Download speed is consistently lower than upload speed on one PC (Lumos Networks fiber Internet)

[rmiller1959]

Maybe the orbi can't do 2 gigs, download would be passing through the stateful firewall and thus more limited than upload

The Orbi I purchased is their top-of-the-line mesh networking system, and the router has a 10 Gbps WAN port and a 2.5 Gbps LAN port, as do the three satellites. The attached illustration shows my network flow.

 

[drinkingbird]

The Orbi I purchased is their top-of-the-line mesh networking system, and the router has a 10 Gbps WAN port and a 2.5 Gbps LAN port, as do the three satellites. The attached illustration shows my network flow.

A top of the line Asus can't do 2.5G if you enable various features, so I wouldn't consider "top of the line" a valid test of what it is actually capable of. Have you tried any of the other suggested tests?

 

[rmiller1959]

I've run the tests with the AV/firewall disabled, and I will receive the 2.5 Gbps USB to Ethernet adapter today, so I can test with that. I haven't connected my laptop to the cable without the coupler in the path, but that's an access issue I will tackle after a busy Easter weekend. I went into the router settings, and I see no QoS or other unusual settings that would prioritize or reallocate bandwidth.

 

[rmiller1959]

The router has its own SpeedTest feature, and here are the readings directly from the router to the ISP:

 

[drinkingbird]

I've run the tests with the AV/firewall disabled, and I will receive the 2.5 Gbps USB to Ethernet adapter today, so I can test with that. I haven't connected my laptop to the cable without the coupler in the path, but that's an access issue I will tackle after a busy Easter weekend. I went into the router settings, and I see no QoS or other unusual settings that would prioritize or reallocate bandwidth.

No parental controls or Trend Micro enabled either? The router's speed test would bypass those but PC would not.

You'll likely find it is a cabling or PC issue, just tossing out stuff to consider.

 

[rmiller1959]

So I installed the Wavlink 2.5 Gbps to USB 3.0 adapter and ran Speedtest, with the following results:

 

[rmiller1959]

And just for grins, I went to another computer on my network and ran Speedtest with these results:

 

[rmiller1959]

No parental controls or Trend Micro enabled either? The router's speed test would bypass those but PC would not.

You'll likely find it is a cabling or PC issue, just tossing out stuff to consider.

No parental controls, but removing Bitdefender on my mini-PC gave me a boost in download speeds. I have the Netgear Armor security subscription, which operates at the router level and also allows me to install Bitdefender on all my systems. Even with that, it doesn't seem to affect the other PCs on the network as much as it does mine.

 

[rmiller1959]

No parental controls, but removing Bitdefender on my mini-PC gave me a boost in download speeds. I have the Netgear Armor security subscription, which operates at the router level and also allows me to install Bitdefender on all my systems. Even with that, it doesn't seem to affect the other PCs on the network as much as it does mine.

I disabled the Netgear Armor service on my router, and I now get a consistent 200 Mbps download speed increase. Every test I've run since disabling the Armor service is like this one:

I'm going to keep tweaking my system, but the performance is better now than it was in the beginning, so clearly your suggestions have been helpful! Many thanks - if I get to the point where my PC speed and router speed are pretty much even, I'll share that!

 

[drinkingbird]

I disabled the Netgear Armor service on my router, and I now get a consistent 200 Mbps download speed increase. Every test I've run since disabling the Armor service is like this one:

View attachment 49182

I'm going to keep tweaking my system, but the performance is better now than it was in the beginning, so clearly your suggestions have been helpful! Many thanks - if I get to the point where my PC speed and router speed are pretty much even, I'll share that!

So it appears pretty similar with or without the USB adapter. So I think you've narrowed it down to cabling or just something not able to keep up with that speed, which is not unlikely, when gig NICs first started coming to home PCs they could not push that speed due to CPU and other limitations.

Not that the speeds your getting are any issue, you're not going to find much out there that can actually take advantage of that speed on a single PC.

What if you get 2 people to simultaneously click "go" on both PCs - can you get an aggregate close to 2 gigs between both of them (there will be some packet loss due to bandwidth contention, so it won't be perfect but 1800-1900 would mean your router is able to push the full speed). At that point I'd just be happy - in fact you don't want one PC being able to slow everyone else down by doing a speed test or some other large transfer. Consider it "endpoint based QOS".

 

[rmiller1959]

So it appears pretty similar with or without the USB adapter. So I think you've narrowed it down to cabling or just something not able to keep up with that speed, which is not unlikely, when gig NICs first started coming to home PCs they could not push that speed due to CPU and other limitations.

Not that the speeds your getting are any issue, you're not going to find much out there that can actually take advantage of that speed on a single PC.

What if you get 2 people to simultaneously click "go" on both PCs - can you get an aggregate close to 2 gigs between both of them (there will be some packet loss due to bandwidth contention, so it won't be perfect but 1800-1900 would mean your router is able to push the full speed). At that point I'd just be happy - in fact you don't want one PC being able to slow everyone else down by doing a speed test or some other large transfer. Consider it "endpoint based QOS".

I'll give that a shot the next time my daughter and I are on our PCs simultaneously.

I recognize that the speed is probably overkill, but we have a lot of devices in our household connected to the Internet at one time (>50). My daughter runs a video production business that involves a lot of uploads and downloads of video content. I work remotely and participate in video conferencing daily. Finally, we're cord-cutters, so the Internet is our cable TV replacement added to all the streaming services we subscribe to.

