Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2021 18:45 Post subject: [SOLVED] Poor Internet speed - Netgear R7000 flashed DD-WRT
Hi everyone,
Firstly I apologize if I'm not posting where I should - I do hope where I'm supposed to.
I'm not very good at networking stuff yet I've been reading and reading throughout many posts from others and I get more and more confused in the end...
I do hope you can help me out, please.
I've bought a Netgear R7000 router and I've flashed it with the latest firmware version available (46854).
Now Internet works but I get super slow Internet. With the Netgear firmware I was getting very good speed on both 2.4 and 5 GHz.
I've been through all the settings but I don't know what to change anymore.
I have a 1000 Mbps Internet connection at home. Yet my two wireless lans seem to be now limited to a rate of 200 Mbit/s and 400 respectively.
I've played around with many settings but little difference in the end.
I don't know exactly what to attach so I'm attaching the most relevant stuff.
Oh and scale your pictures back (see the forum guidelines)
P.S. a realistic speed for 2.4 GHz is 200 Mb/s (40 MHz , 2 stream client) and for 5 GHZ 500 Mb/s (VHT 80, 2 stream client)
and only under optimal circumstances so close to the router and no interference
Guys, please let's refrain from the temptation to send people down rabbit-holes. @ecg was kind enough to give him a hint - at the very last line of his post - but the OP said the OEM firmware worked better in the same configuration - so this is obviously a CTF+FA issue because there's not a SOHO router in existence that will process-switch a gigabit through it's CPU. Please, let's not get carried away with the wifi recommendations. Just because the wifi RADIO says it's connected at "200Mhz" does NOT mean the router is saturating the wifi pipe. This is precisely why I updated with wiki on CFA/SFE/FA.
To the OP:
1) Review the wiki's first don't waste time googling un-stikied forum threads. The stikied threads at the top generally refer to either wiki entries or are masses of data/discussions that haven't been summarized into a wiki entry yet because nobody has got around to it.
The wiki entries and stickied threads are the official instructions - ie: The Manual. Read The Manual. The Forums are full of BS and pearls. Newbies shouldn't be trying to sort though the BS to find the pearls.
2) Never troubleshoot WIFI until AFTER you have good speed through Ethernet. Plug in an Ethernet cable and do an Internet-to-Ethernet speedtest. Real men use WIRES for networks.
There seems to be something wrong.
The bitrate (324Mbit) corresponds according to MCS Index only 40Mhz (long Preamble).
The channels 52+54 speak actually also for it...
So probably change the WLAN settings ( to short preamble and a valid 80Mhz configuration (not auto channel).
I attach again the picture to which I refer.
Edit: on the Broadcom platform try for example 52 + lower lower + short preamble
Firstly thank you for your help and patience both with the topic at hand and as well with forum's rules. Honestly I didn't even know the Router was Broadcom or what SOC meant..so on some level no surprise I didn't post where I should have..
I'll try to go through each reply.
@ecg - Thank you again for the info and for moving the post where it should have been in the first place. I've gone through most of the rules and I'll also read the stickies. I'll do my best to comply.
I've read the BCM Best Wifi Settings and tried them out. Unfortunately the speed and performance is still bad if not worse..
Specifically [Wireless Network Mode, Wireless Channel, Channel Width, TurboQAM (QAM256) support, Beamforming, Airtime Fairness, Sensitivity Range (ACK Timing)] as well as all the Advanced Wireless Settings are set up as per the screenshots for both wl0 and wl1.
@kernel-panic69 - I'm still reading the wiki pages. Unfortunately my understanding is not great. I did try to understand some of them before posting here. I'm having a rather hard time trying to understand the info from the wikis and find the way in which they'd best suit me for my specific case.
@tedm, @ho1Aetoo - thank you for the info. Just as info - before flashing the firmware to dd-wrt through cable I got 920Mbps and 468 Mbps download/upload respectively. On wifi (5Ghz) roughly between 550-600 mbps on download and around 400 mbps upload. If needed I still have access to the speed test history and can upload some screnshots.
Also I do not know what any of: CTF+FA, CFA/SFE/FA, etc mean so for now I'm reading about them online.
In terms of your last suggestion, unfortunately, I'm not really sure what I should change to what...
I'm attaching two screenshots of what I'm using now on 5Ghz for example.
Joined: 18 Mar 2014 Posts: 12882 Location: Netherlands
Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2021 6:19 Post subject:
After you came from stock did you do a thorough reset?
Even if you did I would do it again.
A good way to reset is to do from CLI (telnet/Putty):
Code:
nvram erase && reboot
Of course put settings in manually.
