Slow Speeds - GL-AR750S-Ext

kramer97 · 2022-05-19T18:20:58.392Z

Hi all,

Just setting up my GL-AR750S-Ext for the first time. Ideally, I would like to use it as a travel router and connect my laptop to it and occasionally VPN through it as well. I did the initial setup and testing out of the box and it’s working as expected, but just very slow (Repeater Mode). I’m wondering if anyone might have any tips or configuration setups which they recommend. My results are below.

Laptop connected directly to my ISP. So PC — Home ISP Router via Wifi - 441 mb/s.
Laptop connected to the GL-AR750. So PC — GL-AR750 - Home ISP Router via Wifi- 9mb/s on 5G, 6 mbp/s on 2.4.
Laptop connected to the GL-AR750 w WireGuard Enabled. So PC — GL-AR750 (Wireguard VPN enabled) - Home ISP Router via Wifi - 2.7mb/s on 5G.

My main concern is with #2, before I move on to #3.

I tried the Channel Optimization under 5g which changed it to 44, but no change in speed or performance.

Network Mode is in: Router.

Does anyone know why it’s performing so badly and slow? Should I configure something specific on the GL-AR750, a specific setting or configuration? At these rates, I basically can’t use it.

Thanks!

eric · 2022-05-19T21:10:24.022Z

I would check to see if you are on the newest firmware as a first step. There were some serious issues with running speed tests on the AR750 and AR750s that were fixed in the new stable 3.212 firmware.

kramer97 · 2022-05-20T00:01:19.318Z

Thanks, I was on 3.203, I updated to 3.212 but no difference.

eric · 2022-05-20T00:42:38.452Z

Just checking that you have an AR750, which is a white box without external antennas. Correct? It is kind of a pain that they released both the AR750 and the AR750s which have different specs but almost the same model number. I own both models and either one should be able to do much better then you are seeing.

By chance does your home router have any Ethenet ports? For testing it would be nice to see if you could direct connect to your home router using an Ethernet cable from your home routers output into the WAN port on the AR750, and then rerun your tests. This would just remove 1 radio link for testing.

The other thing to check is if there are any messages being logged. To do this you need to ssh into the AR750 as root, and run the logread command.

kramer97 · 2022-05-20T00:44:57.010Z

Oops, sorry didn’t realize all the models. I corrected the title and description. I have the GL-AR750S-Ext.

I will do some testing and review the logs shortly and post my results.

limbot · 2022-05-20T01:40:32.877Z

Some random thoughts

In scenario 2 you want to WISP connect to your main router on one band (e.g. 2.4Ghz) and connect your devices to the other band (5Ghz) or vice versa. This “maximises” bandwidth not using a “shared” band.

Other thing to do is to get something like the Ubiquiti WiFi man on your mobile/cell and have a look at what other WiFi networks are around you and MANUALLY set your band to the best “non-competing” channel. Note that you won’t be able to set the channel for your main router connection band as it will have to be the same channel that the main router is transmitting. Might be worth looking at and potentially changing that channel as well.

Also make sure that the adapter your using is putting out at least 5V/2A. Make sure it’s a good quality power cable between the AC adapter and Slate.

As mentioned above I’d try Ethernet connecting first and see what sort of speeds you’re getting off both 2.4 and 5.

kramer97 · 2022-06-28T10:29:11.890Z

Thanks a lot, great tips.
I tried the first option mentioned about connecting the router to 2.4 over 5 but it got a lot slower doing this.
I ran some new tests The one thing I didn’t do was cut the wifi between the PC and GL-INET, that helps quite a bit.

Speedtests

PC - Home ISP Wifi - 274mbps

PC - 5Ghz GL-INET Wifi - ISP Wifi - 96-117mbps / 16mbps upload
PC - GL-INET Cabled - ISP Wifi - 166mbps / 16mbps upload

PC - 2.4Ghz GL-INET Wifi - ISP Wifi - 35mbps
PC - 5Ghz GL-INET Wifi - ISP Wifi - VPN - 7.5mbps

It looks to be performing a bit better, especially when I cut out the wireless connection between my PC and the GL-INET router. My last issue now is the VPN, it cuts my speed down to 7.5mbps, so I need a solution to up that speed. I wonder if creating a VPN to my home ISP (set up a wireguard server at my house) would be better than using an outside VPN provider bc a lot of outside VPN providers are super slow as they’re shared and get hammered.

wcs2228 · 2022-06-28T17:47:51.847Z

If you use the same wifi band on the GL.iNet router (5Ghz or 2.4GH) to both the source ISP router and the destination PC client, the throughput will be reduced by a lot (approx. 50%) because a single radio cannot receive and transmit at the same time, so it has to take turns. This appears consistent with your PC - 5Ghz GL-INET Wifi - ISP Wifi result if you were using the same wifi band.

The GL-AR720S-Ext is advertised for up to 17Mbps for OpenVPN and up to 68Mbps for Wireguard that may not be achieved in various environments. This appears consistent with your PC - 5Ghz GL-INET Wifi - ISP Wifi - VPN - 7.5mbps result if you were using the same wifi band that also gets reduced a lot.

Reputable commercial VPN providers should have good speeds (I use NordVPN). If you set up your own Wireguard server, you may be limited by the maximum upload speed of the ISP connection.

I do not work for and I am not directly associated with GL.iNet

kramer97 · 2022-06-28T20:25:40.699Z

Thanks a lot. I just did a quick test and tried the mixed band suggestion (with no VPN):

Direct WiFi Speed to my ISP Modem with no GL-INET in the mix - 287mbps/16mbps (dl/upload)
Test 1: PC - 5Ghz GL-INET Wifi - ISP Wifi 5Ghz - 87mbps/15mbps (dl/upload)
Test 2: PC - 2.4Ghz GL-INET Wifi - ISP Wifi 5Ghz - 63mbps/15mbps (dl/upload)

So it still looks like the same band use is a bit faster.

wcs2228 · 2022-06-28T22:16:19.311Z

An option you can look into is to add an external USB 5GHz wifi adapter, so that the internal wifi can receive and the external wifi can transmit at the same time.

The tricky part is to find an external USB 5GHz wifi adapter that the Slate GL-AR750S-Ext has a driver for. I tried to use a TP-Link T2U Plus that works on my Brume GL-MV1000W, but the Slate does not appear to have a driver for it.