B1300 Ethernet Performance on GL-iNet vs OpenWRT

mmonaghan · 2021-01-28T21:54:10.612Z

Issue: Degraded Ethernet performance on GL-iNet 3.105 vs OpenWrt 19.07.6 r11278-8055e38794.

It looks like firmware 3.105 has an issue affecting throughput. I started this journey because after updating to firmware 3.105 my wireless throughput dropped from 200 Mbps to 30 Mbps.

Things I tried:

Factory default everything
SON, SON + Wired Backhaul, NO SON with Wired connection between routers
GL-iNet 3.105
OpenWrt 19.07.6 r11278-8055e38794

Using any of the above configuration combinations, Wired Ethernet performance in 3.105 caps at 500 Mbps. Under OpenWRT, performance exceeds 900 Mbps. I’ve used multiple cables to avoid cable based issues. Note that CPU is impacted as well.

Typical performance under OpenWrt 19.07.6 r11278-8055e38794

2021-01-28 21:13:12 Starting speedtest for 60 seconds per transfer session.
Measure speed to 192.168.8.170 (IPv4) while pinging 192.168.8.170.
Download and upload sessions are sequential, each with 5 simultaneous streams.
............................................................
 Download: 926.40 Mbps
  Latency: [in msec, 60 pings, 0.00% packet loss]
      Min:   0.736
    10pct:   1.106
   Median:  78.080
      Avg: 202.073
    90pct: 501.376
      Max: 1969.333
 CPU Load: [in % busy (avg +/- std dev) @ avg frequency, 54 samples]
     cpu0:  80.6 +/-  4.2  @  708 MHz
     cpu1:  43.5 +/-  8.3  @  704 MHz
     cpu2:  45.8 +/- 31.3  @  716 MHz
     cpu3:  42.2 +/- 30.0  @  700 MHz
 Overhead: [in % used of total CPU available]
  netperf:  27.5
............................................................
   Upload: 925.42 Mbps
  Latency: [in msec, 60 pings, 0.00% packet loss]
      Min:   0.715
    10pct:   0.992
   Median:  86.617
      Avg: 264.297
    90pct: 852.034
      Max: 1950.400
 CPU Load: [in % busy (avg +/- std dev) @ avg frequency, 54 samples]
     cpu0:  41.4 +/-  7.9  @  696 MHz
     cpu1:  51.8 +/-  7.5  @  700 MHz
     cpu2:  24.6 +/- 18.5  @  696 MHz
     cpu3:  22.6 +/- 18.8  @  680 MHz
 Overhead: [in % used of total CPU available]
  netperf:  15.4

Typical for 3.105

Starting speedtest for 60 seconds per transfer session.
Measure speed to 192.168.8.170 (IPv4) while pinging 192.168.8.170.
Download and upload sessions are sequential, each with 5 simultaneous streams.
..........................................................
 Download: 547.42 Mbps
  Latency: [in msec, 60 pings, 0.00% packet loss]
      Min:   0.618
    10pct:   1.255
   Median:   4.207
      Avg:   6.612
    90pct:  16.984
      Max:  28.837
 CPU Load: [in % busy (avg +/- std dev) @ avg frequency, 42 samples]
     cpu0:  98.7 +/-  6.1  @  704 MHz
     cpu1:  98.5 +/-  6.8  @  704 MHz
     cpu2:  98.6 +/-  5.3  @  704 MHz
     cpu3:  98.7 +/-  6.4  @  716 MHz
 Overhead: [in % used of total CPU available]
  netperf:  32.1
............................................................
   Upload: 609.42 Mbps
  Latency: [in msec, 60 pings, 0.00% packet loss]
      Min:   0.579
    10pct:   0.973
   Median:   2.956
      Avg:   5.430
    90pct:   7.629
      Max:  84.030
 CPU Load: [in % busy (avg +/- std dev) @ avg frequency, 52 samples]
     cpu0:  55.2 +/-  9.7  @  716 MHz
     cpu1:  56.0 +/-  7.4  @  716 MHz
     cpu2:  61.0 +/- 10.4  @  716 MHz
     cpu3:  54.7 +/-  8.0  @  716 MHz
 Overhead: [in % used of total CPU available]
  netperf:   6.4

Mike

hansome · 2021-01-29T07:08:41.368Z

Hi, do you use compile speedtest and run it on B1300?

mmonaghan · 2021-01-29T18:10:23.938Z

Hi @hansome ,

Followed the instructions here and here.

As this is not platform specific (it is a shell script) you can download the ipk from the author to the device.

cd /tmp
uclient-fetch https://github.com/guidosarducci/papal-repo/raw/master/speedtest-netperf_1.0.0-1_all.ipk
opkg install speedtest-netperf_1.0.0-1_all.ipk

uclient-fetch didn’t work for me. I used wget instead.

hansome · 2021-01-30T12:56:58.818Z

Hi Mmonaghan, thanks for introduing this great speedtest tool.
It’s the expected case that B1300 itself with 3.105 firmware can not generate and receive streams as fast
as openwrt version, the QSDK firmware has some cpu interrutp affinity setting as seen if /etc/init.d/qca-edma. Its logic is to guarantee NAT/forward performance.

mmonaghan · 2021-01-30T23:22:08.016Z

Thanks @hansome . I appreciate you letting me know why. I can live with the current performance. Just thought you should be aware of the difference. Thank you!

guru · 2022-05-17T12:24:52.726Z

Any update on this issue? I’m getting 20Mbps download on my old linksys router, but after switching to a GL-B1300 running latest firmware, my download speed dropped to 5Mbps.

alzhao · 2022-05-18T08:14:23.637Z

It is a differnt issue in this thread. It is doing speed test on the router itself.

For you quesion, pls post more details. e…g How do you get connected.