RT AC68U slow Network

[jonnym]

Hello
I was wondering if anyone out there could help.

I have an Asus RT AC68U which I've been struggling with for a couple of years. I'm happy with the internet conection speeds I'm getting as it is slow quite slow here anyway but the slow network is becoming a bigger problem.

The setup is this:
The router connects to a 4g dongle via the -USB2 port (no phone line connection),
-USB3 has a Buffalo Drive Station HD-LCU3 2TB USB3 external hard drive.
- The only network wired device is a 2TB LenovoEZ NAS drive (a baby NAS which is used as a basic external HDD)
-Meter thick stone walls ensure we don't see any other people's wifi so the channels are quite clear, we have a rarely use microwave and no dec phones or baby monitors.

Connecting to it is my Surface Pro Gen 1 and a Samsung S8, there is other stuff as well but these are two which get the most use.

I have reset the router to factory settings and have up to date firmware, both the surface pro and S8 are all updated as well.

The problem is this(sorry it took so long to get here), the fastest transfer speeds I see is 5MB/s sat next to the router and trasfering one large file of around 1GB, usually a film, from or to the NAS, external HDD or quality USB3 sticks all plugged in to router. It quite often drops off as well. This is across all devices I've tried on 2.5 and 5mz. I haven't tried a wired device yet, but now have an Android smart TV device, network card quality unknown, but cheap, to try if it would help.

I've trawled the web looking for answers, made dozens of setting changes and many factory reset.

Can anyone help[emoji24].

I would like to use mesh in the future but I'm not using it now so could use merlins firmware if it would help.

Thanks for any help and a Happy New Year.

Jon

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[OzarkEdge]

Hello
I was wondering if anyone out there could help.

I have an Asus RT AC68U which I've been struggling with for a couple of years. I'm happy with the internet conection speeds I'm getting as it is slow quite slow here anyway but the slow network is becoming a bigger problem.

The setup is this:
The router connects to a 4g dongle via the -USB2 port (no phone line connection),
-USB3 has a Buffalo Drive Station HD-LCU3 2TB USB3 external hard drive.
- The only network wired device is a 2TB LenovoEZ NAS drive (a baby NAS which is used as a basic external HDD)
-Meter thick stone walls ensure we don't see any other people's wifi so the channels are quite clear, we have a rarely use microwave and no dec phones or baby monitors.

Connecting to it is my Surface Pro Gen 1 and a Samsung S8, there is other stuff as well but these are two which get the most use.

I have reset the router to factory settings and have up to date firmware, both the surface pro and S8 are all updated as well.

The problem is this(sorry it took so long to get here), the fastest transfer speeds I see is 5MB/s sat next to the router and trasfering one large file of around 1GB, usually a film, from or to the NAS, external HDD or quality USB3 sticks all plugged in to router. It quite often drops off as well. This is across all devices I've tried on 2.5 and 5mz. I haven't tried a wired device yet, but now have an Android smart TV device, network card quality unknown, but cheap, to try if it would help.

I've trawled the web looking for answers, made dozens of setting changes and many factory reset.

Can anyone help[emoji24].

I would like to use mesh in the future but I'm not using it now so could use merlins firmware if it would help.

Thanks for any help and a Happy New Year.

Jon

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

5 MBps = 40 Mbps (Bytes vs. bits)

Can you wire the PC to the router LAN and perform a browser-based Internet speed test to get a reference ISP speed in Mbps? Also observe any irregular responses that might indicate choppy or troubled service.

Then connect the PC to the router WiFi and repeat the speed test. And confirm the Windows networking connection status link rate speed to determine the PC's WiFi adapter's connection protocol and band. n can connect at link rates of 72, 150, 300 Mbps; ac at 433, 866 Mbps... generally speaking.

This may give us some idea of your equipment capability and discover some more symptoms... a point of reference from which to consider the remaining equipment and what and where the issues might be.

OE

 

[jonnym]

5 MBps = 40 Mbps (Bytes vs. bits)

Can you wire the PC to the router LAN and perform a browser-based Internet speed test to get a reference ISP speed in Mbps? Also observe any irregular responses that might indicate choppy or troubled service.

