@MDSINNC Crazy difference. My immediate things to check/consider-

 

1- do you have QoS enabled on the Deco at all? Confirm it's off for test.

 

2- are you using the same Ethernet cable with the laptop and the deco? Just to make sure it's not a bad cable. If it's a different one try the same cable for both.

 

3- wait-- the x50 deco is PoE yeah? If that's the case it seems you've potentially omitted a critical bit of info--? What are you using the provide power to the x50? A PoE switch or an injector? This could be a bottleneck point as that would be a difference in the two tests presumably... if I'm picturing this correctly- the laptop would be direct Ethernet into the isp equipment... but for the X50, it would have to go from their router... either into a PoE switch and out from there into the X50, or out from their equipment, into a PoE injector and then into the X50. Unless I'm missing something like the X50 has the option to use a normal power cable to power it rather than exclusively PoE... or you're powering the x50 via PoE into 1 port and then coming out a second port into the ISP gear. Give me some more info here on this if you would— I'm not so familiar with the details of the X50 PoE and how it's used.

 

4- I am guessing that another difference is if you can plug into the isp equipment and go, then it's probably working in router mode... handing out dhcp and NAT'ing etc. So one difference would be with the laptop you're doing a single NAT at the isp box.. but then when you are plugging the x50 into it, which I'm presuming is also in router mode... you're now doing a double NAT, yeah?  
 

the isp modem wan has your external IP... and then when you plug the laptop in, you're pulling an internal ip like 192.168.x.x yeah?

 

So when you plug in the x50... the isp box is going to assign an internal address as the WAN ip... right? So your x50 may show the wan ip as 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x or 172.16.x.x?

 

if all I said right there is true then my next question is what is the LAN ip and DHCP range set to?

 

they hopefully aren't the same, are they?

 

Like 192.168.1.x on the WAN of the deco and 192.168.1.x on the LAN side as well?

 

Make certain that is not the situation, otherwise your routing tables and all will be totally jacked and your two routers will be completely confused and looping or routing packets like ping pong balls.

 

And if they're different you're still in a double NAT'ing setup which is not ideal, but shouldn't cause THAT much of a loss.

 

i would likely try and see if they could set their gear into bridge mode and just handoff the routing and dhcp/nat responsibilities to your deco. That would probably cut out a lot of potential conflicts even if that's not the root of this. But it certainly wouldn't hurt your setup to do that.

 

 

so lets start there. Let me know the results and that extra info.

 

Im seeing two differences here- one is that the laptop isn't doing any routing at all it's just a client device while the x50 is actually doing routing functions which is a different beast to deal with.

 

and the other being the potential power source in the middle; be it a switch or injector, if that's the case.

 

let's see if we can figure this out. 

  @YourStupid 

 

Thanks for the detail.

 

Before I attempt to answer, let me say that the precise setup, with a single Deco X50 PoE router as the "main" router, and all others (a mix of X55 and the X50) was functioning without any attenuation from the ISP's level of service when my ISP was TDS. Their level of service was 300 download. I normally achieved around that with all hardwired devices, and very close to that when a WiFi device on 5G was close to a router. Important to remember that all the router nodes (except one) are wired; no wifi backhaul. It's when I switched from TDS at 300 to Spectrum at 600 did my effective speeds remain the same. 

 

1.  Yes, QoS is normally enabled for just two devices; my office computer (hardwired) and my television (hardwired).

2. Cables are not the issue or shouldn't be. There are many cables in the system; from the Spectrum Modem to the primary router; router to Gigabit switch, switch to other routers, these routers to other devices like my television or computer. All are CAT5E. BTW in a speed test there was no appreciable difference between a low quality no-name cable with no rating vs a rated CAT5E cable. But, all cables are CAT5E.

 

3, Yes, the X50 primary router (and one other in the network) are PoE. The primary router gets its power from the PoE gigabit switch. The second X50 uses the transformer, not the PoE power. I actually don't need the PoE capability, these were chosen because of their flat form factor. In the case of the primary router it fits nicely tucked into a "media wiring center" recessed into a wall cavity in my garage; the second one is behind a television. The flat form factor works well; the coffee can size/style of the X55 does not.

