MoCA 2.0 Actiontech ECB6000

[zeek987]

My previous settings were fine with Moca1.1 also. It wasn't until I tried to go past 100Mbps that I encounted issues. I'm on my 2nd day with speeds in excess of 360Mbps and no fallback to 1Mbps one way. Disable flow control and report back, what do you have to lose? If you elect to try it, make sure you do it on the end equipment as well as the switch ports (it worked without disabling FC on my NAS as I don't know how to accomplish that).

That is great news. So there is hope!
I absolutely will try your suggestion, as, you're right, I have nothing to lose. I will be trying it as soon as I get home. I travel a lot for work and have not had a lot of time to troubleshoot.

Also, I am not well versed in networking hardware and protocols, so I am a little weary of changing adapter settings without first understanding the technology. Since, my switch is an unmanaged trendnet "green" switch, I do not know how to change the flow control settings on it, or if it is even possible. I will change it in the adapter settings on each of the PCs to see if that helps. However, I forgot to mention that I did connect my test PCs directly to the switch (and later to each other) and was able to see what I would expect to be full gigabit (800mbps+) speed in each direction.

Further, wouldn't you think that Actiontec designed this product to work at full speed on what is probably the default NIC settings for 90% of users? So even if disabling flow control works, isn't the adapter set still faulty? The included directions, and Actiontec support, did not mention anything about adjusting any adapter settings. What if you have a device (like a NAS or switch) that you cannot disable flow control on?

I guess still I would really like to hear from someone that has the ECB6200 that is working at full speed for long periods of time without needing to be reset or having to adjust any NIC settings. I think someone mentioned this in a previous post, but with the caveat that they had not done through testing (maybe if that person could try LAN Speed Test on their setup).

Thanks again for you help!

 

[bds3151]

I would agree that manufacturers should test for 90% of users configurations. I think the 90% for Actiontec may be the service provider set top boxes and not end user PC/NAS configurations. To further complicate the issue, when I take my win8 laptop and test across the 6200's, I get 80MB/s!. So it seems to make a difference which operating system you are using. I also did not see this issue with the 6000's so Actiontec must have done something different on the ethernet side of the adapter with the 6200's on flow control/issuing pause frames. I hope it works for you as I have not heard from anyone else that has implemented the changes.

Go ahead and try it on the endpoints if your switch is unmanaged but you may ultimately have to go to the managed variety. I have the Cisco sg300-10.

 

[jmelan]

well the cisco sg200-08 switches already had flow control disabled by default, so nothing to change

went ahead and switched HTPC to flow control disabled as well.

however, i have no control over the samsung TV also connected to the switch

after setting flow control to disabled on the htpc, speedtest showed ~5mbps up and down, so I still had to reset the adapters again

waiting to see how long it lasts now...

 

[bds3151]

jmelan, thanks for the feedback. I had to reset the adapters after changing the flow control parameters as well.

 

[jmelan]

back to 5mbps this morning

the problem is clearly the adapters here - i can not control flow control on the TV. I am not going to unplug my TV in order to prevent the adapters from going into whatever problem mode they go into

these things need a firmware update - returning for now as that does not seem possible, will swap for 6000s and see how it goes

 

[Pinotphile]

This is indeed puzzling, as I don't seem to be having the problem, and flow control is enabled on the NIC on my laptop. It and one of the ECB6200's are connected to a Netgear R6250 (configured as a WAP). On the other end of the coax, my cable modem and the other ECB6200 are connected to a TP-Link Archer C7 wireless router. Neither the Netgear nor the TP-Link have any settings available for flow control.

When I get some time I'll do some LAN tests instead of the tests using speedtest.net that I did earlier to see if I get the problem then. Maybe the problem only happens between endpoints on the same LAN.

 

[bds3151]

Sorry to hear that imelan. Pinotphile, so your configuration is router -6200/6200 -router? I have a NAS -TPLink C9 Archer at one end -6200/6200-Cisco sw-HTPC. I wonder if it's the fact you don't have a cisco switch in between? imelan, did you see pause frames in your switch on the individual ports?

 

[zeek987]

Slow again, even after disabling flow control on every device that had that option.
It is the ECB6200 adapters. They are no bueno.

bds3151, I am not sure why yours are working when ours are not, even with flow control disabled. Again, I think if you have to make that type of setting change to get these ECBs to work, then they are broken in my opinion. But I am glad that work around has worked for you.

I really do appreciate the feedback from everyone on this discussion thread.
If more people that have the ECB6200 set post that they are working fine (and at what speed they are running at) for long periods of time without needing to be reset, then I may buy another set (and once retailers with better shipping and return policies start stocking them).

I guess I might try a set of ECB6000 s if I really get antsy. Especially since my ECB6200 s never got above 600mbps even when they were working fine.

 

[bds3151]

Slow again, even after disabling flow control on every device that had that option.
It is the ECB6200 adapters. They are no bueno.

bds3151, I am not sure why yours are working when ours are not, even with flow control disabled. Again, I think if you have to make that type of setting change to get these ECBs to work, then they are broken in my opinion. But I am glad that work around has worked for you.

