Strange performance issues compared to XR1000

[Zac]

I do want to say a couple positives first coming from the XR1000.

 

1. The new DUMA OS design is fantastic, it's clean, simple and elegant.

2. I'm not sure if this applies to all Netduma products but coming from the XR1000 the OS is feels super responsive and turning it on/off is really quick having it be this responsive is fantastic and the companion app works just as well on my phone/ laptop

3. The unit itself is sleek and visually appealing.

4. IPV6 actually works unlike the Xr1000 which seems to constantly drop connection randomly and wont come back unless i disable ipv6 making it unusable.  Huge W

5. UPNP Seems to be working fine. Tested a couple games on my PC and my Switch and NAT is working out of the gate as intended (I tested with IPV6 off for this)

Overall I would say it's a great unit at a great price and functionally isn't broken like the XR1000 has been for.. well since release.

I am very happy to jump from Netgear to Netduma they are the real Chads.

 

Now the performance issues which I am hoping are bugs or can be patched/ addressed in a future firmware or perhaps I have somehow setup the router incorrectly but will do more testing tomorrow as I have only had a day to play with it now.

 

1.The WiFi doesn't appear to have nearly as good a range as my XR1000. I have a couple devices about 3 meters below it and they all have really poor quality connection. In fact my XR1000 is about 20 meters away setup in AP mode through several walls and almost all my devices prefer connecting to it despite it physically being the furthest away by far. And despite being further away it actually does outperform it. Something seems off with this if I go 5 meters away I seem to have poor connection quality and going downstairs just doesn't work despite it being mounted vertically.

2. WiFi performance - I have 1000/50 connection. On Ethernet I get 960/51 reliably. Testing on my Iphone and my Macbook pro about 2 meters away from the R3 router I am getting 350/33 on 5ghz channel. I also tested different bandwidths and channels and that was the best of the bunch. If I left it on auto I was getting about 260/33. On the 2.4 ghz It was even worse. I am getting 105/23. I plugged my XR1000 and repeated the same test on same frequency and channels and I was getting 830/49 on 5ghz and 210/42 on the 2.4 ghz channel.

So ethernet wise it performs about equal with the XR1000 give or take but at such high speeds it's within margin of error but the wifi performance is less then half of the XR1000 which seems straight up wrong or un-optimised.

3. I am getting really bad ping in games. My normal latency for games in Australia (I live close to the servers) is 4ms across, WOW, League, SWTOR, and pretty much any game which has Oceanic servers. However I am getting about 22 average ping on the new router. I'm not sure if this is due to some weird optimisation happening at the software level but I plugged my XR1000 in and ping went back to 4ms solid. So no idea what's causing that? (These ping results purely from Ethernet for consistency) I did try the ping reducer and also tried setting manually capping much lower for QOS and prioritised my PC and disconnected everything else from the network but still ping was the same.

 

So in conclusion it seems like the unit has great potential and i'm excited to join the Netduma train... goodbye Netgear but right now the Wifi seems completely broken. @Netduma Fraser i'm sorry for the long post write up but thought I would create a post in case you have any suggestions. Happy to try anything you suggest.

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

[Mr_Meeseeks]

Im having same issues with wifi performance, im also coming from a xr1000 to the new r3 and the wifi wifi performance is much worse than the xr1000

[Netduma Fraser]

Thank you for the positives, they're great to hear!

Regarding WiFi, that's disappointing, so it sounds like you've split the bands and experimented with all the channels and widths is that right?

Is the router in an elevated position & not on a metal surface? If not would it be possible to place it like this?

Ensure there aren't any electrical / wireless devices e.g headphones etc within close proximity ~3 feet if possible as it can interfere with the WiFi signal.

Regarding the ping, Steady Ping is enabled by default which raises your ping to include a buffer so any inconsistency in the ping is absorbed by the buffer and you don't notice it. If you disable Steady Ping does your ping go back down?

[Zac]

3 hours ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Thank you for the positives, they're great to hear!

