Chromecast Slow over-wifi

[JebusTox]

I have the RT-AX86U Pro router flashed with the latest Merlin (3004.388.8_2). Speeds i'm getting from my ISP are great! 930 down / 40 up. Devices on my 5Ghz SSID gets 240mbps or better.

The plex server has a few videos that are 99+Mbps and because of this, I decided to connect it directly to the router. Speed tests on the plex server are 800+Mbps.

My problem is with my Chromecast with Google TV (4K) - it buffers with these large videos. This device sits one wall away, about 15 feet from the router. When I use the Airflow app to cast, then subsequently test the speed of the chromecast, it starts off great with 150+Mbps. Doing further speed tests drops it down to sub 100Mbps, even 80Mbps. Forgot to mention that the Chromecast is strictly wifi.

Here's what I've done so far, without successfully increasing the chromecast speed test
- Did the 30-30-30 reset with both my router and modem (Netgear CM-1000)
- Used SSID with no special characters. Same with password.
- Used a different SSID and password (that my devices would not connect to automatically)
- Disabled Airtime Fairness
- Using WPA2 Personal
- 5Ghz: switched to non-DFS channels, also tested channels with less SSIDs broadcasting
- Disabled 160mhz
- Used Guest Network (2.4 and 5.0)
- Connected to the 2.4 band

Streaming the 99+Mbps videos on my phone or laptop does not result in buffering.

EDIT: The 99mbps video has subtitles turned off. CPU on the server is an i7-4700HQ. I'm doing direct stream since the display is a 4K television.

 

[Crimliar]

How well Plex can stream files will often depend on how they are encoded! And your Chromecast with Google TV (4K) is not strictly WiFi - I have one here, and you can get a powersupply with ethernet port to replace the PSU it came with - note that it's still limited to 100Mbps though!

 

[Tech9]

Did the 30-30-30 reset

There is no 30-30-30 reset with Asus routers.

Hard factory reset method for your model:

[Wireless Router] ASUS router Hard Factory Reset - Method 2 | Official Support | ASUS Global

I don't know what your streaming issue is, sorry.

 

[Crimliar]

Also worth pointing out that on-the-fly 4K streaming can have a bit rate in the range 35-40Mbps (so if it's encoding you shouldn't see a sustained data stream significantly faster than this), and the sending device needs to be capable of encoding at those kind of rates - it's not just a basic data transfer but a transformation!

 

[JebusTox]

How well Plex can stream files will often depend on how they are encoded! And your Chromecast with Google TV (4K) is not strictly WiFi - I have one here, and you can get a powersupply with ethernet port to replace the PSU it came with - note that it's still limited to 100Mbps though!
View attachment 60973

Oh yeah, I meant "strictly wifi" in the sense that it's not hard-wired. I have that same adapter and returned it because of the 100mbps

 

[JebusTox]

Thank you Crimlar and Tech9 for the help

 

[sfx2000]

Chromecast with Google TV 4K...

Just know this is a 4-core Cortex-A35 @ 2GHz with a Mali G31 GPU - the VPU has good support for many of the common codecs that Netflix, YouTube, etc use - the stock experience isn't that bad until... Where it gets challenged is with local network and local content - it's not the network, it's the CPU/GPU combo - so using Plex, one needs to consider that for local served content...

With the limited resources, it doesn't take much to get compute bound.

The 4K uses an NXP 88W8987 (ex-Marvell), the HD version of the same dongle uses the Broadcom/Cypress BCM43598.

The network ethernet adapter - FWIW - it's been fairly problematic for many - it's fast ethernet only, and has been known to have a level of flake that most folks wouldn't tolerate.