Cable Modem/Router help - wired all of a sudden slower than wifi

[fredridge]

My wife texted me this afternoon about her computer being slow - did the Fast.com and it was like 90mbps. Having same problem with mine. Wifi on 5g shows 360mbps. I play with Modem/Router which is an Arris surfboard SBG7580-AC. Restore factory defaults and still same problem.

I start playing with the dashboard find the lan port controls and says it's set to 1000mbps with it and find the operation page has this

LAN Port 1

Enabled

Up

100(Full)

for both ports 1 & 2 and right now shows 3 & 4 down.... I swapped to 3 and got like 6mbps

Again my wifi shows running great.

Nothing was changed on it, just my wife and I.

thoughts? I noticed a lot of dust and wondering if I burned something out.

thanks

Read More

 

[Joe13]

Most common problem I see on these things is that almost no one but an electrician will know that you can NOT run AC power and your Ethernet cables in parallel without there being 20+ " of separation between them because of electrical induction. Most people just run all of their cords together and call it cable management.

I have a buddy who is a tech obsessed person and although he had just find speed at his PC next to his router, he set his daughters up across the room and she was getting better wired download speeds.

So he deep dived into it and called me to ask if I knew anything about it and after explaining it and going over a few options he fixed it and went for 160mbps to 800mbps.



Dunno if that helps you - I had a slight issue with your description of the issue other then wireless is good and wired is bad. If you changed nothing (but it sort of sounds like you did then it probably is the hardware or cords).

 

[fredridge]

Thanks.
Changed nothing and problem started today. Any changes were after the problem started and were about trying to troubleshoot the issue.

 

[Joe13]

Rent a new router or if you prefer buy one on Amazon and see if it fixes your issues. You can always return them if not. Or personally I like to have a spare of each so I have almost zero down time on my internet if my primary goes out.

You can get 'Amazon Renewed' stuff for very inexpensive compared to retail and imo so far they work just fine.

 

[Certaindeaf]

My wife texted me this afternoon about her computer being slow - did the Fast.com and it was like 90mbps. Having same problem with mine. Wifi on 5g shows 360mbps. I play with Modem/Router which is an Arris surfboard SBG7580-AC. Restore factory defaults and still same problem.

I start playing with the dashboard find the lan port controls and says it's set to 1000mbps with it and find the operation page has this

LAN Port 1

Enabled

Up

100(Full)

for both ports 1 & 2 and right now shows 3 & 4 down.... I swapped to 3 and got like 6mbps

Again my wifi shows running great.

Nothing was changed on it, just my wife and I.

thoughts? I noticed a lot of dust and wondering if I burned something out.

thanks

I'm no tech but what I understand is hackers target/ gain access via wifi/ router commonly.

 

[Stomper]

My wife texted me this afternoon about her computer being slow - did the Fast.com and it was like 90mbps. Having same problem with mine. Wifi on 5g shows 360mbps. I play with Modem/Router which is an Arris surfboard SBG7580-AC. Restore factory defaults and still same problem.

I start playing with the dashboard find the lan port controls and says it's set to 1000mbps with it and find the operation page has this

LAN Port 1

Enabled

Up

100(Full)

for both ports 1 & 2 and right now shows 3 & 4 down.... I swapped to 3 and got like 6mbps

Again my wifi shows running great.

Nothing was changed on it, just my wife and I.

thoughts? I noticed a lot of dust and wondering if I burned something out.

thanks

Sounds like your modem/router is partially crumbling. Personally, I've never cared for "all-in-one" gadgets, because you have to replace the entire thing if one function gives up the ghost.

I use a separate Linksys DOCSIS 3.0 cable "modem", and then utilized a bunch of Linksys mesh Wi-Fi repeaters off the one repeater that I have plugged into the "modem" as the main router.

It doesn't look like you can use your "modem" as just a modem, and plug a separate router into a port marked,
"LAN" to see if that fixes things….. bummer.



Here's a link to the setup and troubleshooting manual.

ManualsLib - Makes it easy to find manuals online!

www.manualslib.com

Good luck!

I'm no tech but what I understand is hackers target/ gain access via wifi/ router commonly.

You may be referring to the ol', "U/N- admin P/W- password" hack…. 'cuz reading the setup manual is for beta-dummies!

 

[Yarome]

I would lean toward a router hardware issue, or as @Joe13 pointed out, a cabling interference issue. To add to that, it may also depend on the ethernet cable you are using. They are not all created equal and older CAT cables may not support the available bandwidth and be creating a bottleneck. It may also just be that the ethernet cable itself is degrading, the connecter is fouling with oxidation/corrosion or simply broken strands causing signal interference.

Possibly the line filter is going bad(?) DOCSIS connections nearby are bleeding into your signal(?) Again though... if you are having no issues with a wifi connection that's not likely.

Back to a router hardware or cable issues... OR.... the issue may be on your cable internet providers side.

They may have periodic changes/updates to their software handling or firmware updates going out to your modem that may have "fouled". Along with a hard reset you might also contact them and ask them to repush your modem from their side. Basically clearing the firmware and repushing a clean update. Any system changes/settings that may be affected your account would also be reset and validated.