 

4. Unfortunately you've kind of lost me here, I'm not that knowledgable. That's the bad news. The good news is "my guy" who did the wiring for me is very knowledgable on all of this. He did mention a double NAT setup.

 

I do have so additional testing to do first with just the primary router. The spectrum modem is plugged into that via the X50's 2.5GB WAN port. I'll disconnect the second port from the switch and plug in my laptop and test. If I get my 600+ speed, I'll plug the router into the switch, and test at a port on the switch. One by one I'll add the additional routers. We'll find out where the roadblock is.

 

Spectrum around here has basically "shot themselves in the foot" since the way things are here, most of the "hardware" for the prior ISP is mounted on a wall outside. That the TDS ONT. The Spectrum needs to be inside the home, and they need to bring the fiber inside the home to make the connections. The way homes are "wired" around here is the low voltage guys bring a bundle of coax and a separate bundle of CAT5E or CAT6 and leave them dangling on the outside of the home...assuming that the ISP would work from there. Spectrum comes into people's homes and wants to start drilling holes in the walls and running fiber to the closest room, which may be the dining room. Do YOU want a modem and its power supply in your dining room?

  @MDSINNC It's so funny you mention the fiber ONT and how ISP's handle that. I work in the IT industry and I've seen enough fiber installs to know well exactly what you just said. They will only go down the path of least resistance. They won't be going around, under, past... and it won't be pretty work.

 

That said, I am finally getting fiber at my new house here come next Saturday— but the big reason I have been delaying it is I told my family that I know exactly what they are going to insist on doing— and that's bringing the fiber and putting the ONT in the garage. Drill through 12" of brick and put that bad boy right there next to my car. Why? The other direction they would have to go under a driveway/sidewalk, which isn't going to happen... or they are going to have to run it around the entire house and the only places they can come in where I'll have plugs etc is a) right in my kitchen... or right in the middle wall of my living room. 
 

I don't want to see an ONT, along with a huge router/gateway right there as a centerpiece to my kitchen or living room. All bedrooms are upstairs.

 

So that said, knowing they would put it on the garage wall... I didn't have any way to get the line back into the main house, as there is no existing cabling connecting the garage to the main house... and there is no access or conduit that I could run my own cable. I knew by experience that no wireless signal would penetrate through the double brick wall of the garage/house- so there was no way to bring the internet into the house to use. 
 

Tried powerline... horrible. Maxed out at like 30mbps and often more like 10mbps. Not paying for gigabit fiber to get 10mbps (shared, amongst 5 people) inside. So it was put off.

 

long story short there, I found in the garage attic an old coax cable there at one time came from a satellite dish mounted on the garage roof... which ran into the upstairs house attic. SCORE.

 

I then re-did all of the coax cabling in the main house, reterminated and installed new splitters etc and put in MoCA adapters (runs Ethernet over coax/tv cable). Confirmed I can get 2.5 gig from garage to the house so these guys can put their ugly ONT out there and we're golden. 
 

So I'll watch them drill through my garage wall next weekend. No doubt at all, lol...

 

 

 

So anyway. Back to you.

 

here's the first thing I'd check:

 

When cut QoS on, you must tell it what your internet bandwidth is. For this, it's what it uses to determine when the devices as a whole are getting close to saturating your bandwidth.

 

you said that prior you had 300mbps. You said that you have QoS on. 
 

did you update the bandwidth definition, or have you left it at 300mbps?

 

Check that and make sure that it's not still at 300. I would also just temp cut it off as QoS can in general reduce your overall throughout. I would only use it if you really need it. An example would be like if you had a VoIP phone at home that you use for work and you've got kids that are on the same network and are playing video games or something and your calls are breaking up or dropping. 
 

