk connected to? I assume an ISP device; what make/model?
2. Is the SSID the same on the Orbi network and the Nighthawk network?
3. Can you run WiFi Analyzer and post the graphical output from the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz bands?

No the SSID is very different on each network, though the orbi has combined the 5 and 2.4ghz networks together. Also, none of the device I use are connecting to the 2.4ghz band but rather to the 5ghz.

[smokedporkroast]

7 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

600mbit over gigabit seems very low, try using anouther system to test the wired link, there seems to be a problem there.

I get gigabit  when I'm closer, but their are two 8 port switches in between and I see some latency which slows it down, also its when transferring many small files which means it could be the hard drive on the servers end. I'm not too worried about the 600mbps speeds, just that the wifi isnt coming even close to it.

[smokedporkroast]

Really Im not concerned about the isp speeds, they are at max capacity (80/15) but if I unplugged the modem and just used lan to transfer files, the speeds are horrible.

[Falcon1986]

6 minutes ago, smokedporkroast said:

No the SSID is very different on each network, though the orbi has combined the 5 and 2.4ghz networks together. Also, none of the device I use are connecting to the 2.4ghz band but rather to the 5ghz.

Firstly, that’s only the 2.4GHz spectrum, which is poorly configured by the massive overlap. Put your 2.4GHz radio on channel 11.

 

Secondly, you can’t always force your clients to use the 2.4GHz band if it shares the same SSID as the 5GHz SSID. The adapter will negotiate the strongest and most stable signal depending on distance. In Windows, you can force “preference” at the adapter level, but it will still auto-negotiate.

 

Kindly post the WiFi Analyzer output for the 5GHz band. What settings are you using for wireless security/encryption?

[smokedporkroast]

Whoops, never used this program before. The only reason I know that devices are on the 5ghz band is because of the web interface saying so. 

Im using wpa2 to encrypt the connection.

[smokedporkroast]

2 minutes ago, smokedporkroast said:

Whoops, never used this program before. The only reason I know that devices are on the 5ghz band is because of the web interface saying so. 

Im using wpa2 to encrypt the connection.

Just changed some setting to what they recommend.

[Falcon1986]

Which one is yours? Please enable SSID labels. I see a lot of overlapping broadcasts on 5GHz as well.

[smokedporkroast]

I have the 48 and 149, the 48 is all mine even though it says that there are multiple. Mostly using the 48 mostly but sometimes the 149 for other reasons, like lan parties...

[smokedporkroast]

2 minutes ago, smokedporkroast said:

I have the 48 and 149, the 48 is all mine even though it says that there are multiple. Mostly using the 48 mostly but sometimes the 149 for other reasons, like lan parties...

Basically when I change the orbis broadcast channel (48), it has 1 router and 2 satellites which all push the same network (mesh)

[Falcon1986]

1 hour ago, smokedporkroast said:

Basically when I change the orbis broadcast channel (48), it has 1 router and 2 satellites which all push the same network (mesh)

So all of those signals on channel 48 are for the Orbis? Please check the channel list. Is anything on 157 yours?

[smokedporkroast]

Apparantly yes, It turned out that the 157 was lingering residue from when the other nighthawk was on that channel and I switched to 149. So the new graph shows only 48 and 149.

[Falcon1986]

14 minutes ago, smokedporkroast said:

Apparantly yes, It turned out that the 157 was lingering residue from when the other nighthawk was on that channel and I switched to 149. So the new graph shows only 48 and 149.

Please post the WiFi Analyzer page that shows the list of detected networks.

[Alex Atkin UK]

As you have 5Ghz all to yourself it would make sense to have each Orbi on a different channel, if not for functionality but for clarity while testing.

 

Another problem is this app doesn't show the channel widths for 5Ghz so you aren't getting a clear picture of what is going on, although this is not a big issue so long as you are aware of how far apart to set channels on your sattelites.  WiFi Analyzer on recent Android phones DOES support this however.

 

I'm also not sure what you mean by getting Gigabit "when you are closer"?  You should get Gigabit from all ports on all switches, unless other devices are bottlenecking the port leading back to the router.  With everything idle, you can daisy chain a ton of Gigabit switches and should still see Gigabit right back to the router.

