SQM on R8000 Nighthawk bad download speed?

Installing and Using OpenWrt
8

I've had nothing but trouble with Unifi so that's the reason why I got the R8000 in the first place, the signal strenght on the R8000 far outperforms the two unifi AC AP pro's both in terms of range and speed.

It's a hideous router looking like some alien spaceship so I prefer the AP's in terms of looks but the performance on those buggers are quite bad to be honest.

I was recommended the R8000 for performance and price reasons, unfortunately I got a deal on the R8000 so I can't return it, I also got another one coming my way from ebay o.o I guess I jumped the ship too quickly..

I've done some iperf3 tests between hardwired gaming pcs and wireless clients are they're all 200mbps ~ and the reason why I was recommended the R8000 was due to the reason that when my kids are streaming via Steam Link / Parsec or Moonlight we could only do so at 30mpbs bitrate without wireless warning popping up telling us to lower the bitrate, even thought the wireless clients iperf test are capable of 200mbps, I'm litterally at my wits end - the performance and signal strenght via the R8000 is faster and stronger than via unifi's APs but I'm still limited at 30mpbs streams.. bufferbloat tests are better with the R8000 than unifi but I'm still having issues..

What can I do to improve the situation for my kids so they can play lagfree and @ 50mpbs per stream? according to all tests via iperf3 it should be possible..
SQM enabled R8000 just drops my download speed tenfold..

I'm using 5Ghz on the wireless clients, speedtests are all above 250mb up and down, iperf test are above 200mpbs..

The wifi setup is stock OpenWrt with a password setup, the 5ghz band is 80Mhz and 2.4ghz band 20Mhz..
Should I change the 5ghz band to 40Mhz and why? does that improve the performance? and whats DSCP?

Following the above advice to return the R8000 which I can't do, should I still reflash it to factory settings, use that along with the other R8000 that's incoming and buy a rpi4 and use openwrt on that?

Rule out the unifi because I've had enough of it, its too complicated and I've had 2 years of troubles with it.. Im hoping the resell value is good so I can recoup some loss buying the R8000..

and whats DSCP, what does it do? and how do I enable it?
I have 4x hardwired gaming pcs and several wireless clients - I want these to be able to use the bandwidth they're capable off.

Thanks for all the help so far! I'm trying to digest it!

9

That is a relevant metric, but it does only tell you the wireless throughput of your WLAN, not how fast you can connect to the internet. LAN <--> WLAN transfers stress your router less than routing, it's still a signifact load, but not the whole picture.

SQM is single-threaded and a quite major additional load to your router's CPU, assuming my rough estimate of ~200 MBit/s total routing capacity is roughly in the correct ballpark, I would expect a 50%-65% speed reduction with SQM enabled on this hardware, not quite ten-fold /although the additional load of all-wireless clients won't help either).

10

On the r8000, I think that it would be worth reflashing the stock firmware onto the unit and then testing your overall network performance with the r8000 serving as a router and ap. If this doesn’t improve your situation, it is not your router/ap hardware or configuration that is responsible for your issues.

11

Broadcom uses proprietary network acceleration (courtesy of ctf.ko), so total routing speed should be higher using the OEM firmware, latencies shouldn't improve though.

12

Theres a second option that have opened up now if I were to give unifi another try and that is going with a UDM, would that be a wise choice?

If unifi is mostly down to settings and is overall a better system / hardware than the R8000 I have no real problem going either direction as Im now abit worried if R8000 is not truely openwrt supported and I dont like dated hardware.

Best regards

13

It's not exactly the same but as dumb APs are really good. It's configuration comes down to a few things that you can find in their forums. 80 Mhz wide channels, ensure you choose a channel which allows proper dB (depending of where you set your APs and country), to note some times you don't want maximum transmision power as most of you devices are only able to utilise 15 dB. To makes sense, imagine your router is emitting a maximum power (26 dB for Unifi) and your mobile is only 15 dB. This is like your router using a megaphone and your mobile phone just yelling, so imagine, your mobile phone will hear the AP but not the other way around, this is a very typical problem. If you leave in a very busy zone disable rates below 12 Mbps, etc. All this is availabe information in UI forums and may help getting the right configuration.