With the new fiber service, I'm paying half as much for twice the speed. More than that, I hope I'm getting rock-solid stability and reliability compared to my previous coaxial cable Internet service.

I really appreciate the time you and others invested in this thread, especially you. Thanks for the help and the troubleshooting steps I can use going forward!

 

[Tech Junky]

I now get a consistent 200 Mbps download speed increase

Really the only thing I would try at this point is direct to the ISP modem to see if there's anything left to eek out of the connection. 200mbps is a good boost though by disabling the armor software.

If it's still sync w/ a direct connect it's just a bottleneck in the PC and then you could try booting to Linux with a USB drive to see if it's a Windows issue. Other than that it's a wrap.

The 2.5 adapter might come in useful down the road or just return it to Amazon.

 

[drinkingbird]

I'll give that a shot the next time my daughter and I are on our PCs simultaneously.

I recognize that the speed is probably overkill, but we have a lot of devices in our household connected to the Internet at one time (>50). My daughter runs a video production business that involves a lot of uploads and downloads of video content. I work remotely and participate in video conferencing daily. Finally, we're cord-cutters, so the Internet is our cable TV replacement added to all the streaming services we subscribe to.

With the new fiber service, I'm paying half as much for twice the speed. More than that, I hope I'm getting rock-solid stability and reliability compared to my previous coaxial cable Internet service.

I really appreciate the time you and others invested in this thread, especially you. Thanks for the help and the troubleshooting steps I can use going forward!

If she is in fact doing huge uploads and able to max out the connection, you want her to hit some limitation so your video calls don't suffer. Obviously you can do QOS on the router but TBD if the router is going to be able to handle doing QOS at those speeds.

Also with the exception of those large video uploads (potentially) everything else you mention isn't using as much as you probably think it is. But if you're getting a good price and happy with the service, all's well.

 

[rmiller1959]

Really the only thing I would try at this point is direct to the ISP modem to see if there's anything left to eek out of the connection. 200mbps is a good boost though by disabling the armor software.

If it's still sync w/ a direct connect it's just a bottleneck in the PC and then you could try booting to Linux with a USB drive to see if it's a Windows issue. Other than that it's a wrap.

The 2.5 adapter might come in useful down the road or just return it to Amazon.

I can imagine the adapter coming in handy at times, and it wasn't expensive, so I'll keep it in my troubleshooting toolkit. In fact, I may use it with my laptop when I get around to testing the cable that leads to the main 2.5 Gbps switch without the coupler in the path.

I have read many stories about issues with speed and performance related to the Netgear Armor security service, but I hadn't considered it an issue until now. While it was available at a great price and provided protection for an unlimited number of devices, I don't think I'll renew that service. I'll find a reliable, resource-friendly security solution for my desktops, laptops, and mobile phones.

I still haven't tried the "10 GBps 328 Feet Ethernet" coupler yet, I'm curious if it will have any effect at all. It gets here on Tuesday, so I'll report back!

 

[Tech Junky]

Netgear Armor

Things like that didn't show a weakness until you have the bandwidth to really push them. I had an Asus gigabit router that seemed fine until I had an ISP connection that high and then it fell on its face and in only hit 300mbps. After awhile I took things into my own hands and made my own router and consolidated several devices into a PC instead. Threw a 5ge quad port card init it as that's the max speed my raid setup needed and wne from there. I got sick of all the crappy firmware being pushed out with bugs and security issues that off the shelf routers have fixing one thing and breaking more in the process.

 

[sfx2000]

I have read many stories about issues with speed and performance related to the Netgear Armor security service, but I hadn't considered it an issue until now. While it was available at a great price and provided protection for an unlimited number of devices, I don't think I'll renew that service. I'll find a reliable, resource-friendly security solution for my desktops, laptops, and mobile phones.

If you can temporarily disable that service and retest...

 

[coxhaus]

I see no reason to give up security for a little more speed. Security is important for these days and time. Do you really notice a difference in day-to-day use?
You can buy a faster PC if it is a problem. But you know if you can't max out your internet speed it is a form of QoS as there will always be internet bandwidth left for other users and devices. At some point internet speed is just bragging rights that a couple more seconds will fix.

If it is a network problem, then it should be fixed as you are not utilizing what you have paid for.

 

[follower]

I think rmiller1959 is doing other things except he has to do. If I were at his home I would find the issue in 5 mins.

 

[follower]

I've run the tests with the AV/firewall disabled, and I will receive the 2.5 Gbps USB to Ethernet adapter today, so I can test with that. I haven't connected my laptop to the cable without the coupler in the path, but that's an access issue I will tackle after a busy Easter weekend. I went into the router settings, and I see no QoS or other unusual settings that would prioritize or reallocate bandwidth.

Are you sure your coupler is fine?

 

[sfx2000]

I see no reason to give up security for a little more speed. Security is important for these days and time. Do you really notice a difference in day-to-day use?

That's why I mentioned "termporary" - if disabled and things come back to normal, then it's a cause that can be corrected perhaps.

IIRC - there were "security" apps like Norton and what-not that would insert themselves into the network stack and have some fairly significant impact on performance.

Norton Armor, which is what he was running on the router itself - it's good, but it comes at a heavy price - much like the excellent Suricata... which is used by many over in the PFSense/OpnSense space, needing an i3 or better to get decent performance.

(which brings to mind - most of those "security" apps have root level access to everything on Windows - Defender (MS's own) is lowest impact, and most effective in most cases).