I really do appreciate the feedback from everyone on this discussion thread.
If more people that have the ECB6200 set post that they are working fine (and at what speed they are running at) for long periods of time without needing to be reset, then I may buy another set (and once retailers with better shipping and return policies start stocking them).

I guess I might try a set of ECB6000 s if I really get antsy. Especially since my ECB6200 s never got above 600mbps even when they were working fine.

I agree there is something wrong with the adapters. Under no circumstances should they permanently downshift when presented with pause frames. I'm just trying to find a workaround as they do provide a lot more speed than the ecb6000's and it's probably going to take Actiontec quite a while to fix. Pretty sure the circumvention has fixed my problems but it will take more than a few days for me to call it solid. The other question is, why have certain users (Pinotphile) never seen any issues - even with flow control on?

 

[Pinotphile]

I ran some tests using LAN Speed Test. I don't have the best PCs to work with. PC1 is an iMac, probably at least 5-6 years old. It does have a gigabit LAN adapter though. PC2 is my work laptop, which is newer, but not very fast, and while it does have a gigabit LAN adapter, it seems slow (slower than the one for the Mac).

The Mac and one of the ECB6200's are connected to a TP-Link Archer C7 wireless router. For the test, I connected the laptop to the other ECB6200 with an Ethernet cable, and I connected the two ECB6200's with a short coax cable. Using the Mac as a client, I got upload speeds averaging around 275 Mbps and download speeds averaging around 350 - 375Mbps. Using the laptop, the averages were about 275 Mbps in both directions. Not that impressive really, but I think my PCs (especially the laptop) are the limiting factor. With both connected to the router via Ethernet as a comparison, the laptop didn't do much better, but the Mac was able to get to about 650 - 700 Mbps download.

Now to the relevant part. When I started, flow-control was enabled on the Mac and disabled on the laptop. When I disabled it on the Mac and tested with it as the client, the download speed dropped below 10 Mbps (upload speed seemed unaffected). With the laptop, it made little difference whether flow-control was enabled. I disabled an re-enabled flow control on the Mac several times to make sure, but every time I disabled it, it dropped the download speed to below 10 Mbps. I should have switched the PCs (connecting the laptop to the router and the Mac to the ECB6200), but I didn't think of it at the time. It would have been interesting to see if the effect of changing the flow-control had moved to the laptop. When I get a chance I'll try it to see (probably won't be for a few days).

 

[bds3151]

Interesting. So you got a confirming effect on the Mac but with the opposite setting and no effect on the PC. The common denominator remains flow control either off or on as the trigger. Our configurations differ quite a bit a HTPC as the client, a Cisco switch, 6200's over coax. a TP-link Archer C9, and a qnap NAS as the endpoint. I don't have any Mac's but if you have a NAS and a switch available maybe you could set up a similar environment and see if we get the same results?

 

[Pinotphile]

I did a little more testing this evening, and it appears to me that the ECB6200 has issues communicating with some network adapters but not others. As I mentioned before, one of my PCs has to have flow-control set on its network adapter or download speed to it is drastically reduced (upload speed is unaffected). With my other PC, upload and download speeds are good whether flow-control is enabled or not. I confirmed this with the following configurations and tests:

1. PC1 and first ECB6200 attached to TP-Link Archer C7 router. First ECB6200 connected to second ECB6200 with a short coax cable. PC2 connected to Ethernet port of second ECB6200. Tested speed between the PCs using LAN Speed Test. Also tested on speedtest.net from PC2.
   
2. PC2 and first ECB6200 attached to TP-Link Archer C7 router. First ECB6200 connected to second ECB6200 with a short coax cable. PC1 connected to Ethernet port of second ECB6200. Tested speed between the PCs using LAN Speed Test. Also tested on speedtest.net from PC1.
3. PC1 and first ECB6200 attached to router. First ECB6200 connected to second ECB6200 with a short coax cable. PC2 and second ECB6200 connected via Ethernet to Netgear R6250 (configured as WAP). Tested speed between the PCs using LAN Speed Test. Also tested on speedtest.net from PC2.
4. PC2 and first ECB6200 attached to router. First ECB6200 connected to second ECB6200 with a short coax cable. PC1 and second ECB6200 connected via Ethernet to Netgear R6250. Tested speed between the PCs using LAN Speed Test. Also tested on speedtest.net from PC1.
   
5. PCs connected directly to the ECB6200's: PC1<----->ECB6200<------>ECB6200<------>PC2. Tested speed between the PCs using LAN Speed Test.

In every case, PC1 download speeds (i.e. data flowing toward PC1) were drastically lower unless flow-control was enabled on the PC1 network adapter. PC1 upload speeds were good either way. PC2 download (and upload) speeds were good and essentially the same whether or not flow-control was set on the PC2 network adapter.

I've also done speed tests with a phone and tablet connected wirelessly to the Netgear R6250, and both download and upload speeds were good using speedtest.net. I do a lot of streaming to a PS3, which is connected via Ethernet to the Netgear R6250, and while I don't have a good way to test the download speed to it (nor can I configure flow-control on it), I haven't noticed a problem with it.