Then connect the PC to the router WiFi and repeat the speed test. And confirm the Windows networking connection status link rate speed to determine the PC's WiFi adapter's connection protocol and band. n can connect at link rates of 72, 150, 300 Mbps; ac at 433, 866 Mbps... generally speaking.

This may give us some idea of your equipment capability and discover some more symptoms... a point of reference from which to consider the remaining equipment and what and where the issues might be.

OE

I don't have a PC with a network port currently, the Surface Pro gen1 doesn't have one unfortunately, I can try it with my android smart TV box tommorrow, though as I said the network chipset is going to be a very cheap one.

Is 40mbps all I should expect?

I will try to do the wifi bits tonight and post the results. I know I'm approaching this with one hand tied behind me.

Thanks for the help
Jon

 

[OzarkEdge]

I don't have a PC with a network port currently, the Surface Pro gen1 doesn't have one unfortunately, I can try it with my android smart TV box tommorrow, though as I said the network chipset is going to be a very cheap one.

Is 40mbps all I should expect?

I will try to do the wifi bits tonight and post the results. I know I'm approaching this with one hand tied behind me.

Thanks for the help
Jon

The objective of a wired PC test is that a wired PC should easily exceed your cellular ISP capacity, so that the test result will likely reflect your cellular ISP capacity... the presumed bottle neck. I have no idea what it should be, or what it will be until after you test it. But I don't expect it to be great... and I expect a decent WiFi connection to yield the same limited ISP speed. But if your WiFi speed test differs dramatically, then maybe your WiFi connection bits are suspect. Once we figure out what should be what speed wise, then we can consider the attached storage performance, or lack thereof. But before that, we need to know what your network performance is and should be.

And you're going to have to tell us why you have meter thick stone walls!

OE

 

[jonnym]

OK I get it, and I can help as the 4g dongle is actually a Samsung note 2 LTE phone with speedtest.net app on it so I can do the ISP check to see if the router is slowing everything down. Will check and get back to you.

How do I check for the connect link rates you mentioned?

The meter thick walls are because the house was built in 1635 and built to last!

Thanks for the help
Jon

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[OzarkEdge]

OK I get it, and I can help as the 4g dongle is actually a Samsung note 2 LTE phone with speedtest.net app on it so I can do the ISP check to see if the router is slowing everything down. Will check and get back to you.

How do I check for the connect link rates you mentioned?

The meter thick walls are because the house was built in 1635 and built to last!

Thanks for the help
Jon

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Wow, 1635! If only those walls could talk!

Here's a Win7 Control Panel wired LAN connection status showing my Gigabit Ethernet link rate:

You'll have to dig around to find the similar Win10 WiFi connection status... there is actually a direct link to it on the Win10 Control Panel home page when viewed by Category.

Also, Win device manager will list your WiFi adapter which will likely reveal its make and capability. It's worth knowing these things so you can better interpret the performance you are experiencing.

OE

 

[jonnym]

The wifi is Marvell Avastar 350N, speed is 65.0Mbs. That's around 8MB/s with 2 way chatter and never perfect signal conditions 5MB/s is about right I guess.

Is this set by the wifi card or is it something I can increase?

The results of the speed test on the Surface Pro and the 4g dongle/phone were almost exactly the same.

Thanks
Jon

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[jonnym]

So I found online that the Surface Pro should do at least 130mbs. I then found reference to bluetooth being enabled may slow this. Turned off blue tooth and reported network speed has jumped from 65 to 130Mbps.

Downloading a film has also jumped from 5MB/s to 10MB/s all be it waving down to 6MB/s and up again.

Turning off bluetooth had no effect on my phones transfer speed.

10MB/s is a lot better but hoped for more, even at 130Mbps capability that's 16MB/s.

Thanks
Jon


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[OzarkEdge]

The wifi is Marvell Avastar 350N, speed is 65.0Mbs. That's around 8MB/s with 2 way chatter and never perfect signal conditions 5MB/s is about right I guess.

Is this set by the wifi card or is it something I can increase?

The results of the speed test on the Surface Pro and the 4g dongle/phone were almost exactly the same.

