Terrible WiFi (but perfect wired) speed on OpenWrt One, despite sitting next to it

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I have an OpenWrt One, running 24.10.6.

  • When my laptop is connected to OpenWrt One via ethernet: → speedtest.net reports I’m getting my ISP’s full speed (90Mbps down, 20Mbps up)
  • When connecting the same laptop over WiFi to a Cudy RE1200 Outdoor AP, which is using the OpenWrt One as its gateway: → same speedtest results (90Mbps down, 20Mbps up)
  • When the same laptop connects over 2.4GHz directly to OpenWrt One, sitting in the same room (no walls or anything, at a distance of maybe 7 meters): →between 4 to 57Mbps down, and 15 to 18Mbps up.

Here are my wireless settings, nothing jumps out to me.

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What can I do to troubleshoot this?

2

Please test 25.12.2 first (there was a speed regression in 25.12.1 that was fixed in 25.12.2, I'm not sure if that also applies to the 24.10.x branch - hopefully not, but testing >=25.12.2 is still a good idea).

Also make sure that the -correct for your location- location is set for all (both) radios and reboot after saving/ applying that setting.

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3

AX over 2.4GHz is probably a performance killer.

don't post screen shots, they're useless, post the config files, use the </> button on top of the edit window when you paste them.

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4
  • I’ve entered the correct country code
  • changed from 20MHz to 40MHz
  • (my 2.4GHz channel doesn’t overlap with other nearby channels)
  • saved & restarted → no change.

Will try upgrading to 25.12 later, that’s a bit more impactful/risky so need to schedule that.

Is AX over 2.4GHz broken? I can’t try a different protocol, but normally this one should be the fastest, right…

5

Regarding the config file, I’ve just exported a backup archive, here’s the content of the “wireless” file (the 5GHz radio is currently disabled)


config wifi-device 'radio0'
	option type 'mac80211'
	option path 'platform/soc/18000000.wifi'
	option band '2g'
	option channel '1'
	option htmode 'HE40'
	option num_global_macaddr '7'
	option cell_density '0'
	option country 'BE'

config wifi-iface 'default_radio0'
	option device 'radio0'
	option network 'lan'
	option mode 'ap'
	option ssid 'The Promised LAN'
	option encryption 'sae-mixed'
	option key 'mypwd'
	option ocv '0'

Which other config files are relevant?

6

sae-mixed is never a great pick, even though probably unrelated to your performance issue.

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7

The alternative is choosing WPA3-SAE, but I’m not 100% sure all clients here support WPA3 (will check on that later).
If some clients don’t support WPA3, I don’t think there’s a better choice than sae-mixed?

8

I see now that in the first screenshot, it says

Bitrate: 68.5 Mbit/s | Country: 00

Now that I changed the country code, it says this:

Bitrate: 35.5 Mbit/s | Country: BE

Both are terrible bitrates. What settings influence the bitrate?

Also, when running a test on speedtest.net I notice the download speed starts OK (at around 80Mbit), then gradually goes down to 44Mbps.

9

Yes, there is. Create 2 different AP/SSID, one with WPA3-SAE and one with WPA2-CCMP. Connect the clients accordingly.

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10

Please make sure you are using dualband antennas. And it's noticed that some mobile phones and old computers only support max wifi4 1x1 20 MHz 72 Mbps link speed.

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11

you probably just have an old laptop, which has a maximum reception speed of 60 MB via wifi, go to the properties of the adapter on the laptop, click on the status and see what speed it has

so I think the router has nothing to do with it