Regarding your speed, this is a test I did this morning with my MBP connected to my Unifi (4 m away):

@grim$ ➜  ~ iperf3 -c openwrt.lan
Connecting to host openwrt.lan, port 5201
[  7] local 192.168.1.189 port 55690 connected to 192.168.1.1 port 5201
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate
[  7]   0.00-1.00   sec  75.8 MBytes   636 Mbits/sec
[  7]   1.00-2.00   sec  75.5 MBytes   634 Mbits/sec
[  7]   2.00-3.00   sec  76.9 MBytes   645 Mbits/sec
[  7]   3.00-4.00   sec  76.8 MBytes   645 Mbits/sec
[  7]   4.00-5.00   sec  73.1 MBytes   613 Mbits/sec
[  7]   5.00-6.00   sec  75.9 MBytes   636 Mbits/sec
[  7]   6.00-7.00   sec  83.1 MBytes   697 Mbits/sec
[  7]   7.00-8.00   sec  78.2 MBytes   656 Mbits/sec
[  7]   8.00-9.00   sec  80.6 MBytes   676 Mbits/sec
[  7]   9.00-10.00  sec  80.3 MBytes   673 Mbits/sec
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval           Transfer     Bitrate
[  7]   0.00-10.00  sec   776 MBytes   651 Mbits/sec                  sender
[  7]   0.00-10.01  sec   773 MBytes   648 Mbits/sec                  receiver

iperf Done.

To note, when I was utilising Unifi's firmware it was a bit closer to 720 Mbit/sec at same distance. This is 11ac 3x3 with a theoretic maximum speed of 1,300 Mbps.

I think that we should triage a bit better all your configuration to understand why you have these problems.

This is a really good page with some information about Unifi and the options that should be enabled: https://evanmccann.net/blog/2021/11/unifi-advanced-wi-fi-settings

14

My understanding is you can flash openwrt on the Unifi APs, this may give you a more understandable setup?

The reason to use 40MHz channels is so that you have less chance of interference and more separate channels to use. Each device should be set to a clear channel. Use the app "Wifi analyzer" the VREM version on Android Play store.

Disable legacy data rates, and maybe even rates below 12Mbps.

But your best bet is to wire in the devices that are acting as your display.

15

IMO, no, this would not be a good choice, at least in the immediate term. Here is why:

  • The problems you are describing have not yet been positively linked any specific piece of the puzzle yet. It would be best to be able to conclusively say that you know what is responsible for the slowdowns before you start investing in yet more hardware.
  • The USG, although quite old, is fully capable of 1Gbps routing, as long as IDS/IPS and Smart Queues are disabled. The UDM has more CPU power and will be faster if you have either or both of those features enabled, but it won't make any difference if those features are not being used.
  • While the UDM does have a built-in AP that is higher performance than the UAP-AC-PRO units, the APs you have are high performance, too. (the UDM essentially has a built-in NanoHD).
  • All the same variables that may not be optimized on your current (now decommissioned) Unifi configuration will be presented to you with the UDM, so you'll likely have the same problems unless you understand how to optimize your setup (from both the general technology standpoint as well as the Unifi specific angle).

I'd recommend that you start by rolling the R8000 back to the stock firmware and see if you have better performance than you have experienced with Unifi and OpenWrt. If things don't improve, you need to look at your environment (including RF noise/interference, the floor plan and distances involved between the AP and client devices, validating cables and other hardware are working properly, etc.) and also your internet connection itself which may potentially be responsible for some of the issues.

16

I think actually this is the first place to start because there's really no reason to think the R8000 was ever going to be a "solution" so whether it's on OpenWrt or Stock firmware, it's really not likely to by itself fix the kinds of problems mentioned.

Since gaming is the priority, can you tell us, what is the device that is the "head" for the gamers? And how is it connected to the network? And can it be wired in?

Can you install Android "Wifi Analyzer" and show us screenshots of the channel graph for 2.4 and 5GHz?

How about going to https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat and running their test from a wired computer, then linking us to the results page (don't screenshot it, just link). Also run a test from a wifi connected computer and link that test.

17

I would make it the second thing. First is to roll back to a firmware (stock R8000) that should have reasonably good default configurations and optimized drivers for the wifi and other features. The R8000 should be setup in the near-default configuration with that stock firmware as a starting point. We do not know how OpenWrt + user settings from the OP might impact the performance.

A typical RF scan can tell us a lot (and normally should be step #1), but I think there may be value in the simple real-world test described above.

18

I'm not against it, but since the Unifi kit should be well capable of handling this scenario, my suspicion is that there is something else going on such as interference, poor channel choice, and/or lack of power on the "head" client system. So whatever the first step is, within the next few steps the more detailed info I requested above should be collected so we can provide better more informed advice.

1 Like
19

Thank you all for jumping in!
I'll do all the above steps after work today.

My kids gaming pc's are all hardwired with a cat6e cables - these are bought from store each being 1.5meter lenghts.
Connection goes like this.
Fibre box -> wan router -> 15meter cat6e cable to switch -> gaming pcs and second unifi AP plus samsung smartthings smart home
This hopefully gives some insight to how its connected at my home, the rest of the devices are all wireless

I can give screenshots of my house and how the planning looks if that would help.
I'll reflash the R8000 to stock firmware and do the bufferbloat test from all my wired gaming pcs and two of our most used wireless devices and share the links.

I'll also screenshot wifi analyze thing suggested above.