Regarding WiFi, that's disappointing, so it sounds like you've split the bands and experimented with all the channels and widths is that right?

Is the router in an elevated position & not on a metal surface? If not would it be possible to place it like this?

Ensure there aren't any electrical / wireless devices e.g headphones etc within close proximity ~3 feet if possible as it can interfere with the WiFi signal.

Regarding the ping, Steady Ping is enabled by default which raises your ping to include a buffer so any inconsistency in the ping is absorbed by the buffer and you don't notice it. If you disable Steady Ping does your ping go back down?

Yes  have tested with all the channels and widths using a WiFi Analyser and picked the best after extensive testing.

The router is mounted vertically on a wall as it's on the 2nd level of my house so it's positioned to be able to go downstairs more efficiently. I have my old XR1000 in AP mode other end of the house to ensure total wifi coverage. - On that note, slight sidestep of my original question. Would you recommend putting it in AP mode or leaving it in router mode if it's extending my WiFi? I know typically you would just put a WiFi extender in AP mode but being the XR1000 is still a beast should I just leave it in router mode?

With that said I did re-adjust the antenna this morning when I woke up and looks like it's wifi is a bit better now with 700/43 which is pretty fine. Perhaps I am imagining the results of my old XR1000. So I will put the actual wifi speeds down to my imagination and call it fine in comparison to the xr1000 Still losing 200 mbps when it's 2 meters away from the router seems a bit off.

There aren't any electrical/wireless components near it. however it is in a cupboard which definitely would effect performance however, so was the old XR1000. I might try and take it out though to do some more tests.

Regarding the ping - When you say disable it.. how exactly does one disable it? I can't see an option to turn it off? if I go to ping optimiser/ advanced - Always on, Auto and Low Latency are the options but all 3 result in the same outcome. Unless it's another setting entirely I am missing?

Also is there a setting anywhere by default to show advanced settings? clicking on advanced while navigating the router on each page is tedious if there isn't yet that would be my feature request haha. Most people who buy this router are tinkerers and tinkerers will spend 90% of the time in advanced settings. Should be on by default I reckon with a basic view being optional click.

[Netduma Fraser]

I would keep the XR1000 in AP mode so the R3 sees/handles all of the devices. Okay great so adjusting the antennae lead to a doubling in the WiFi speed essentially? I can pass it onto the team to see if we can improve it at all.

Steady Ping is a different feature for the Geo-Filter, you can see it at the top of the Geo-Filter Map, if you click that you can adjust it there.

No way to default to Advanced settings, I totally get what you mean about Advanced Settings and understand why you would want that. It would be a significant design change to do so but I will request it!

[Zac]

54 minutes ago, Netduma Fraser said:

I would keep the XR1000 in AP mode so the R3 sees/handles all of the devices. Okay great so adjusting the antennae lead to a doubling in the WiFi speed essentially? I can pass it onto the team to see if we can improve it at all.

Steady Ping is a different feature for the Geo-Filter, you can see it at the top of the Geo-Filter Map, if you click that you can adjust it there.

No way to default to Advanced settings, I totally get what you mean about Advanced Settings and understand why you would want that. It would be a significant design change to do so but I will request it!

Yeah so I did some more tests this morning.

I tested with router out of cabinet 2 meters away exactly measured on the R3 on 5ghz I was getting 569/44.9

went downstairs measured 2 meters away from xr1000 763/44.

the xr1000 is on a more congested wifi channel as I wanted to keep the R3 free. I am unsure why there is such a loss in speed. I think the better speeds I tested really early this morning was due to less people being up and less congested network. I will test different wifi bands and channels again when I get home and see if that makes much of a difference as that could definitely be a factor at play and I don’t want to jump to conclusions saying anything is broken when it could be user error here.

