Slower Speedtest on Airport Extreme Base Station vs Fibr Modem

Something is triggering it and I cant seem to catch it.

Just as another set of eyes..

The Fix: I have to remove and reconnect the LAN cable connecting the Fibr Modem to the Apple AirPort Extreme and it will be fine again at 500Mbps.

We have had issues on some setups with WAN port on the airport routers failing to negotiate speed correctly with the LAN port of the main modem.. this was in particular the Motorola (later Arris derived) pure cable modems. But it occasionally happened with other modems or routers.

Apple does not provide ANY network inspection or diagnostics in their routers to track this kind of fault.

In their hiding all complexity from the masses they removed any ability to diagnose.

If you are good with command line.. it is possible to turn on ssh in the airport router and gain access to detailed reports of what is happening.

See the first part of the post here.

https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modems/apple-time-capsule-repair/change-country-on-airport-router

A good way to physically check (assuming your fibre unit does not have details of the LAN port speed via lights or gui)

is a small gigabit switch located between the main Fibre Modem and Airport. You want one that has full set of LED connectivity and speed indicators. (or a smart switch even better).

90mbps is pretty typical when a gigabit port drops to 100Mbps link speed due to mismatch etc.

A few thoughts.........

The AirPort Extreme was designed back in 2012 to work with standard cable and DSL type connections, so its performance with fiber cannot really be predicted. Some users have had good results. Others....like me....have not.

As far as speeds, the 2.4 GHz band on an AirPort will never be much more than 100 Mbps. Expect an average in the 80-90 range on 2.4 GHz.

5 GHz is capable of higher speeds, but the 5 GHz signal is much weaker than a 2.4 GHz signal. So, 5 GHz will only work well when your WiFi device is in the same room or very close proximity to the AirPort Extreme.

Frankly, the AirPorts are well behind the times at this point if you are looking for higher speeds and better WiFi security. No rush, but you might want to start to think about your next router.

It's just that it goes back down to 90Mbps every now and then, the fix is

pulling out the LAN cable at the back of AirPort Extreme and plugging it back in and speed

How old is the AirPort Extreme? If it is 5+ years old, this is the type of thing that you can expect as the AirPort ages. The speed drops will become increasingly more frequent as time moves forward.

If you have time and inclination, you could reset the AirPort back to factory default settings and set it up again to see if that helps, but frankly I would be surprised if it did.

Just wondering what triggers the mismatch.

So do we.. The issue that was reported over and over and still crops up with some people using that older model Arris modem.. is likely incompatibility between the chipsets.. or drivers.. which ethernet is mature enough to seldom show. The very act of putting a switch between the two routers could cure the problem. Since both negotiate speed to the switch not each other.

Because unplugging and plugging the LAN cable on WAN makes it match again.

Have you replaced the piece of Cat6 you use for this connection with another.. just to be sure?

If there are a lot of errors due to poor cable it can fall back to slower speed. The cable might check ok on a simple connectivity tester but would fail at proper bandwidth testing. Unusual but it happens. (changed a lot of patch cables in my time).

Going back through the thread.. you did not answer questions about age of the main Time Capsule or the Extreme.

I am going to suggest you either put one of the Extreme in place of the Time Capsule or swap the AX6000 into its place so you have TP-Link correctly setup as AP directly to the Fiber modem router.

Without Apple giving us real diagnostics.. it makes fixing setups like this near impossible.. and I agree with Bob.. 5years.. is long enough.. especially in the case where TC is sitting as bridge to main router but clearly failing.

The Extreme without the extra load of the hard disks do seem to last longer.. and the TC does not need to be central.. when you have all the network running ethernet.

How long has the issue been there?

When did it start? Can you identify anything that happened at the time? i.e. this all worked fine until you changed ISP or to this Fiber modem.. or installed a new computer running big sur ... what??

I can suggest other things.. But the chances of finding the problem are diminishing.