Thanks for all the help given so far, this really gives me hope!

20

Ok, reseted R8000 to stock, compared unifi to it and noticed the r8000 signal strenght is alot better on the far end of the house but speedtest were equal to unifi.

I dont really know what to test but there was no difference between R8000 to unifi in terms of game streaming, I dont understand really what to look for either, I like the looks of the unifi devices alot more. R8000 is big and hideous.

As far as the test:
Sons pc hardwired

Sons mobile streaming client wireless 5ghz 2meters free sight to AP (cant do more than 30mbps@720p@60fps stream without it complaining about lower bitrate or get better wifi) parsec,moonlight,steam link doesnt matter.
Speedtest 220d/220down 3ms.. iperf from mobile to pc about the same

Wifi analyser screenshots below

Screenshot_20211208-195818_WiFiAnalyzer
Screenshot_20211208-195818_WiFiAnalyzer1080×2340 148 KB

Screenshot_20211208-195814_WiFiAnalyzer
Screenshot_20211208-195814_WiFiAnalyzer1080×2340 143 KB

Screenshot_20211208-195801_WiFiAnalyzer
Screenshot_20211208-195801_WiFiAnalyzer1080×2340 191 KB

Screenshot_20211208-195753_WiFiAnalyzer
Screenshot_20211208-195753_WiFiAnalyzer1080×2340 206 KB

Screenshot_20211208-195729_WiFiAnalyzer
Screenshot_20211208-195729_WiFiAnalyzer1080×2340 188 KB

I plan to add another AP into the mix when I get everything in order. From my understanding, I dont get why we cant increase bitrate from 30 to say 50 without hiccups.. even 30 at times gives hiccups, its not nearly enough to max the phone capabilities either according to iperf. Its the same across all wireless clients we have. Stutters

Do I need to provide more info and did I do the above steps right?

Thanks in advance! You guys are golden!!

21

Ok, so your tests don't indicate significant network issues. based on your wifi analyzer screenshots your 5GHz APs seem fine. I would move the one that's currently on channel 6 to channel 11 so there's no overlap with the "dlink-CD87" access point.

What kind of device is the

This maybe just doesn't have the CPU power to decode better streaming?

22

Its a samsung xcover pro mobile phone, doesnt matter if its from Dell laptop or hp6570b pro, Samsung tablet a7 or any other wireless device we have, they all share this limit.

I doubt all devices are this bad, my friends hacked nintendo switch with android does 80mbps with moonlight at his home and the wifi chip on nintendo isnt something to write home about or so ive heard.

You're suspecting device issues?

Edit: thanks for the tip regarding 2.4ghz band but ill soon be adding my third AP and that will populate channel 11, meaning I will have 1,6 and 11 populated.

23

Try just for a moment turning off 2.4GHz entirely, see how things behave. Your 5GHz indicates essentially no interference, if the real issue is 2.4GHz interference let's discover that by forcing everything through 5GHz.

24

Im not streaming through 2.4ghz wifi thought, I keep 2.4 and 5 on different ssids.
They interfere?

25

No if they are different said then you know what you are using. They don't interfere at least radio wise. They will both use CPU so could interfere that way if many devices use both channels. Sounds unlikely to be the issue

26

All tests I've done is as isolated as possible, if that's the right term. Only 1 device at 5Ghz band at the time - I'm not really sure whats going on either since streaming is done locally - in my head I should be able to bump up the streaming bitrate by alot.
Such a shame if its down to the wifi clients, I mean.. they are no flagships but it shouldnt stutter like it do and certainly not occassionally as it does on just 30mpbs - the devices were quite expensive when they was new and they aren't that old. Samsung premium price? I dont know..

I tested with 2.4ghz wifi band shut off and there were no difference, Im starting to think I might aswell sell this R8000 router on the market - apart from the signal strenght the R8000 puts out I see no difference between this router and the unifi setup I have, I have a spare UAP AC PRO not being used so if I plug that in I would get the same coverage as the R8000 bring and it would certainly only be for the looks since the R8000 does a better job than two AP pros on the opposite of the house do.. so strange.. maybe I need to pay someone to have a look at all this, im not happy.

I appreciate your help! your awesome, thanks!

27

Proper tuning of the radios goes a long way. This means ensuring that your APs are using non-overlapping channels and that the power of each is set to the minimum power that provides coverage of your space with minimal overlap of the two (or more) AP coverage zones. A wifi site scan will help you start mapping out what channels work best in your space (and at each AP), but most of the time there must be some compromises unless you live in a very RF quiet area.

This video describes the process of placing and tuning your APs. The concepts apply to all wifi APs, but this particular video does it with Unifi (side note: the video is a year old, so the GUI may be a bit out of date if you are keeping the Unifi Network Application (controller) updated). You can use this to try to improve your Unifi setup, but it will also be equally valid if you go with any other system.