RT-AX88U - Slow WAN to LAN Speeds

[Colin1234]

I've recently purchased the RT-AX88U and installed Asuswrt-Merlin. Coming from Linksys and DD-WRT I'm having a much better experience and so far love everything I'm seeing. I am having a bit of a problem though and I've searched Google and this forum but none of the solutions have worked. I have a DHCP Gigabit connection and am running 384.19. If I'm connected directly to my ISP Modem I get a SpeedTest result of about 940Mbps down. With the Modem in Bridge Mode and the AX88U as the DHCP server I struggle to get anything above 350-400Mbps down. So far I've done the following,

Adaptive QoS -> QoS -> OFF
Guest Network -> OFF
LAN -> Switch Control-> Spanning-Tree Protocol -> OFF (Jumbo Frame is also OFF)
Traffic Analyzer -> Statistic -> OFF
Tools -> Sysinfo -> Hardware Acceleration -> Runner and Flow Cache are both listed as Enabled

I understand with the AX88U NAT is always enabled and that's why I can't find an option for it.

I'll note that file transfer over LAN maxes out the GigE ports, it's just WAN to LAN that I'm having the problem with.

Any thoughts on what I can try here would be greatly appreciated.

 

[RMerlin]

Try powering down your modem for about 10 minutes to fully reset it. This is sometimes necessary when switching between different routers.

Might also be worth trying a different network cable between the modem and the router, just to be safe.

Another thing to try is on the WAN page to clone your MAC address - some ISPs prefer that, and for some reason I`ve seen a few cases where it made a difference on the connection speed.

 

[pulp]

LAN -> Switch Control-> Spanning-Tree Protocol -> OFF (Jumbo Frame is also OFF)

Same Merlin version and 88U. But my Spanning-Tree Protocol is showing as ENABLE. I didn't enable it from disable. You did? Everything else you mentioned is the same.

 

[Colin1234]

@RMerlin and @pulp - Thanks for your replies. Seems that leaving the modem unplugged for 10-15 mins fixed the problem. Weird though because I've had the router for a couple weeks and I figured that when the DHCP renewal happened it would have done the same thing.

I did turn Spanning-Tree Protocol back on as I had disabled that during the troubleshooting and it doesn't seem to take away from the speed, so I'll leave it on.

Thanks again

 

[pulp]

Should I ENABLE the spanning tree protocol, is it recommended? It wasn’t running after I flashed Merlin.

 

[RMerlin]

Weird though because I've had the router for a couple weeks and I figured that when the DHCP renewal happened it would have done the same thing.

ISPs typically caches the MAC address. It's possible than rather than reject the new MAC, your ISP simply throttles its performance. Turning the modem off generally causes the ISP to discard any cached MAC.

This is more commonly shown as new routers flat out failing to obtain a DHCP lease until you do this, to let your ISP forget about the previous router.

 

[Colin1234]

Should I ENABLE the spanning tree protocol, is it recommended? It wasn’t running after I flashed Merlin.

From what I've read, Spanning Tree Protocol is used to prevent bridge loops. In a typical home network it's not going to be needed.

 

[jorgsmash]

I'm trying to diagnose a similar problem. I just got Gig/Fiber Internet today and want to make sure I'm getting the best speeds and that none of my configurations are limiting the connection. I switched from about 350/Mbit down, 20/Mbit up, to 940 down, 880 up. I immediately noticed that my speeds were capped at the old levels since I use flexQoS with manual bandwidth set at the old levels. Once I changed them to 940 down and 880 up, my speeds increased greatly. Only to about 50-60% of advertised speeds though. Now that I have QoS manual bandwidth set correctly, will QoS really affect the speedtests that I'm running? Do I need to disable it or can I keep it on without fear that it's interfering with speeds. I would hope that QoS doesn't interfere with speeds as that would make me question using it.

I am not using the router provided by Frontier, just the ASUS AX88U. I'm a little confused where the modem even is, and wouldn't feel comfortable connecting directly to it.

 

[Colin1234]

If you click Tools and scroll down to HW Acceleration is it enabled for both "Runner" and "Flow Cache"? In order for me to get the full WAN speed I had to make sure those were enabled. The only way I could see to do that was by disabling QoS. Can I ask why you're using QoS?

 

[jorgsmash]

If you click Tools and scroll down to HW Acceleration is it enabled for both "Runner" and "Flow Cache"? In order for me to get the full WAN speed I had to make sure those were enabled. The only way I could see to do that was by disabling QoS. Can I ask why you're using QoS?

I'm using QoS to prioritize gaming traffic. Is there a downside to using it? I thought everyone that had the ASUS routers, especially with the Merlin firmware would be excited to use QoS. I think a majority of people run it. But I'm not sure if there's a good reason not to. I mainly need to focus on reducing ping/latency now, since my speeds are already good.

Runner: Disabled (QoS) - Flow Cache: Enabled

What is Runner? I assume QoS disabled this?

 

[RMerlin]

I'm using QoS to prioritize gaming traffic. Is there a downside to using it? I thought everyone that had the ASUS routers, especially with the Merlin firmware would be excited to use QoS. I think a majority of people run it. But I'm not sure if there's a good reason not to. I mainly need to focus on reducing ping/latency now, since my speeds are already good.

Runner: Disabled (QoS) - Flow Cache: Enabled

What is Runner? I assume QoS disabled this?

In short:

CTF = Flow Cache
FA = Packet Runner

Those are two different levels of acceleration. Adaptive QoS requires disabling the second level. Traditional QoS requires disabling both.

 

[jorgsmash]

In short:

CTF = Flow Cache
FA = Packet Runner

Those are two different levels of acceleration. Adaptive QoS requires disabling the second level. Traditional QoS requires disabling both.

Thanks Merlin! Do you see a reason not to run QoS? Is it possible to get close to gig speeds with QoS enabled? I'm running FlexQoS right now.

 

[RMerlin]

Thanks Merlin! Do you see a reason not to run QoS? Is it possible to get close to gig speeds with QoS enabled? I'm running FlexQoS right now.

I haven't tested performance with the newer router models, but back in the day when I test things out, Adaptive QoS would only allow about 650 Mbps of throughput on the RT-AC68U. So I'd say if you have a gigabit connection, keep QoS disabled to fully use your router's throughput capability.

Below that, it will depend of your specific needs, the router model, and your connection speed.

 

[jorgsmash]

I haven't tested performance with the newer router models, but back in the day when I test things out, Adaptive QoS would only allow about 650 Mbps of throughput on the RT-AC68U. So I'd say if you have a gigabit connection, keep QoS disabled to fully use your router's throughput capability.

Below that, it will depend of your specific needs, the router model, and your connection speed.

I just ran a few tests with QoS disabled, and AiProtect Disabled and I'm getting maximum speeds of 450 Mb Down, 490 up, which is about half of the advertised speeds. Disabling QoS and AiProtect didn't make a difference, but I haven't hit that 650 Mbs threshold yet. I know there's a lot of factors that the router can't fix, with the ISP. I also read that the 5GHz channel can handle up to 1300Mb/s, do you think that is accurate? I'm really just trying to figure out if my router is bottlenecking the service or if my configuration is bottlenecking it or if it's just that Frontier isn't provided the advertised speeds at this particular time. Could go up or down every time you test it.

 

[RMerlin]

I just ran a few tests with QoS disabled, and AiProtect Disabled and I'm getting maximum speeds of 450 Mb Down, 490 up, which is about half of the advertised speeds. Disabling QoS and AiProtect didn't make a difference, but I haven't hit that 650 Mbs threshold yet. I know there's a lot of factors that the router can't fix, with the ISP. I also read that the 5GHz channel can handle up to 1300Mb/s, do you think that is accurate? I'm really just trying to figure out if my router is bottlenecking the service or if my configuration is bottlenecking it or if it's just that Frontier isn't provided the advertised speeds at this particular time. Could go up or down every time you test it.

You need to use Ethernet to do any performance testing, as wireless is subject to a lot of factors unrelated to the router's CPU performance.