To give me a chance of finding at least the location of the issue.. I will need you to do some careful testing.. I strongly recommend using 2x computers with ethernet.. so you can measure things without wireless effects.

The software I am using is tamosoft. You can download it for free and install on PC or Mac or most devices.

I am using a PC on Win10 and a rather ancient Mac.

Fibr Modem's wifi still active on both 2.4 and 5Ghz band

It is helpful to have something that still works. And allows you to test.

Have you managed to get the switch to put between fibre modem and your First Airport?

I suggested that as a good way to visually see when the problem occurs and if it is indeed wan - lan issue between airport and fibre modem.

Are you using double NAT? If not I think it is worthwhile giving it a go.

Instead of the first Apple router being set to bridge.. put it in router mode. All the bridged units won't have any modifications needed other than a restart.

I then need you to post screenshot of short summary on all the airports. And more details from the unit you will be running as router.

I have configured two Time Capsules.. in configuration I am suggesting. So I can test and measure things and show you what to do.

Main router is Asus.. That is plugged by ethernet to TC WAN port.. first unit in router mode. A computer is plugged also into the Asus running the ttserver for measurement..

So summary shows double NAT error which you just ignore.

Second TC is setup in bridge.

Internet here is not fast enough to measure speeds using simple speedtest. So I will use a computer to computer method.

From computer plugged into Asus network and measuring across the NAT.. this will add some complexity.. but anyway.

This is using wireless.

This is getting around 600Mbps up and 130Mbps down. (through the NAT of the Airport plus wifi is about right if a little unbalanced).

And this is using Ethernet.

I will need to ponder why the speeds are so unbalanced and they swap around between wifi and ethernet.. something odd there.. but this is apple network.. so who knows.

And to ensure I am not going crazy I will do a test with both computers on ethernet via the Asus.

So I am getting near to gigabit as expected in both directions.

Have a go and see what you come up with. But I can maintain this for a while and see if there is any slow downs.

As a ps.

Ok.. there is basically nothing else I can think of as long as you stick to the airport routers. Sorry but since apple designed them to be controlled with a unique utility with extremely limited functionality.. not even a log.. there is no way I can think of to find the culprit without using something like the method above.

The permanent fix is to replace the older and slower gear with newer and faster gear.

Otherwise keep pulling the power cord to reset, at least until that AirPort Extreme bricks.

I’ve had a bunch of old AirPort gear dropping out, and dropping back, as it aged out.

First thing to check is the TP-Link Archer AC6000 router firmware revision. There’s a firmware update from last week, too:

https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/download/archer-ax6000/#Firmware

I’d also acquire Wi-Fi Explorer from the Mac App Store if you don’t already have that app or something similar, though Network Diagnostics can display some network activity info. Wi-Fi explorer shows what other activity is happening in the Wi-Fi channels, and that can help identify router drop-outs as well as interference.

You’re probably dropping back to older Wi-Fi protocols and probably back to 2.4 GHz, which can point to a problem with the Wi-Fi, or interference.

I had multiple AirPort Time Capsule devices dropping out, or dropping back to slower speeds, which eventually led to wholesale replacement of the Apple Wi-Fi. Looking back, I only wish I’d replaced earlier.

I’ll assume those AirPorts shown are all configure as access points, and preferably with wired backhaul; that Cat7 mentioned. With some box to provide DHCP services, I’d be tempted to swap in Ubiquiti APs.

Is it possible that your WiFi device might not be connecting to the closest AirPort when you see a speed drop?

That is one possible problem.. but there is still a more fundamental issue. He tested with ethernet.. and it also showed major speed drop.

I shut off WiFi and Speedtest using ethernet only via my iMac to rule out interference.

Speed drops to 90Mbps every now and then on Apple routers even on ethernet.

Correct about Ethernet. Probably best to forget about WiFi for now and work on the getting the Ethernet stabilized before checking WiFi speeds.

That may be difficult on 5+ year old AirPorts, likely what we are dealing with here.