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GT-AX6000 Slightly Slower Ethernet Speeds

zlhays
Level 8

I recently bought the GT-AX6000 router to use with my 1 gig internet plan from AT&T. My apartment has Cat 5E run into every room, and I'm using one of those connections to connect to the AX6000 2.5 G WAN port. Keep in mind that the other end of the cable in the wall is connected back into the 5 G port of my AT&T modem. I've confirmed that I can get the expected 940 Mbps a) when connected directly into the modem, b) when connected directly to port in the wall that connects back to my modem, and c) using the internal speed test feature within the AX6000 while it's connected to the same port from b). 

All this to say, I've done everything I can do to verify that I am indeed able to get the expected throughput coming into the WAN port of the AX6000. However, when I connect my desktop and laptop directly to any of the LAN ports on the back of the router (2.5 G as well as 1 G), I get anywhere from 500-750 Mbps. While performance (browsing, gaming, streaming) hasn't been impacted, the loss of anywhere from 200 to nearly half of my throughput is very concerning. I've tried using several different ethernet cables, and haven't been able to get any improvement in throughput. I also verified in the network map that I am correctly getting the appropriate 2.5 G/1G link speeds from the LAN ports when my device(s) are connected. 

Does anyone have any idea as to why I would be seeing lower speeds in ethernet like this? I just changed from Frontier where I had eero 6 pro mesh routers, and never had issues with getting less than 940 Mbps with a wired connection and essentially the same equipment everywhere else (cables, computer). I also swapped in an old Netgear AC router I had laying around and was able to get 940 Mbps out of the LAN ports, so I know my devices are able to get the desired speeds as well as it seems to be something specifically with the AX6000 router. I'm on the most current firmware available for the AX6000, and I generally feel my configurate is very basic, not really straying from the factory default. I also double checked that there is no QoS, no AiProtection, no parental controls, none of the game acceleration (with the exception of the 2.5 G port prioritization, but the slow speeds show in the other 1 G ports as well), or any other settings/configs that I can think of that could potentially cause a dip in throughput. 

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated!

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Accepted Solutions

zlhays
Level 8

Just on the off chance that anyone stumbles onto this thread with the same or similar issues - I found the problem to what was causing my speeds to be limited. 

I use a guest network to connect all of my smart devices (lights, Echo Dot, etc) since it's on a separate and isolated VLAN, and when I setup the guest network I enabled the bandwidth limiter. I didn't think anything of it at the time since I assumed it would only affect the guest network, but turns out that when this feature is enabled, it disables hardware acceleration for the router and, as a side affect, limited the max speeds for everything - LAN included.

I restored to factory settings and this time when I setup the guest network, I did NOT enable the bandwidth limiter, and I am now getting the expected 940 Mbps speeds over all LAN ports of the GT-AX6000. 

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4 REPLIES 4

jzchen
Level 16

You don’t have both desktop and laptop on at the same time (I hope)?  Things like Windows Update tend to run in the background without one even knowing it.  But yes even though I do not specifically have a GT-AX6000 I am noticing an Ethernet slowdown (per speedtest.net) on my 10 G backhaul desktop PC.  When I first installed this PC with 10 G PCIe NIC it was sometimes pulling higher speed than the AXE16000 (internal) Internet Speed Test.  (I also have Cat 5e 550 MHz internal wiring in our walls).  After a few months it seems I’ve lost (at least) a couple hundred Mbps.  I found unplugging one of the switch (nodes) does gain back some of the speed.  (I don’t dare unplug the main 8 port switch as I don’t want to risk having to re-setup some devices).  Our speeds are (Giggle Fiber coax cable) typically 107x Mbps download.

And definitely we also happen to have Frontier 1 Gig service at our other house with the included two eero 6 Pro that readily pump out pretty much the maximum (94x Mbps to the 1 G Ethernet port on the main router, although in that house there are no in wall wires/plugged directly into eero no switches.

I can share Speedtest.net the website has been faster than the recommended app download, (although eventually I less and less frequently compare nowadays)…

zlhays
Level 8

You are correct, when testing speeds there is minimal (sometimes even zero) traffic passing through my network, never my desktop and laptop running speed tests at the same time. I've been running speed tests throughout the day for the last 3 days or so and they are all consistently within the 500-750 range, and I highly doubt that there is something like windows update running every time I've run a speed test during that time period. 
It is at least a bit reassuring that I'm not the only one seeing a drop-off of speeds for no apparent (to me at least) reason. 

zlhays
Level 8

Just on the off chance that anyone stumbles onto this thread with the same or similar issues - I found the problem to what was causing my speeds to be limited. 

I use a guest network to connect all of my smart devices (lights, Echo Dot, etc) since it's on a separate and isolated VLAN, and when I setup the guest network I enabled the bandwidth limiter. I didn't think anything of it at the time since I assumed it would only affect the guest network, but turns out that when this feature is enabled, it disables hardware acceleration for the router and, as a side affect, limited the max speeds for everything - LAN included.

I restored to factory settings and this time when I setup the guest network, I did NOT enable the bandwidth limiter, and I am now getting the expected 940 Mbps speeds over all LAN ports of the GT-AX6000. 

Thanks for updating us with your solution.  For me at least on the AXE16000 I have no guest network nor bandwidth limiter enabled.  (If I do figure out what happened in my case I’ll definitely pop in again if I think it’s appropriate for this thread)….