gigabit ethernet ports are slower than wifi on AC5400X
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hello,
using a brand new AC5400X.
i am seeing slower speeds on gigabit ethernet than i can get via wifi.
- WIFI:
- I can get 450Mbps download consistently (speedtest.net)
- Gigabit Ethernet Ports (1000Mbps at Full Duplex):
- I can't get more than 330Mbps (speedtest.net)
- using 'nc' between two machines both plugged into gigabit ethernet ports on the AC5400X, the best i can get is about 300Mbps
- dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1K | nc -vvn 10.116.109.185 12345
Connection to 10.116.109.185 12345 port [tcp/*] succeeded!
1024+0 records in 1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 28.419 s, 37.8 MB/s - If I take the same computer unplug the gigabit ethernet cable and switch to wifi I suddenly get 450Mps
Things I've tried w/no improvement:
- switching network cables (cables in question are all cat6e 10ft or less)
- verifying full duplex for ports in question (all machines w/slower gigabit than wifi are 1000Mbps at full duplex, see screenshot: https://bit.ly/3zK1AMh)
- turning off antivirus, intrusion detection and intrusion isiolation
- verifying qos speeds are correct and no special qos parameters set
- verifying i have the newest firmware. router reports firmware is up-to-date and current build 20191223 is the highest build listed on tplink firmware section for this router
This is a high-end gaming router that boasts it has 2x the gigabit ethernet ports of other models, but the ports only run at 300Mbps??
Makes no sense.
Even less so when the wifi connections to the same hosts are 50% faster??
As another reference point, I can take the same laptop above... same cable, same gigabit port, and plug into another location that has a 1000Mbps fiber internet connection and get 950+Mbps from this port and cable.
On my local network test, if I take the two hosts above that I got 300Mbps between and put them on a gigabit switch that is not the tplink, I can get 850-950Mbps transfers between them.
Something is arbitrarily limiting gigabit ethernet ports to about 1/3rd of normal performance. I've seen lots of people complaining about this, mostly on the ac5400 but also on the ac5400x. The standard response from tplink (which I've addresssed above, i know it's not the cable, cable distances nor the devices) isn't very informative nor comforting.
Anyways, I'm hoping for some good suggestions here, looking forward to a resolution.
Please also note that I'm a CCIE.
thanks
Ok short story, i resolved this on my own.
Even though I had checked this against the docs 3-4 times, the problem was the usb3.0 vs usb2.0 ports were oriented on the diagram in a way that seems opposite of how they're labeled. I now see how it can be interpretted to still be correct, but since i knew this could cause this issue and checked it many times, I still find it confusing.
Once i switched to usb 3.0 port, i was able to max out internet
also lan-to-lan maxed out at full gige speeds:
$ dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1K | nc -vvn 10.116.109.185 12345
Connection to 10.116.109.185 12345 port [tcp/*] succeeded!
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 9.11829 s, 118 MB/
LONG STORY (AND OTHER INTERESTING THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT TPLINK AND THE AC5400X):
- tplink support reads these forums and responded privately with a ticket w/in 48hours
- when they verified i had tried all of the standard stuff, they scheduled a remote session
- in the session i demonstrated the issue and they installed a special firmware image w/enhanced debugging tools, including linux/busybox access to the router (very cool, they should make this available by default!)
- i learned that the ac5400x actually has 2 4-port switches internally, one of the things we tried was moving things to a 4-port group.
- we eventually isolated it to only a tplink gige host adaptor not getting max speeds w/tplink router
- i submitted my kernel and os version information to them so they could follow up w/product team for the adaptor
- later i tried some other configurations like putting a switch of a different manufacturer between tplink end-point and tp-link router.
- when that had same result, i got a really powerful flashlight to examin the ports and i noticed that- contrarary to my impression from the diagram- it was the front-most ports that were all usb3 and one back port that was usb2 (every time i looked at diagram, i came away with opposite impression). i was able to see the discrepency since usb3 ports have a small 'ss' icon prefixed in front of the normal usb icon.
- and the reason i could always get 1000mbps speeds from this same adaptor and cable on a different router was because when i plug into that location, the physical circumstances of the spot encourage plugging into the middle ports.
IN SUMMARY
- tplink support is very responsive and helpful
- if there were an engineering issue causing ue300 to interact strangely with ac5400x, i have no doubt they would have helped resolve it
- their debug firmware image is tremendously useful and they should make it more available to power users
- no matter how much experience you have (i'm a ccie for few who know what that means), most problems are usually KISS / ID-10T, this one was no different
don't see a way to mark this resolved or give tplink a rating, but i'd give 5 star resolution on this one.
Ok short story, i resolved this on my own.
Even though I had checked this against the docs 3-4 times, the problem was the usb3.0 vs usb2.0 ports were oriented on the diagram in a way that seems opposite of how they're labeled. I now see how it can be interpretted to still be correct, but since i knew this could cause this issue and checked it many times, I still find it confusing.
Once i switched to usb 3.0 port, i was able to max out internet
also lan-to-lan maxed out at full gige speeds:
$ dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M count=1K | nc -vvn 10.116.109.185 12345
Connection to 10.116.109.185 12345 port [tcp/*] succeeded!
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 9.11829 s, 118 MB/
LONG STORY (AND OTHER INTERESTING THINGS I LEARNED ABOUT TPLINK AND THE AC5400X):
- tplink support reads these forums and responded privately with a ticket w/in 48hours
- when they verified i had tried all of the standard stuff, they scheduled a remote session
- in the session i demonstrated the issue and they installed a special firmware image w/enhanced debugging tools, including linux/busybox access to the router (very cool, they should make this available by default!)
- i learned that the ac5400x actually has 2 4-port switches internally, one of the things we tried was moving things to a 4-port group.
- we eventually isolated it to only a tplink gige host adaptor not getting max speeds w/tplink router
- i submitted my kernel and os version information to them so they could follow up w/product team for the adaptor
- later i tried some other configurations like putting a switch of a different manufacturer between tplink end-point and tp-link router.
- when that had same result, i got a really powerful flashlight to examin the ports and i noticed that- contrarary to my impression from the diagram- it was the front-most ports that were all usb3 and one back port that was usb2 (every time i looked at diagram, i came away with opposite impression). i was able to see the discrepency since usb3 ports have a small 'ss' icon prefixed in front of the normal usb icon.
- and the reason i could always get 1000mbps speeds from this same adaptor and cable on a different router was because when i plug into that location, the physical circumstances of the spot encourage plugging into the middle ports.
IN SUMMARY
- tplink support is very responsive and helpful
- if there were an engineering issue causing ue300 to interact strangely with ac5400x, i have no doubt they would have helped resolve it
- their debug firmware image is tremendously useful and they should make it more available to power users
- no matter how much experience you have (i'm a ccie for few who know what that means), most problems are usually KISS / ID-10T, this one was no different
don't see a way to mark this resolved or give tplink a rating, but i'd give 5 star resolution on this one.