[smokedporkroast]

Thanks for responding

Basically what I meant was that I'm not concerned with getting gigabit speeds at the moment over Ethernet. I just want to figure out the WiFi problem.

Question: Wouldn't changing the channel on each orbi destroy the purpose of mesh? Wouldn't it make the switch between orbis slower? If not then I'm totally up for changing individual channels, I just don't think its possible given the web interface that is provided (I haven't seen any option for individual orbis).

Another question: Why would channel width be important  in this case? There are about 15 devices on the network at all times, but they are rarely in use at the same time simultaneously. So if the channel has good signal, I'm assuming that the bandwidth is good enough as well.

 

Thanks

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

41 minutes ago, smokedporkroast said:

Thanks for responding

Basically what I meant was that I'm not concerned with getting gigabit speeds at the moment over Ethernet. I just want to figure out the WiFi problem.

Question: Wouldn't changing the channel on each orbi destroy the purpose of mesh? Wouldn't it make the switch between orbis slower? If not then I'm totally up for changing individual channels, I just don't think its possible given the web interface that is provided (I haven't seen any option for individual orbis).

Another question: Why would channel width be important  in this case? There are about 15 devices on the network at all times, but they are rarely in use at the same time simultaneously. So if the channel has good signal, I'm assuming that the bandwidth is good enough as well.

 

Thanks

 

No, in fact keeping them all on the same channel technically impairs the purpose of mesh as if you had clients on multiple ones at the same time they will interfere with each other.

While yes technically if you aren't using them all at the same time then it may not matter what channel or width you are using, having it set up correctly helps in diagnosing the problem as we can eliminate that as any potential problem.

[Falcon1986]

@Alex Atkin UK - I agree with you on separating each AP's channels. Since I don't have access to an Orbi, I Googled some photos of the webUI configuration interface and don't seem to see where it allows separation of each mesh point's channel.

 

13 hours ago, smokedporkroast said:

Apparantly yes, It turned out that the 157 was lingering residue from when the other nighthawk was on that channel and I switched to 149. So the new graph shows only 48 and 149.

So are you still using the Nighthawk? Is the Nighthwawk's SSID the same as the Orbis'? WiFi doesn't leave "residue". It's either on or it's off.

 

On 5/11/2020 at 10:03 PM, smokedporkroast said:

...though the orbi has combined the 5 and 2.4ghz networks together. Also, none of the device I use are connecting to the 2.4ghz band but rather to the 5ghz.

Don't do this if you can help it. Use different SSIDs for the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz networks and force all of your regular non-IoT gadgets onto the 5GHz SSID. If you don't, your wireless devices can be connecting to the 2.4GHz intermittently (because it's the same SSID and clients can auto-negotiate a connection based on signal strength).

 

@smokedporkroast - Can you please perform another WiFi survey (this time with SSID labels which you identify as your own)? Include the 'Analyze' and 'Networks' tabs (2.4GHz/5GHz).

[smokedporkroast]

I checked again and the 157 channel is still there,not sure whats sending it out though. Anyway, to clarify, I setup the nighthawk to be used for LAN parties in a separate area so we don't mess up the other router when messing around with settings. It is on separate channels that aren't anywhere near the orbis channels. Attached is a new WiFi survey. My main network is on channel 48 and 11. the second network is on 6 and 149, I don't think they interfere so turning off the second network would do nothing. There is a third network that is on channel 157 that I have no clue of its location. I just want my computer to transfer ftp files over wifi at closer to 500mbps instead of 100-160mbps.

 

 

Thanks.

[smokedporkroast]

11 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

No, in fact keeping them all on the same channel technically impairs the purpose of mesh as if you had clients on multiple ones at the same time they will interfere with each other.

While yes technically if you aren't using them all at the same time then it may not matter what channel or width you are using, having it set up correctly helps in diagnosing the problem as we can eliminate that as any potential problem.

That makes sense, I hadn't thought of that.

 

Thanks