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10.15.3 and 10.15.4 Catalina Persistent Wi-Fi Speed Drops - Tx Rate Drops

Hello,

I've recently started to notice severe speed drops with the Wifi on my Mac. I've narrowed down the problem to some kind of a software issue with OS X Catalina. I've updated from 10.15.3 to the supplemental 10.15.4 update today however it made no difference.


Problem:

  • When performing a speed test the Tx Rate drops from 1300 / 867 Mbps down to <100Mbps almost immediately. On the speedtest the download speed consequently falls from 230Mbps to about 60Mbps or less.
  • Outside of speed testing this causes issues with lag during video streaming, inconsistent download speeds etc.


My reasoning as to why this is a software problem with the OS X Catalina:

  • I have Windows 10 installed in bootcamp on the same machine and when I ran a speed test on the exact same network there, it is consisntely 246Mbps from start to finish of the speed test and I experience no issues at all. This leads me to believe it is not a hardware issue with either the laptop or the network but a software issue with the Mac OS X.
  • 802.11ac Wi-Fi works flawlessly at ~240Mbps accross all devices in my network. This includes my iPhone 11
  • I haven't changed anything on my network recently and it was working perfectly fine at full speed on my Mac for at least 3 years with the same router and laptop.
  • Issue is persistent and no amount of restarting of either the laptop or router has any effect.


Troubleshooting steps already tried with no effect:

  1. Remove all of the relevant Wi-Fi preference files in SystemConfiguration folder and reboot
  2. Create new network location and apply
  3. Connect to 2.4Ghz network to check for stability - same problems except speed drops are even more severe and the connection becomes at times unusable.
  4. Reset NVRAM - Done and no effect
  5. Run system updates - Updated to 10.15.4, no outstanding updates in App Store - no effect
  6. Checked network activity in activity monitor - nothing unusal using significant bandwidth
  7. Tried different browser - same issue on Chrome and with Steam game downloads
  8. Restarted router
  9. Turned off Apple watch
  10. Turned off Bluetooth
  11. Rebooted in Safe Mode - Same issue


My MacBook:

  • MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
  • Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x152)
  • Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.77.111.1 AirPortDriverBrcmNIC-1600.4)
  •  Software Versions:
    •  CoreWLAN: 13.0 ((null))
    •  CoreWLANKit: 13.0 ((null))
    •  Menu Extra: 13.0 ((null))
    •  System Information: 12.0 (1500)
    •  IO80211 Family: 12.0 (1200.12.2b1)
    •  Diagnostics: 1.0 (910)
    •  AirPort Utility: Not Installed


Router:

  • Virgin Media Hub 3.0




I've ran out of things to try at this stage. Anybody experiencing the same issues?


Thanks,

Kamil


MacBook

Posted on Apr 9, 2020 4:35 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Apr 29, 2020 5:20 AM

It was the router after all. The Virgin Media Super Hub 3.0 for some reason became unstable after 3 years. I've put it into Modem mode and bought a new ASUS RT-AC85P router. Now the Wi-Fi is literally perfect. Tx rate is 1300 Mbps at all times and I'm getting my full line speed (240 - 245 Mbits) on all speed tests.


SOLUTION: Get a new router (at least in my case)


Similar questions

4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 29, 2020 5:20 AM in response to Kamil18l

It was the router after all. The Virgin Media Super Hub 3.0 for some reason became unstable after 3 years. I've put it into Modem mode and bought a new ASUS RT-AC85P router. Now the Wi-Fi is literally perfect. Tx rate is 1300 Mbps at all times and I'm getting my full line speed (240 - 245 Mbits) on all speed tests.


SOLUTION: Get a new router (at least in my case)


10.15.3 and 10.15.4 Catalina Persistent Wi-Fi Speed Drops - Tx Rate Drops

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