What's curious to me though is how in the heck you can tell there was a bandwidth slowdown if you're still getting at least 90Mbps?? Even if you were streaming 2K HD video, that still only requires about 20Mbps. Even if both of you were streaming at the same time at that resolution... that's less than half the bandwidth available at the lowest. Typical usage doesn't even require a small fraction of that.

 

[Idaho44]

Simple test for computer "speed": unplug from the 'modem' and run the computer as a stand alone, not connected to any network. It could be the computer and not the 'modem'.

 

[fredridge]

Thanks.

I will plug a computer directly into the router to check the cables. They were cat5e bulk that we ran through the walls.

As far as telling the speeds it was my wife who noticed. Not sure how she noticed. She uses a work laptop wired and has to use a vpn.

I will do more troubleshooting tonight. Router is 6yrs old and belongs to me. I'm willing to buy a new one if that's the problem, but I want to make sure.

 

[Nosferatu]

1. Check (likely replace) the cabling into the house, all the way to the gateway.
2. Removed any unused splitters.
3. Have your provider check their Demarc.
4. Log all outages and slowdowns time, speeds and duration. This can help your provider troubleshoot any system problems.

Cable connections are shared throughout the neighborhood. It could very well be you have a new development or new subscribers in your area who are eating up bandwidth playing Fallout, streaming programs or downloading every ounce of porn they can find.

 

[Stomper]

Wait a minute…. he said he checked compared to 5G….. that's not Wi-Fi, that's cellular data through your cell phone carrier.

I'm assuming he has cable internet to his house, that's typically not going to show as fast as 5G unless he's paying for some über high-speed package.

 

[Bacchus]

Wait a minute…. he said he checked compared to 5G….. that's not Wi-Fi, that's cellular data through your cell phone carrier.

Good catch!

 

[Joe13]

Idk..

My router has a 2.4g and 5g channel.

 

[Bacchus]

Idk..

My router has a 2.4g and 5g channel.

Oops ... I didn't think of that. And OP did use a lower case 5g, whereas I think the cellular standard is 5G. And from the context, I think he was almost certainly referring to the 5g (5GHz bandwidth) channel on his wi-fi.

 

[Stomper]

Idk..

My router has a 2.4g and 5g channel.

No, you have 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz frequency….. 2.4Ghz has better range and barrier penetration, but can't carry as much data as 5Ghz, but 5Ghz has a more limited range and less barrier penetration (to date).

"5G" (or g if someone's caps-lock doesn't work) is a cellular data compression algorithm carried on whatever frequency spectrum is reserved for all that.

Oops ... I didn't think of that. And OP did use a lower case 5g, whereas I think the cellular standard is 5G. And from the context, I think he was almost certainly referring to the 5g (5GHz bandwidth) channel on his wi-fi.

Let's see see if he comes back to clarify….

 

[Alexx1401]

No, you have 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz frequency….. 2.4Ghz has better range and barrier penetration, but can't carry as much data as 5Ghz, but 5Ghz has a more limited range and less barrier penetration (to date).

"5G" (or g if someone's caps-lock doesn't work) is a cellular data compression algorithm carried on whatever frequency spectrum is reserved for all that.

Let's see see if he comes back to clarify….

Thanks, both of my WiFi routers have both the 2.4 and 5 and I always wondered why they did that. Every WiFi camera I ever tried always warned they would only work on the 2.4 which had me wondering why. Was too lazy to look it up but now it makes sense.

 

[fredridge]

It's 5g Wi-Fi vs 2.4g. It's dual band.

Already had Xfinity test connection before I figured out I was getting 360mbps from the WiFi.

No splitters or anything in between the router and desktop except the cable.

My cable package is 300mbps down and I usually get more than what I'm rated at.

I need to find a long cable so I can test it. Will have to do that tomorrow

 

[Yarome]

Already had Xfinity test connection before I figured out I was getting 360mbps from the WiFi.

If they just did a line signal test, you might still ask them to repush your account. It's kind of like doing a full power off reboot.. clearing out any artifact info on your account info, their server settings and the push info/settings they send to your modem. Sometimes an update may not be fully propagated/successful. IE., node handshaking protocols.

If you've had that modem/router for awhile it may just be something as simple as pulling the ethernet connections and cleaning them. Sometimes it's the simple stuff that can trip you up and good to exhaust them before throwing money at the problem, right.

You mentioned your wife was using a VPN. One other consideration may just be that. I've noticed that some websites don't play well with VPN's. They might connect fine, but have delays or will sometimes time out the connection or only partially load a new page. I'm not exactly sure how it all works behind the scenes, but I know there is a constant battle going on. Some websites trying to combat connections from VPN's and VPN providers having to make adjustments to "spoof" the connection. I can imagine that might contribute to some instability and might appear to be a bandwidth issue(??)

The mechanics of it is out of my wheelhouse, but it's something I've noticed with mine.

 

[fredridge]

Mystery semi solved, it was the cable or the connection.
Found the long cable and plugged it in and got 360mbps. Tried on multiple ports and all worked great.
plugged the installed connection in and pushed cable all the way into wall plug and back to full speed.

I think the cable plugged into the female port on the wall had tension pulling on it and may have come out just enough to slow the connection but not enough to disconnect it.

I also noticed the lights on the ports were yellow vs green when I plugged in the loose cable and replugged in the installed cable.

All working and didn't need to buy a new router.

Thank you for suggesting the cables as I almost just bought a new router.