So for my network at least, it appears that there's no problem as long as I have flow-control set on the one device (the network adapter in PC1 above) that the ECB6200 doesn't play nice with. That said, there is obviously an issue with these adapters, and for anyone thinking about purchasing them, you might want to hold off for a while in hopes that Actiontec will find and fix the issue. I plan to send them my experiences with the adapters FWIW.

 

[zeek987]

Pinotphile, thank you for taking the time do those tests and sharing your findings with us.

1) As bds3151 said, it appears you are having the same issue but with flow control disabled.
2) jmelan had the issue with flow control enabled. (edit: jmelan had the issue with or without flow control enabled, like I did [3].)
3) I had the issue no matter how flow control was set (on multiple devices, with point to point direct connections). I also want to add that I never saw speeds greater than about 550mbps (typical was about 380 mbps, on coax lengths of 3ft up to 200 ft), so I am not sure the "bonded" speed was ever working with my adapter set.

The issue being that the speed in one direction between 2 of the ECB6200 adapters will slow down to a random speed less than 25mbps (usually below 5mbps) and can only be fixed by doing a reset (power cycle) of the 1 adapter that is causing the issue. The evidence suggests that the issue may be related to how the adapters handle flow control. Actiontec support's advice was to return the adapters to place of purchase when asked about this issue, which I did.

I would say that unless you can buy these ECM6200 s from a place that allows for easy, hassle-free returns, you are better off waiting to buy them until this issue is confirmed to be fixed, or trying a set of the ECB6000 s, which will be slower.
I hope this is fixed soon, as I really would like to buy several of these ECB6200 s.

 

[azazel1024]

I can't speak to the MoCA adapters with flow control, but it has generally been my experience that having flow control disabled TENDS to cause problems in some cases. I have heard many saying it is gospel that it is the other way around that having flow control enabled can cause problems.

However...real world examples.

With two NICs in my server and desktop leveraging SMB multichannel. With flow control disabled on both machines and my switches I can get ~230MB/sec between the two machines. If I disable or disconnect a cable on one machine, performance drops to 23MB/sec from desktop to server, but 117MB/sec from server to desktop. Vice versa if the adapter is disabled in the other machine. Flow control on, on everything, it is 117MB/sec both directions. Disable an adapter on both machines with flow control off and I can get 117MB/sec on each machine.

Connecting on the same switch with both adapters on each machine enabled again, flow control on, I get ~235MB/sec each direction.

If I attempt to connect through two switches between each machine (so server->switch 1->switch 2->desktop) with a 2x1GbE link aggregation group between the switches, flow control off, I drop to ~23MB/sec of performance upload AND download. If I enable flow control, 235MB/sec each direction.

If I only have a single 1GbE connection between switches it works okay with flow control on or off at ~117MB/sec each direction.

Other GbE devices connecting to the server are fine with flow control on or off if the server is running both adapters enabled or one disabled. Anecdotally performance is still typically 1-2% faster with flow control enabled (example, laptop is about 114MB/sec each direction with flow control disabled and about 116MB/sec with flow control enabled).

I realize this might be an issue with SMB Multichannel, but flow control being enabled for me works much better in most cases and I have yet to find an instances on my LAN with a LOT of configurations and playing with things where flow control disabled worked better.

 

[jmelan]

well i returned the ecb6200s and placed an order for the ecb6000k02 kit as it is now available on newegg with free shipping, will post back when it arrives and is tested with the same setup

in my case, when the ecb6200 connected to my switch with the htpc went to slow mode, the TV connected to the same switch also had trouble connecting, so it seemed that the adapter was certainly initiating the issue. the problem was the exact same whether the htpc adapter (Intel PRO/1000 PT Desktop Adapter) had flow control enabled or disabled

 

[Pinotphile]

I sent a long post to Actiontec through their support page describing the issue I'm seeing. I also mentioned that other people are having issues as well, though slightly different. We'll see where it goes.

 

[elviso33]

Hi All,

Was really looking forward to getting the 6200, but I guess with the current issues, it would be prudent to wait. I would really like the bonded speeds and my verizon actiontec MI424wr early revisions are just not cutting it anymore.

Just a question, has anyone tried the new verizon quantum router G1100 to use as a moca 2.0 device/bridge? It might be an option, but I'm not sure if it is bonded or not. In the specs it states up to 800 mbps, but I'm not sure if they are just stating the moca 2.0 specs or if the gateway if truly bonded and can deliver the 6200 like speeds. On ebay two G1100 are only little more than the 6200 kit, but a simple solution would be more ideal in my case.

Thanks.

 

[Pinotphile]

I sent a long post to Actiontec through their support page describing the issue I'm seeing. I also mentioned that other people are having issues as well, though slightly different. We'll see where it goes.

Well, crickets so far from Actiontec. Not even an acknowledgement that they received my message.

 

[L&LD]

Well, crickets so far from Actiontec. Not even an acknowledgement that they received my message.

You don't really expect an answer within 24 hours?

 

[Pinotphile]

You don't really expect an answer within 24 hours?

Didn't expect a resolution to the problem, but at least something to the effect of, "got your message and we'll look into it" seems like a reasonable expectation to me.