 

i haven’t played with the geofilter yet I will check that out. I live in Australia so the geo filter feature isn’t as useful here being that I live close to the oceanic servers and even distance to most major cities isn’t very large. But if that setting is tucked away in there I will check it out. I read your explanation of how it works on another post I am intrigued by it and want to learn more. It might be useful for games that I play overseas and might be worth leaving on as oceanic 5 Ms or 20 Ms doesn’t really matter but if it steadies ping overseas yeah anyway I’ll play around with that and report back.

 

surely you must be off work soon mate? You were on before I slept and still on you need a break sir ! Haha

 

 

 

[Netduma Fraser]

What is the maximum amount of people you potentially have using the internet at any one time and how many devices?

The great thing about Steady Ping is it can be used for local servers or servers further away - if you connect to a game server that has any deviance whatsoever you could benefit from it, I would be surprised if you didn't as ping does naturally fluctuate though of course depending on a lot of factors like the quality of your connection it could be more stable than others. Do keep us posted!

Haha I am, just finishing up replies now, with the launch of the R3 we want to ensure we give the best support possible, catch any and all bugs and feedback so we can quickly put out firmware if needed so it can be the best most stable router yet!

[Zac]

1 hour ago, Netduma Fraser said:

What is the maximum amount of people you potentially have using the internet at any one time and how many devices?

The great thing about Steady Ping is it can be used for local servers or servers further away - if you connect to a game server that has any deviance whatsoever you could benefit from it, I would be surprised if you didn't as ping does naturally fluctuate though of course depending on a lot of factors like the quality of your connection it could be more stable than others. Do keep us posted!

Haha I am, just finishing up replies now, with the launch of the R3 we want to ensure we give the best support possible, catch any and all bugs and feedback so we can quickly put out firmware if needed so it can be the best most stable router yet!

Max is three, usual usage is just two though. However my wife is always streaming while I game.

 

ill be home soon and do some tests

[Zac]

7 hours ago, Netduma Fraser said:

What is the maximum amount of people you potentially have using the internet at any one time and how many devices?

The great thing about Steady Ping is it can be used for local servers or servers further away - if you connect to a game server that has any deviance whatsoever you could benefit from it, I would be surprised if you didn't as ping does naturally fluctuate though of course depending on a lot of factors like the quality of your connection it could be more stable than others. Do keep us posted!

Haha I am, just finishing up replies now, with the launch of the R3 we want to ensure we give the best support possible, catch any and all bugs and feedback so we can quickly put out firmware if needed so it can be the best most stable router yet!

So I can confirm that the steady ping increases the latency by about 15 ms? However that is only on oceanic games where my ping is really low to begin with. I tested with Guild Wars 2 where my ping is average of 202 with or without steady ping on. However, with steady ping my ping never went above 206 where as without it once in about 5 minutes it would go to 220.

Admittedly didn't test for super long but it seems to work better with international servers. Would love to read more about this feature so I could fine tune it. I basically wouldn't want it for oceanic and would want it for international but might just leave it on for oceanic games as well. It's a new feature and something I want to tinker with but glad to know i'm not losing my mind on weird performance on ethernet.

Going to do some more WiFi tests tonight to see if it's a channel or bandwidth issue that's causing lower WiFi performance.

[Netduma Fraser]

Okay that's not too bad usage wise. I think it's about 8ms on average that it raises it by, you can adjust it to go from anywhere between 10 - 80ms or disable it entirely. 

Do keep us posted on the WiFi as it's something we'll be keen to sort out if it's not an external factor.

Regarding your ping issues how do you have SmartBOOST setup, have you adjusted Congestion Control in Ping Optimizer > Advanced?

[Zac]

2 hours ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Okay that's not too bad usage wise. I think it's about 8ms on average that it raises it by, you can adjust it to go from anywhere between 10 - 80ms or disable it entirely. 

Do keep us posted on the WiFi as it's something we'll be keen to sort out if it's not an external factor.

Regarding your ping issues how do you have SmartBOOST setup, have you adjusted Congestion Control in Ping Optimizer > Advanced?

So if I set steady ping to auto it does about 8 but manual is from 10+?

Yeah busy day so will continue monitoring the WiFi. Don't want to cause alarms need to muck around with bandwidth. I chose what looked best and on 2.4 I have got it basically 1:1.
 

For the SmartBoost I haven't tinkered around with it to much. I have my gaming PC as a priority device and gaming and I ran ping optimiser with advanced for both upload and download. I should probably muck around with it a bit more but been doing one setting at a time.

[Netduma Fraser]

Correct!

Okay do keep us updated.

Depending on what Ping Optimizer advised it could be beneficial to manually change Congestion Control for a better experience.

[Zac]

2 minutes ago, Netduma Fraser said:

Correct!

Okay do keep us updated.

Depending on what Ping Optimizer advised it could be beneficial to manually change Congestion Control for a better experience.

Okay well I will certainly fiddle around with that and tinker over the coming days. I finally got a chance to sit down and tinker with my WiFi and there is a definite problem going on.

I just did an hour of testing at 2am so network isn't busy neighbours are asleep etc. I do live in a town house so there is a quite a few devices around and I used a WiFi analyser and I have some rather interesting results to share that seem to be pointing to some issues but how we would fix them I have no idea.

1. Regarding the WiFi strength. I pulled it out and extended it from it's home to my desk and have my MB pro about 1 meter away from the device with no other electrical components turned on near it. I am getting a decent signal but I am picking up two neighbours routers with high signal strength. I took off all the antenas and put them back on to make sure they were all screwed on correctly/ tight. So the signal itself seems to be sub optimal. Additionally if I move about 5 meters to my bedroom my wife's phone, my phone and macbook all have poor signal strength with an RSSI of -85 dbm. Additionally if I move downstairs so I'm directly below the router I am getting similar results. I also tried adjusting the antenna so they are all vertical and tried 2 push down to the side nothing I do seems to make it better. It's almost as if the Antennas are not making good contact or not working correctly.

 

2. I used a WiFi Analyser extensively. On the 5ghz channel on channel 100 with 80 channel width I am able to achieve 335 download/ 27.6 upload. There are no other devices on this channel so it's clean. infact I actually get 100/40 on 2.4 channel 6, 20 width. When I adjust the channel to 160 width I can get 336/31.8 but I know it's not best practice to use 160 width due to interference. I did try 36, 40, 44, 48 channels but there are a few other devices on those networks and the performance was worse.

 

3. I did another test connecting to my Nighthawk in AP mode so while it's downstairs in another room probably 15 meters away my result on 5ghz was 794/48

 

4. For science I repeated the same tests above on my old XR1000 in the exact same position I had my R3
 

RESULTS:

5 Ghz channel: 666/42 using channel 44 as there is no 100 on the XR1000. The equivalent on the R3 on the same channel is 311/22

2.4 Ghz Channel: 164/46

When I moved back to my bedroom with my laptop. The R3 was 22.8/13.2 on 2.4 and 28.6/15 on the 5 ghz. The XR1000 is 152/34 on 2.4 and 509/42 on 5 GHz

WiFi Strength: The RSSI is 55 in my bedroom and 40 right next to the router on my XR1000

In conclusion. The XR1000 is outperforming the R3 and has a stronger signal when it's through a couple bedroom walls and about 8 meters away compared to when my laptop is 1 meter away from the R3.

it would appear Ethernet and ping is working perfectly fine. Great infact but the WiFi feels broken on this model. Not sure if it's my specific unit, or its a hardware/firmware fault or if it can be patched. Happy to provide perform any tests if you feel they would help and can send you pictures. I know this is a new unit so problems are expected but this seems really off. These tests are more accurate then my previous ones as I tested late at night now 3 am zzz and performed the same tests in as controlled environment as I could.

Something is seriously wrong with the WiFi Peformance on my R3.


Sorry for the long write up but wanted to provide as much data as I could.
 

[Netduma Fraser]

Thank you for the detailed report on what you did with the WiFi, it is invaluable feedback that I've passed directly onto the team to take a look at. They may be in touch to have you try certain things or to gather more information.