shelleyevans
Regular Contributor
I have been running a Merlin-powered network for a few years-- my main router is RT-AC86U, with two nodes, RT-AC68U and RT-AC66U_B1. I have gigabit internet (Docsis 3.1 modem) to the house, rated at 1200/35, but typically running at about 900/50, when I measure at the modem. In spite of those numbers, I have learned the hard way that QoS is hugely important to me-- without it enabled my VOIP and business video meetings are terrible. I use adaptive QoS with manual bandwidth settings, usually most stable when I set it at 650/35.
When I first set up the network several years ago, I ran a router with two extenders (one ethernet and one moca-ethernet), but found that maintaining that network was difficult for me, especially when someone in my family complained about slow speeds or devices getting stuck on the wrong node. So, when Merlin's beta for Aimesh 2.0 dropped, I installed it. Thrilling!!! The mesh seemed, for the first time, to be rock-solid, and so easy to administer. I installed the release and found it to be even better-- nodes adding without difficulty, my IoT devices not getting lost on reboots. The GUI seems to work really well. But I noticed that my speeds have dropped somewhat dramatically, from the usual 900/50 to 600/50 on average, but sometimes even less.
Spent the weekend troubleshooting-- thanks to all who helped me get better at the clean install process, which I have now used half a dozen times! I am definitely getting 900/50 at the modem, but as soon as I add the RT-AC86U router, my download speeds drop to 600-700, and when I add the nodes, download speeds drop further, to 400-600. I am not running ANYTHING except Merlin firmware, and QoS. I tried going back to 384.19 and confirmed that the speeds don't drop, but really don't want to go back to a non-mesh network, which had other problems (IoT devices) that this software seems to solve. So after a long weekend of wrestling with this, I'm accepting the lower speeds and setting my bandwidth limits at 500/35, which seems to work pretty well-- we'll see over the next week or so. But the whole process has left me with some questions:
1. Why would this firmware cause such a big speed drop? I gather from much reading that NAT acceleration is automatically disabled when you enable QoS, but may not have been disabled in the earlier firmwares. Is that the explanation? And, if so, is there any way to turn it back on?
2. When I use the "Internet Speed" tab on QoS, what speed is actually getting measured? Directly from the router to the internet? or from the computer that is running the test?
3. Some folks seem to be saying that DSLreports/speedtest no longer "works", but it's the best way I have found to measure buffer bloat, which is what I care most about. Can I trust those numbers?
Thanks in advance.
When I first set up the network several years ago, I ran a router with two extenders (one ethernet and one moca-ethernet), but found that maintaining that network was difficult for me, especially when someone in my family complained about slow speeds or devices getting stuck on the wrong node. So, when Merlin's beta for Aimesh 2.0 dropped, I installed it. Thrilling!!! The mesh seemed, for the first time, to be rock-solid, and so easy to administer. I installed the release and found it to be even better-- nodes adding without difficulty, my IoT devices not getting lost on reboots. The GUI seems to work really well. But I noticed that my speeds have dropped somewhat dramatically, from the usual 900/50 to 600/50 on average, but sometimes even less.
Spent the weekend troubleshooting-- thanks to all who helped me get better at the clean install process, which I have now used half a dozen times! I am definitely getting 900/50 at the modem, but as soon as I add the RT-AC86U router, my download speeds drop to 600-700, and when I add the nodes, download speeds drop further, to 400-600. I am not running ANYTHING except Merlin firmware, and QoS. I tried going back to 384.19 and confirmed that the speeds don't drop, but really don't want to go back to a non-mesh network, which had other problems (IoT devices) that this software seems to solve. So after a long weekend of wrestling with this, I'm accepting the lower speeds and setting my bandwidth limits at 500/35, which seems to work pretty well-- we'll see over the next week or so. But the whole process has left me with some questions:
1. Why would this firmware cause such a big speed drop? I gather from much reading that NAT acceleration is automatically disabled when you enable QoS, but may not have been disabled in the earlier firmwares. Is that the explanation? And, if so, is there any way to turn it back on?
2. When I use the "Internet Speed" tab on QoS, what speed is actually getting measured? Directly from the router to the internet? or from the computer that is running the test?
3. Some folks seem to be saying that DSLreports/speedtest no longer "works", but it's the best way I have found to measure buffer bloat, which is what I care most about. Can I trust those numbers?
Thanks in advance.
. I discovered that my problem is not the firmware at all. No surprise to everyone here, I'm sure. After too many days troubleshooting, I started looking at my modem, which was incredibly "dirty" for lack of a better word-- power out of recommended specs, lots of uncorrectables. I cleaned up my outside cable connections, got the modem behaving more reliably, and presto, my speeds are also reliably in the range that they should be. I DID end up implementing QoS, because after running for a few days without it, I have had too many tiny freezes and almost drops in my Zoom calls. We'll see how it goes. But I do have one last question:
