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Advice needed Please BT Fibre 900 - ASUS RT-AX82U Slow Wifi

Tristan833
Level 7

Hi,

Got up and running on BT Fibre 900 yesterday.

Running BT Smart Hub 2 at the moment until I get workaround for the Asus issue where I get 990Mb Direct Wired into Hub and Client Speeds Of 350Mb --> 200Mb Down Variable PC and from PS5 300-220Mb Down.

I tested Asus yesterday direct wired and im getting over 900mb.

Tested with PS5 yesterday on 5Ghz Band Wifi and most I could get was 100Mb, The same with other PC clients.

Any ideas what to check.

I know its a global setting somewhere

SmartConnect Off

No Qos On

THanks

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1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

jzchen
Level 14

I was waiting to see hoping a UK member is on here and would know, vs me looking things up because I am from “across the pond”.

BT Hub 2 is amazingly an ac router.  I say amazingly because after ac there is ax, then 6E (ax 6 GHz band), and already 7 (be) that is being released as we type.

Here’s the instructions for the RT-AX82U

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/RT-AX82U/E17523_RT-AX82U_UM_web.pdf?model=RT-AX82U

Section 1.4 has some setup tips (page 9 if I’m not mistaken, I am doing this research on my tiny phone screen so it is hard switching tabs).

Not noted there if you update from 386 to 388 firmware (since you are just setting up) hard reset the ASUS router.  Then try setup again.

BTW- SmartConnect works decently for me especially the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands.  I dare say try it.  I do not use QoS.

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4 REPLIES 4

jzchen
Level 14

I was waiting to see hoping a UK member is on here and would know, vs me looking things up because I am from “across the pond”.

BT Hub 2 is amazingly an ac router.  I say amazingly because after ac there is ax, then 6E (ax 6 GHz band), and already 7 (be) that is being released as we type.

Here’s the instructions for the RT-AX82U

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/wireless/RT-AX82U/E17523_RT-AX82U_UM_web.pdf?model=RT-AX82U

Section 1.4 has some setup tips (page 9 if I’m not mistaken, I am doing this research on my tiny phone screen so it is hard switching tabs).

Not noted there if you update from 386 to 388 firmware (since you are just setting up) hard reset the ASUS router.  Then try setup again.

BTW- SmartConnect works decently for me especially the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands.  I dare say try it.  I do not use QoS.

Thanks very much for replying I give this a go. BT is not bad just a bit limited in what you can do with it. If I dont get any joy with the Asus config. and I see a speed increase I shall return it and use the BT one as giving me decent speeds over wifi.

Murph_9000
Level 14

I'm late to the thread here, but there are some details about WiFi which mean that 300 Mbps might actually be working as intended for WiFi 6 5GHz.  Wait, you say, it's 4804 Mbps, it says so on the spec sheet.  Yes, it does, and the spec sheet is not incorrect.  In the right circumstances, it can do 4804 Mbps half duplex.  So, how can a 4804 Mbps network be working correctly if it tops out around 300 Mbps?

Firstly, 4804 Mbps is with 4 spatial streams (4x4), but your PS5 and typical PC interfaces are only 2402 Mbps (2x2).  That's also using a 160 MHz channel, where the default is 80 MHz.  You can force it to use 160 MHz, but I recommend setting it to 20/40/80/160 automatic mode, so that the router adjusts to the prevailing conditions.  If it's detecting RADAR signals, there might not be a 160 MHz channel available (there are only 2 or 3 channels in total for 160 MHz), and potentially just as little as a single 80 MHz channel for the entire 5GHz band (unlikely that all of the RADAR-sensitive channels would be disabled, but it's possible).  N.B. 160 MHz mode may have compatibility issues with older clients as well.  If it's in 80 Mhz mode, a 2x2 client is now down to just 1201 Mbps in perfect conditions; only 25% of the speed on the spec sheet.

Secondly, older clients use up WiFi bandwidth as a percentage, not a bit rate.  So, a WiFi 5(AC) 2x2 client (866.7 Mbps on 80 MHz) that's using 25% of the available bandwidth (216 Mbps for it) is actually using 300 Mbps of WiFi 6 bandwidth.  If you're on 80 MHz with a lot of WiFi 5 activity (including clients on other networks), your 2x2 WiFi 6 client is potentially reduced from 1201 Mbps maximum down to possibly somewhere in the 900Mbps range (i.e. closer to WiFi 5/AC speed).

Lastly, we have the age old problems with radio, interference and attenuation.  The above numbers don't fully factor in interference from other networks or other 5 GHz transmitters, or attenuation due to distance and physical obstructions.  Your 5 GHz channel is essentially shared with everyone else in range.  The range isn't huge, but any other signals or noise on the same frequency range will cut into the available bandwidth.  In a dense or urban environment, there are going to be quite a lot of AC/AX networks around eating into the total available bandwidth.  Attenuation due to physical obstructions (walls, floor/ceiling, really anything solid) will similarly cut the maximum bandwidth down.

So, yes, your 4804 Mbps WiFi 6 network might only deliver 200 to 300 Mbps in practice for a single client, or even less if you are pushing the range or transmitting through many layers of building materials.  Ethernet is the way to go if you need reliable high bandwidth, and often even 1000 Mbps Ethernet is faster than 4804 Mbps WiFi.  Using the theoretical maximum in marketing materials and on spec sheets is industry standard, all the reputable vendors do the same thing.  MU-MIMO and beamforming are two of the major recent features which try to mitigate some of the issues.  Despite some of the more recent improvements, my long standing personal rule of thumb is still that you can often get as little as 10% of the spec sheet bandwidth in practice for a single client (in the absence of perfect radio conditions).

Some 5GHz settings which should let you maximise the available radio bandwidth (but may have compatibility issues with some older clients).  Generally, having mostly everything on auto/enabled tends to work reasonably (the automatic stuff in modern routers generally works).  Manual channel selection can be bad, contrary to some advice on the net, just let the router do its thing and respond to the constantly changing radio environment.  On the General tab:

  • 802.11ax / WiFi 6 mode: Enable
  • Channel bandwidth: 20/40/80/160 Mhz (Enable 160 MHz)
  • Control channel: auto (auto select channel including DFS channels)
  • Extension channel: auto

On the Professional tab:

  • Optimize AMPDU aggregation: Enable
  • Modulation Scheme: Up to MCS 11 (NitroQAM/1024-QAM)
  • Multi-User MIMO: Enable
  • OFDMA/802.11ax MU-MIMO: DL/UL OFDMA + MU-MIMO
  • 802.11ax/ac Beamforming: Enable
  • Universal Beamforming: Enable
  • Tx power adjustment: Performance (maximum)

For security, don't use WPA or WPS, they are both insecure.  WPA2 isn't great, but may be needed for client compatibility.  WPA3 is reasonably strong security (for now).

Thanks for a detailed reply will give it another go tomorrow. You know your stuff ... much appreciated !!