EAP245v3 Slow LAN with iperf

theoribeiro · February 12, 2021, 5:25pm

I have an EAP245v3 with OpenWRT installed and been getting really slow performance between it and my opnSense router. In a gigabit local network iperf from one device to the other hovers around 300Mbps. Obviously, that is a bottleneck to all devices connected wirelessly.

The cable is not an issue since my laptop connected to the same cable runs iperf to the router at 960Mbps.

Any ideas on what to test next? Could this be a hardware issue? Can anyone with an EAP245 perform a similar test to compare results?

Thanks!

anon2999412 · February 24, 2021, 6:14pm

I believe this is a known issue at the moment. There was some discussion on the development thread about it anyway. I also have the same speeds on my EAP245v3. I seem to get maximum throughput when I manually set the TX power to 18 dBm. Here is a post documenting an apparent improvement, but I have not tested it: Adding OpenWrt support for TP-Link EAP245 - #164 by DoritosVodka.

batrick · February 15, 2022, 6:43pm

(Sorry if thread necro is not allowed here; please delete if so. This thread is easily found on Google so I think it best to revive discussion!)

I'm also experiencing this with OpenWrt 21.02.1 r16325-88151b8303 / LuCI openwrt-21.02 branch git-21.295.67054-13df80d.

Connecting to host 192.168.99.100, port 1111
[  5] local 192.168.99.1 port 44994 connected to 192.168.99.100 port 1111
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec  22.6 MBytes   190 Mbits/sec   11    168 KBytes       
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec  21.8 MBytes   183 Mbits/sec    4    156 KBytes       
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  38.8 MBytes   325 Mbits/sec   12    165 KBytes       
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec  40.0 MBytes   336 Mbits/sec    5    178 KBytes       
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  29.4 MBytes   247 Mbits/sec   17    144 KBytes       
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  20.7 MBytes   174 Mbits/sec    3    182 KBytes       
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec  19.6 MBytes   165 Mbits/sec    3    156 KBytes       
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec  20.4 MBytes   171 Mbits/sec    7    189 KBytes       
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  21.1 MBytes   177 Mbits/sec    4    171 KBytes       
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec  22.6 MBytes   189 Mbits/sec    5    163 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   257 MBytes   216 Mbits/sec   71             sender
[  5]   0.00-10.01  sec   256 MBytes   215 Mbits/sec                  receiver

Over CAT6 to a router. Hope someone has an idea what could be going on?

batrick · February 16, 2022, 3:08pm

Performance is even worse with a bridge over the two LAN ports. No wifi and the eap245 is just a bridge:

# iperf3 -p 1111 -Z -c 192.168.201.1
Connecting to host 192.168.201.1, port 1111
[  5] local 192.168.201.55 port 47246 connected to 192.168.201.1 port 1111
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec  11.6 MBytes  97.4 Mbits/sec    0    110 KBytes       
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.7 Mbits/sec    0    124 KBytes       
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  94.2 Mbits/sec    0    130 KBytes       
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    151 KBytes       
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.7 Mbits/sec    0    151 KBytes       
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    151 KBytes       
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    151 KBytes       
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    151 KBytes       
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    151 KBytes       
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec  10.9 MBytes  91.2 Mbits/sec    0    151 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   112 MBytes  93.9 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-10.01  sec   111 MBytes  93.4 Mbits/sec                  receiver

and using vlan tags via the switch (no linux bridge):

# iperf3 -p 1111 -Z -c 192.168.201.1
Connecting to host 192.168.201.1, port 1111
[  5] local 192.168.210.202 port 43188 connected to 192.168.201.1 port 1111
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr  Cwnd
[  5]   0.00-1.00   sec  11.6 MBytes  97.3 Mbits/sec    0    102 KBytes       
[  5]   1.00-2.00   sec  11.1 MBytes  93.5 Mbits/sec    0    122 KBytes       
[  5]   2.00-3.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  94.2 Mbits/sec    0    129 KBytes       
[  5]   3.00-4.00   sec  11.1 MBytes  93.1 Mbits/sec    0    143 KBytes       
[  5]   4.00-5.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    150 KBytes       
[  5]   5.00-6.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.7 Mbits/sec    0    150 KBytes       
[  5]   6.00-7.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    150 KBytes       
[  5]   7.00-8.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    150 KBytes       
[  5]   8.00-9.00   sec  11.2 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    150 KBytes       
[  5]   9.00-10.00  sec  11.2 MBytes  93.8 Mbits/sec    0    150 KBytes       
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate         Retr
[  5]   0.00-10.00  sec   112 MBytes  94.1 Mbits/sec    0             sender
[  5]   0.00-10.02  sec   111 MBytes  93.3 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

so iperf load on the eap245 is not the cause. In fact, it performs better when the originator/destination of traffic. What a mystery...

batrick · February 16, 2022, 5:17pm

Performance is even worse with a bridge over the two LAN ports.

Should have done a basic sanity check here: the adapter I was using for ethernet on my Carbon X1 is 100Mbps. Oops!

I used a different 1Gbps ethernet through my dock and got around 950Mbps. So it looks like this is not a real issue. The switching (even with a linux bridge) speed over ethernet is just fine. Whew!

Edit: so I think the original issue in the OP is just that iperf3 performance as a server or client is just bad on the CPU. The networking is just fine.