That 1300 Mbps figure is the link rate. That does not take into account all of these factors:

- The AES encryption put on top of that data, from WPA
- Added latency as wifi is a shared medium
- Wifi optimizations. For instance by default Intel clients will not burst data as sustainedly to prevent hogging the entire airtime just for that one single client. This can be changed in the Device Manager's advanced settings, but is usually a bad idea if you have anything else using wifi in the area (and not just yourself, but your neighbours too).

A 1200 AX link rate gives me around 700 Mbps on my own laptop if I recall (been a while since I've done any benchmark, since my current router runs a known broken wifi driver anyway). With 160 MHz channel (and a link rate close to 2400 Mbps), I get close to 1 Gbps - hard to properly test as I have nothing else faster than that to test against.

 

[jorgsmash]

You need to use Ethernet to do any performance testing, as wireless is subject to a lot of factors unrelated to the router's CPU performance.

That 1300 Mbps figure is the link rate. That does not take into account all of these factors:

- The AES encryption put on top of that data, from WPA
- Added latency as wifi is a shared medium
- Wifi optimizations. For instance by default Intel clients will not burst data as sustainedly to prevent hogging the entire airtime just for that one single client. This can be changed in the Device Manager's advanced settings, but is usually a bad idea if you have anything else using wifi in the area (and not just yourself, but your neighbours too).

A 1200 AX link rate gives me around 700 Mbps on my own laptop if I recall (been a while since I've done any benchmark, since my current router runs a known broken wifi driver anyway). With 160 MHz channel (and a link rate close to 2400 Mbps), I get close to 1 Gbps - hard to properly test as I have nothing else faster than that to test against.

I was testing 5GHz and wired also. Do you think I should try and change the link rate and channel frequency? I have never looked into that. The AX88U should be able to handle 900 down over wired without messing with any of that, right?

Also, do you think AiProtect offers any real benefit on top of Skynet or should it just be disabled? It says it has blocked some stuff but most all of it is from my work laptop and I do alot of XSS and SQL injection testing so I think was just catching that and nothing truly malicious.

 

[RMerlin]

I was testing 5GHz and wired also. Do you think I should try and change the link rate and channel frequency? I have never looked into that. The AX88U should be able to handle 900 down over wired without messing with any of that, right?

For 5 GHz leave the channel rates to their default value. Maybe experiment in using a different fixed channel, as automatic channel selection doesn't always make the best of choices.

900 Mbps over wifi will be tricky to achieve for the reasons I enumerated. You shouldn't try to improve Internet performance at the same time as Wifi performance. Start with the Internet portion by using an Ethernet client, and once that is looking solid, only then you should concentrate on the wifi portion.

Also, do you think AiProtect offers any real benefit on top of Skynet or should it just be disabled?

They serve slightly different needs, and mostly complement each other. Up to you really, depends on your specific needs.

 

[jorgsmash]

For 5 GHz leave the channel rates to their default value. Maybe experiment in using a different fixed channel, as automatic channel selection doesn't always make the best of choices.

900 Mbps over wifi will be tricky to achieve for the reasons I enumerated. You shouldn't try to improve Internet performance at the same time as Wifi performance. Start with the Internet portion by using an Ethernet client, and once that is looking solid, only then you should concentrate on the wifi portion.



They serve slightly different needs, and mostly complement each other. Up to you really, depends on your specific needs.

Oh yeah I wasn't expecting 900 Mbps over wifi it just never seems to be that fast lol. 900 over ethernet should be achievable but I'm stuck around the 500 mark. I'll wait and see if I get faster speeds over the next coupled days. It was just installed today. It's a little confusing because the tech who installed it placed an ONT (Optical Network Terminal) in my house, and a Frontier modem/router. I tried putting the Frontier router in bridged mode but that messed some things up. So I called him and he had me take out the Frontier router and go directly from the ONT to the AX88U. He had to remotely do a dhcp release to the ISP so that I could use the AX88U instead of the other Frontier modem. I then was asking him if the ONT was actually a modem and he said no. He said my router was the modem now. Which I don't think that's accurate. I was wondering if I can plug a client directly into the ONT to run a speed test and then see if I get 900 down. But I'm just not sure if this ONT thing is a modem.

 

[Frankflash]

 

[Frankflash]

this is what you connect your router to in side your house this is what we have in New Zealand