Archer AX3000 Pro - Low Wi-Fi 6 Speeds

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Archer AX3000 Pro - Low Wi-Fi 6 Speeds

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Archer AX3000 Pro - Low Wi-Fi 6 Speeds
Archer AX3000 Pro - Low Wi-Fi 6 Speeds
2023-07-24 23:34:08 - last edited 2023-07-24 23:36:15
Model: Archer AX3000  
Hardware Version: V1
Firmware Version: 1.1.0 Build 20230522 rel.10743(5553)

Hello All,

 

I am trying to improve my Wi-Fi 6 speeds from my Archer AX3000 Pro. I purchased this router from Best Buy in September of 2022. It has been much more reliable than the Netgear Nighthawk RAX120 router it replaced.

 

I have a total of 8-9 clients on the entire network, across wired, 2.4g, and 5g connections. My wife's PC (also referred to herein as PC #2) is connected over the 5ghz SSID and receives less than 100 Mbp/s with a full-strength signal, about 10-15 feet away. Bringing her PC closer to the router (about 3 feet away) brings download speed near 150Mbp/s. Still not what I expect from Wi-Fi 6. We do live in a condiminium building with many other SSIDs nearby. To avoid congestion I have switched the 5ghz band to DFS Channel 124 with 160 mhz channel width enabled. There appear to be no other SSIDs nearby using this frequency range, checking with a freeware Wi-Fi analyzer app on my phone. This has not improved speeds.

 

Testing with a Wi-Fi 6 client a few feet from the router, with direct line of sight results in ~150Mbp/s being about the peak download speed I ever see while testing. This is an okay speed for web browsing and other light tasks, but I'd love to find a way to get closer to what I read Wi-Fi 6 speeds are really supposed to be.

 

The main two Wi-Fi 6 clients I test with are my wife's PC, which I have custom assembled myself which includes a Gigabyte motherboard that has an onboard AMD RZ608 Wi-Fi 6E adapter module with external antenna. The other Wi-Fi 6 client I use for testing is my Samsung Note 20 Ultra. I have seen near-1000 Mbp/s second speeds over Wi-Fi 6 on my Note 20 Ultra when I still had the Netgear Nighthawk RAX120. But that router had overheating/rebooting issues, hence the replacement with a different brand of router.

 

Below I will list things I can remember trying to improve speed thus far.

 

Unbind router from TP-Link cloud account.

Delete Tether app from my Note 20 Ultra.

80mhz channel width/160 mhz channel width.

Put PC #2 within 3 feet of router.

Update firmware on router.

Most current AMD RZ608 driver from Gigabyte website.

Looked for QoS settings, none found.

Patched PC #2 into LAN port #3 of router. Over 900 Mbp/s on Speedtest(dot)net, same as PC #1.

Windows is up to date on PC #2.

PC #2 BIOS on most recent version.

 

And finally, here is a crude diagram of my network map.

xFinity 1.2 Gbp/s DOCSIS 3.1 ---> Netgear CM2000 cable modem ---> TP-Link Archer AX3000 Pro (2.5 Gbp/s WAN port) --->

LAN: My PC, Philips Hue Bridge;

2.4ghz: ElGato Key Light Air, Hatch Rest+ sound machine, Wyze baby monitor camera;

5ghz: My Note 20 Ultra, Wife's Note 20 Ultra, Samsung Smart TV, Wife's PC

 

I appreciate any help I can get to improve the performance of this router.

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Re:Archer AX3000 Pro - Low Wi-Fi 6 Speeds
2023-08-03 11:41:33

  @RoadCase 

I'll throw in my 2 cents here since other people may be looking too.

 

I may be wrong about some of this but here's how I understand it. 

 

WiFi 6

Firstly, while *part* of Wifi 6 (802.11AX, or AX) is better speeds for 1 person, it's a bit inaccurate to understand it as mostly that. The main benefit is handling increased and congested traffic better. 

 

It has 3 main features:

 

1. MU-MIMO: MIMO improves speed when serving multiple users by adding transmitters to send multiple data streams at one time. Think of it like cloning yourself so one clone can make a sandwich while the other calms a screaming child. It used to be Single-User(SU) only, i.e. each clone handles 1 demand on its resources at a time. Multi-user(MU)-MIMO adds MIMO capabilities to the router's reveivers also--so in the analogy each clone can do both at once, which is useful if you are running a daycare.

2. OFDM: Improves rate of data transmission by cramming more bands into a channel; think of it like a highway where all the lanes overlap a little. It would cause chaos for speedy 2-ton machines, but it's manageable with software for radio signals that turns all the cars into Harry Potter buses.

3. 1024 QAM: Increases the amount of data you can stuff into a single stream by varying 2 things about each radio wave cycle (up, down) more than previous QAM standards: bigness (amps) and offset (phase). A unique set of 0's/1's is mapped to each combination of amp+offset, and how many combos it has is the number in front of QAM. WiFi 5 (AC) uses 256-QAM, AX uses 1024.

 

 

CHANGES/REASONS FOR LAG

 

A few reasons you may not be getting the benefits:

 

1. The devices you use have to support the features above to use them. For example, the Note 20 only supports Single-User(SU) MIMO as far as I understand. And not all devices support the 1024 qam standard either.

2. If any if your devices DO support MU-MIMO, it may not be turned on for your 5GHz band. See around p75 of the Archer user guide (Link below. I ONLY SEE A USER GUIDE FOR V1, that should suffice though).

3. On that note, read the whole ch13 to see if your router has other settings you can change. E.g., there's one for smart-limiting bandwidth for the slower members of your digital family.

4. Waves are spatial; if you all stand in 1 spot, you'll all be on the same stream, splitting the same bandwidth. Disperse.

5. Consider hardwiring devices that don't move, like your TV, to alleviate congestion. If you have several, you can take advantage of link aggregation to increase bandwidth.

6. The standalone routers might work like TP link's business mesh routers, which sort of work like Intel Turbo Boost as far as I can tell, and smartly switch to 6GHz bands when traffic is high or congested (see eap650, the ax3000 mesh router). I.e., you're not always using that band.

7. The higher the frequency (6 is higher than 5 is higher than 2.4), the narrower the waves are, which means they have a harder time with both distance and obstacles. If you don't have a mesh router or repeater, devices across the house may be slower on that band.

8. No matter what, you're ultimately getting 1G from Xfinity. You can't have cake and eat it too because that line is a bottleneck preventing all devices from getting 500+ down at once. There may be settings the archer has to temporarily boost signal for your most demanding devices. Check the user guide. There are QOS settings you can mess with too if one service is hogging traffic, check your network stats in the router if it has them.

 

Ur phone:

hxxps://www.xda-developers[.]com/samsung-galaxy-note-20-specs/

 

Ur router:

https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/download/archer-ax3000/v1/#FAQs

 

QAM:

hxxps://www.microwave-link[.]com/microwave/comparing-microwave-li

nks-using-1024qam-2048qam-4096qam/

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