My own R6400v2 which has the same CPU but slightly different radios does slightly over 200 Mb/s on 2.4 GHz (40 MHz 2 stream Android client), 550 Mb/s on 5 GHz (VHT80), of course in the same room with no interference.
Wired about 760 Mb/s up and 860 Mb/s down.
Everything done with CTF&FA enabled (On Setup page)
@tedm, @ho1Aetoo - thank you for the info. Just as info - before flashing the firmware to dd-wrt through cable I got 920Mbps and 468 Mbps download/upload respectively. On wifi (5Ghz) roughly between 550-600 mbps on download and around 400 mbps upload. If needed I still have access to the speed test history and can upload some screnshots.
Also I do not know what any of: CTF+FA, CFA/SFE/FA, etc mean so for now I'm reading about them online.
In terms of your last suggestion, unfortunately, I'm not really sure what I should change to what...
CTF and FA are new - and I mean really, really new. So the reality is that we need people with r7000's and other very new powerful implementations of the Broadcom chipsets that have support for CTF and FA settings and who have these routers on high speed links to test with them. Even the principal developer of dd-wrt does not have a 1 gigabit Internet link coming in to his office.
What we need is for people to test on the manufacturers OWN firmware first and record the speed they get, then flash dd-wrt and enable these settings and then test again. You would not believe the number of people who DON'T baseline with the manufacturers firmware, then send us down rabbitholes guessing this and that setting only to find out later that their internet connection isn't any faster on the OEM firmware.
So far you have done what we needed for you to do. Now, what we need you to do is this - flash the very latest beta of dd-wrt to your router. Configure your router and save the configuration. Power-cycle your router. Go into it's config and enable CTF+FA and save and power cycle again. Then test a wired connection and a wireless connection.
The hope is you will get roughly the same 920/468 on a wired connection with dd-wrt and these options enabled. If you do then we can move into a discussion of optimal wifi settings if you don't also get the 550-600 down/400 up on the wifi. At least you are aware you aren't going to get a gigabit on wifi and that's a big step for a lot of people!
We still don't know EXACTLY how the CTF+FA options will behave on any given router simply because so few people have such a high speed Internet line and not many people have routers with the needed hardware in them, and because these Broadcom drivers were supplied to us by Broadcom in a brown paper bag marked "electric eel food"
Hi again everyone - and again I thank all of you for your effort (and time) on this!
As before I'll try to go through each reply and advice.
So far I've only changed in Setup -> Shortcut Forwarding Engine from SFE to CTF and I tested again. Great suprise! The speed (on cable) was 887 Mbps Download and 661 Mbps Upload. There Wi-fi was also improved: 335.82/409.35 on 5Ghz and 83.98/88.46 on 2.4Ghz - which again - are better than before.
@ho1Aetoo, @egc - Thank you for pointing that out to me (and the documentation too - I'm still getting my head around it).
Unfortunately I do not have FA among my options.
I will upgrade my dd-wrt to the latest beta version as @egc suggested and see if I can see it afterwards.
Note: my version is from 06/04/2021 and I see in the meantime there's a new one from June 5th.
@egc - I tried to telnet to my router but unfortunately I can't seem to login.. the same username/password work over the browser, yet when I'm prompted by putty for credentials it fails. I wanted to "nvram erase && reboot" as you instructed.
@tedm - I'll now go ahead and perform the steps you mentioned and get back to you.
@ho1Aetoo - last but not least of course I'm attaching the screenshot you mentioned - wl1 and clients as they are currently.
@egc - I tried to telnet to my router but unfortunately I can't seem to login.. the same username/password work over the browser, yet when I'm prompted by putty for credentials it fails.
the telnet / ssh username is "root"
Quote:
@ho1Aetoo - last but not least of course I'm attaching the screenshot you mentioned - wl1 and clients as they are currently.
Yes, it looks a bit better.
However, this looks like 80Mhz 2x2 + short preamble
Isn't that a 3x3 router?
On the picture is also unfortunately no 5ghz client connected.
In the previously posted settings I would also disable frameburst again
Code:
Frame Burst
Recommended Setting: Disable
but this is already moving in the right direction ( 400Mbit for 5ghz 2x2 is not bad)
If I'm not mistaken the transmission power setting does only increase white noise after a certain treshhold.
My r7000 defaults this to 71mW!
Also many settings in your screenshots are not default.
My advice (also mentioned by others before) reset and redo.
Usually I only set a manual channel, the region, my desired channel Width, SSID, encryption/password and thats it.
In order to test I fire up iperf3 on one of my PCs (wired to router) and use "magic iPerf" on my android devices.
After wireless performance is tested and stable see if CTF or CTF+FA on basic setup Page of your WANif increase throughput to/from your ISP.