Beamforming - To, or Not To
soccerfan0822
Synopsis: I have the X20 wi-fi 6 deco at home and it was operating in "Wireless Router" mode, as I've always done; Fast Roaming enabled and Beamforming enabled. In short, Beamforming was causing internet connectivity issues with some of my devices at home but not others. I disabled Beamforming from within the Deco app and all devices immediately connected just fine.
Details: Yesterday, streaming YouTubeTV was acting up on both of my smart TV's that were both streaming the game (I normally get about 400mbps DL speeds through AT&T fiber)...a little bit of connection but super grainy and the game was buffering/lagging. Couldn't really figure it out last night.
Then, today my work laptop and personal iPhone nearly lost connection to the internet entirely (my wife's as well) even though my personal laptop was perfectly fine showing over 200mbps DL speeds....all devices connected wirelessly to my home network. DL speeds were literally down to .14mbps on my other devices though...so random. I thought it was my ISP, AT&T, but a wired ethernet connection was perfectly fine on my personal laptop and my Xbox and both Deco app and the ATT app showed near 400 mbps DL speeds testing.
Then I thought maybe it was because I set priority on some devices (within Deco app), so I turned off all device priorities. I optimized the network a few times form the deco app....restarted my gateway router...kept trying speed tests on the devices with little to no connection...but my work laptop, my iphone and a couple other devices still lacked connectivity while others were fine. Within the deco app I made sure nothing was blacklisted, etc. and kept looking for my devices to find connectivity again. Finally, from within the Deco app, I turned off beamforming (More > Advanced > Beamforming > Disable) and that corrected the issue instantly. My iPhone and work laptops both had internet access with DL speeds way up again, as did my wife's laptop and our smart TVs. No other issues after that. I guess beamforming was not up to the task (too many devices streaming? confusing the app with settings like placing priority on 2 devices, etc while also trying to beamform? idk)
Beamforming...it was trying to help but getting in the way...such a Bert Macklin of this whole situation.
Comment
Hi, Thanks a lot for the feedback. After disabling Beamforming, has everything still continued working perfectly since then?
I wonder what are your devices that did not work well with Beamforming before?
Thank you.
Yes, since disabling beamforming all of my devices have been fine again.However there was no issue with beamforming for months before that; it was sudden really. It just happened one day to my two smart TV's (one saumsung and one LG), to our work laptops (both are Thinkpads) and our two iPhone 12 devices.
I have a Deco X90 and I noticed similar problems when beamforming is on. I am located in a different room than my Deco X90. When Beamforming is on, I noticed that the internet speed is unstable. I have a 1000 Mbps subscription. With the beamforming, My Internet download speed is in the range of 400-500 Mbps. Without beamforming, the internet download speed goes up to 700-800 Mbps. Also, I noticed that my internet is more responsive when beamforming is off.
At last, I have noticed that when beamforming is on, the internet signal strength is changing by looking at the Wifi Icon in the bottom right corner on MS windows. Sometimes, I have four rounds, sometimes i have 3 rounds. When I turn off beamforming, I have always the maximum of internet signal strength. My house has many concrete walls. I think it is maybe complicated for the Beamforming algorithm, knowing that my Deco is located in a room, 1 floor above mine.
OP did you ever re enable beamforming?
I have it turned off and everything works fine without it. Just haven't found any need for the beamforming feature really.
It certainly is something to try. If Id have known about this I would have tried disabling Beamforming before taking a frustration hammer to my product (all 6, but it was fun!).
But then you can only try what the so-called engineers who are supposed to know about these things tell you to try, and as they just go quiet when anything unusual happens, they didn't get round to it for me.
I did find a cure for my problems. Netgear Orbi. Fantastic!