Wireless router slows Internet speed

Way too slow. It should be the same 27Mbits/sec.

WAN to LAN thruput benchmarks. |

I agree that this is a router problem. However, don't burn time figuring out why the wireless is slow. The real question is why the wired connection only gets 11Mbit/sec instead of 27Mbits/sec. Lacking any details, my guess is:

1. Bad CAT5 cable between modem and router.
2. NWAY negotiation failure between modem and router.
3. WAN port interface speed on WPN824 is set to 10Mbits/sec instead of 100Mbit/sec.
4. Out of date firmware on the WPN824.

AFTER you fix the slow ethernet speed, then you can work on the wireless part of the puzzle.

I lied. The WPN824 is on the chart at 47Mbits/sec which should be fine for a 30Mbits/sec connection.

That sounds like an excellent match. The WPN824 has LEDs that should show a different color when connecting at 10Mb verses 100Mb, on the WAN as well as the LAN. You could plug the laptop into the WAN port, and force the connection to 10MB to see if the light is working that way. My older Netgear WGR614 does indicate green for 100 Mb and amber for 10Mb, on both LAN and WAN ports.

Tom says "The 824's routing throughput in both directions is about 47Mbps"

It's difficult to imagine how one could force the speed to 10mbits/sec other than inserting a 10Mbit/sec switch or hub in between, but it's still worth checking.

Yeah, but he also says that the ethernet thruput test was performed using the DMZ port and setup. Set top of: |

I meant one might force the laptop NIC to only connect at 10Mbps to verify that the amber light is working as a 10M indicator... If there is already an amber light instead of green, it's at 10Mbps. How the cable modem would get set to 10Mbps is a different question.

I didn't see any settings on the router for WAN speed. One would assume that it must auto-negotiate, and one would hope that it does a better job of auto-neogtiation than some systems have done in the past. I could have sworn that I saw my cable modem-router link set to 10Mbps at one point in time. Netgear web interface: Router-Status, Show-Statistics.

I was either imagining things, or maybe that was in the modem setup before MCHSI quietly upped the speed on the cable. 10Mbps would still exceed my cable speed of ~6Mbps, so most folks wouldn't notice.

Speed isn't just about big files. A faster link also provides better (lower) latency. Just because the pipe might be restricted to a certain amount of max bandwidth doesn't mean all forms of traffic on it will be as slow. Don't know if the cable companies do this or not.

Thanks, Jeff. I checked all the things you suggest, excpet for the NWAY because I don't know what that is. The firmware is up-to-date, I used several different cables all with the same result, and the port light is green. Any other suggestions? I asked Netgear tech support and so far they are no help.

I'm very frustrated --- 27 Mbps coming into the modem and a 66% drop when it goes through the Netgear WPN824 router either via ethernet or wirelessly.

-- stephen

Jeff Liebermann wrote:

" snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com" hath wroth:

I think green is 100Mbits/sec and orange is 10Mbits/sec.

Substitute something. I you have, or can borrow, a different router, try substituting. Same with the computer. I know the computer works correctly when connected directly to the cable modem, but I just want a sanity check. I don't think it's the cable modem, but if you can juggle it (without re-registering the MAC address with the cable company), I would try substituting it.

This is kinda dumb, but try resetting the router to defaults and re-enter all the settings. Don't restore from a saved settings file. I've had a few miracles happen after a grand reset, especially after a firmware update.

Well, at least you tried calling support.

I've only got a 1.5Mbits/sec DSL line and you're complaining about not getting 30Mbits/sec. You'll get no sympathy from me. My connection is never fast enough.

I tried the same tests with another Mac PowerBook I have at home and got the same results. I've reset the modem both via s/w and used the h/w button, reloaded the firmware, configured the router manually (not reloaded the config file), tried different channels, with and without various Netgear options, powered things down and up, and on and on.

Sorry to be eating cake in front of the starving but I am usually pretty good at figuring out what is not working properly so now it's become something of an obsession. At this point I' ready to pay Netgear for premium phone support and failing that buy a new router -- anyone using a boost type service and have good luck?

Thanks for all your suggestions, Jeff.