Thanks
Jon

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Is 65 Mbps the Windows WiFi connection status link rate speed?

A quick search suggests the Marvell Avastar 350N is 802.11n dual-band and maybe(?) one antenna. If your other wireless clients permit it, I would set the 68U WiFi for 2.4 GHz, ssid-24, n-only, 20 MHz; and 5.0 GHz, ssid-50, n/ac-mixed, Auto Auto. And connect the Marvell Avastar 350N to the ssid-50 WLAN. And then check its link rate during a PC browser speed test. If you have a Bluetooth device enabled on the PC, disable it and test again to see if it interferes. Maybe the PC link rate can do better than 65 Mbps.

OE

 

[OzarkEdge]

So I found online that the Surface Pro should do at least 130mbs. I then found reference to bluetooth being enabled may slow this. Turned off blue tooth and reported network speed has jumped from 65 to 130Mbps.

Downloading a film has also jumped from 5MB/s to 10MB/s all be it waving down to 6MB/s and up again.

Turning off bluetooth had no effect on my phones transfer speed.

10MB/s is a lot better but hoped for more, even at 130Mbps capability that's 16MB/s.

Thanks
Jon


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We posted at once.

So, disabling BT doubled your link rate speed and may have maxed out your Marvell adapter... that's an improvement. 130 Mbps PC WiFi link rate may now leave your cellular ISP connection as the only network bottle neck.

Instability in the cellular ISP connection may account for the download speed variation... or it could be the remote server... or it could still be the Marvell adapter/drivers. You could disable the Marvel hardware and install an ASUS USB-AC53 Nano in a USB 2.0 port to bump your PC WiFi link rate to ac 866 Mbps... for example... about $32 here in the US.

Keep testing... try an Internet speed test while observing your Marvel link rate speed. And complete those other suggestions to maximize your router WLANS.

Once you have a feel for your network speed potential and have optimized the various links, then you can go about understanding your storage speeds.

OE

 

[wouterv]

In addition to the above replies.
To explain what data rates you can expect, use the below as guideline:
1 stream 802.11g = 54 Mbps (this is an old standard, it is not recommended to to mix 802.11g and 802.11n devices on one wireless network).
1 stream 802.11n @ 20 MHz = 72 Mbps (20 MHz bandwidth is recommended in crowded areas).
1 stream 802.11n @40 MHz = 150 Mbps.
1 stream 802.11ac = 433 Mbps.
1 wired link supported by the RT-AC68U = 1000 Mbps

The given data rates are the maximum, often the data rate of wireless signals is scaled down automatically due to disturbance or distance in the signal path.
The final effective throughput will at maximum be HALF of the final Mbps data rate!

The RT-AC68U supports 3 data streams on each 2.4 GHz (802.11n) and 5 GHz (802.11n or 802.11ac): more data streams means a higher data rate and throughput.

Next is to check your client devices: many devices (like most mobile phones) do support only 1 data stream, only high class devices (e.g. laptops) do support 2 or more data streams on 802.11ac.

 

[jonnym]

All great info. My surface pro seems to have gone back to 5-6MB/s with or with out bluetooth on. The Asus USB nano is an interesting idea, however the HDD space on my Surface is too small really meaning I use a micro USB stick to increase the space, as it only comes with one USB port, unless I use a hub I can't add to it, and having loads of devices hanging off it defeats its purpose(I was also using the SD card slot but it causes a blue screen error, a known issue).

The S8 is more of a head scratcher as although I can't find out how many data streams it has, I have read that many people have reported a significantly higher streaming rate, especially annoying is one person that is reporting 250+mbps through their Asus router! I get 5MB/s or 40mbps.

As said the internet speed is quite low here, only occasionally I see 20mbps most often 5mbps so I'm not worried about the speed of the internet. The low network speed for shunting round videos and or backing up loads of pics is quite annoying. The network is quite often not fast enough to watch a movie from the server or router attached hdd at 720p.

The speeds are the same from the NAS or HDD(powered not portable) and from a quality USB3 stick in the USB port, placing the phone right next to the router, which would lead me to think it's the router at error.

Is there anything setting wise I could try?

Thanks again for any help

Jon




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