In general, I find you don't need to prioritize devices much if you have reasonable enough bandwidth in a home situation. QoS in this TP-Link setup is beyond limited as well. You basically can set devices as high priority or not.

 

In more medium featured QoS you can at least have different levels of priority from very low up to very high and you can groom your device priority much better when you have that kind of tiered priority system. Or you could prioritize certain types of traffic above others rather than specific devices... like SIP/phone traffic before HTTP traffic.

 

anyway. Long winded as usual here.. but update the QoS bandwidth. If it is set to 600, then try cutting it off completely and try again. 
 

I would try that before bothering with any of the other troubleshooting.

 

update me. 

 

 

@YourStupid 

 

I bow to your expertise. You nailed it.

 

It was the QoS speed setting. Must have been set up for my prior ISP at 300/300, and when I changed to the new ISP at 600/30, it never dawned on me to even think that the speed setting, was a setting. I think my cabling guy must have set up the 300/300 in the TP-Link Deco setup. In all the various routers I've had over the years, and several mesh systems, I do not recall ever setting a speed. You got what you got; the router figured it out!

 

I'm not certain I actually need to prioritize anything but maybe the television.

 

But I just did a test at fast.com and my speed is 680 down, 35 up. That's on my office computer going through a switch, a router, another switch and then to the primary router.

 

As a sidebar, Wifi propagation of any kind in my home is dreadful. First I had a conventional 6-antenna router. Then I had an Asus tri-band mesh system and the 5G backhaul simply didn't work; I could not find any placement for the node router that would grab an acceptable signal. I finally did the backhaul via powerline adapter and it worked but not well. The first mesh system I had, a Google, had literally zero operator controls, and my enterprise class printer (but in my home) wouldn't work; it needs an IP address for each print session and the built in firewall on the Google wouldn't allow it. The TP Link Deco system, just 3 x X55s was good, but not great because the wifi propagation was awful and couldn't get any decent backhaul. That's when I decided that wires are better than wifi and we utilized the existing CAT5E wiring in our home here to create a wired mesh system. I had a wiring expert out, and we came up with the plan of recessing everything into the garage wall, and using that as the central point. With this setup, each mesh node is hardwired back to the primary, so no backhaul issues. We had a dead zone outside the home in the front, so I added a single X55 node in the front hallway, and that took care of that. The map is attached. Every bedroom has a CAT5E jack wired back down to the switch in the garage. We had to run a single additional CAT5E cable from a bedroom to behind our television in the family room--but all four node routers are not hardwired back to the primary.

 

Thanks again!

  @YourStupid 

 

For your upcoming fiber install, here are three photos of what we did. Nice and tidy install in garage. That "big black box" that says CyberPower is the power supply for the ONT which is on the other side of the wall; that was removed and is now replaced with the Spectrum Modem, which has a tiny wall wart style power supply. It still all fits nice and tidy in the garage. In the box are the X50 PoE router, the switch, and the (not shown but it's there) the Spectrum Modem.

  @MDSINNC Wee! This makes me happy! :D

 

So glad you're fixed up.

 

That is very nice looking, I'll give you that! I really love that you have an outlet and there and everything, that's awesome!

 

Unfortunately my wall in there is solid brick, both inside and out, so I don't think a recess is an option for me. Maybe I can hire some ancient Egyptians or Aztecs, the ones that built the megalithic structures. Guessing if they can carve out and move 20 ton blocks, they can get through my garage wall. Maybe.

 

Btw, regarding the propagation issues... even with the wired connectivity, you still need solid signal to and from wireless devices, obviously. 

 

Couple things I would note- whether you can or want to do anything about them is your call.

 

Wireless AP's/nodes are really affected by obstructions and positioning.

 

You really, if at all possible, want them out and away from any obstructions, especially dense ones. You always want to try and put your AP's as far out in the open as you can, and high as you can (in general).

 

When you say one is behind a TV... I'm presuming this thing is in between a TV screen and probably a wall or piece of furniture, since few people have TV's sitting out in the middle of the room, haha...

 

So you have signal coming off (or going to) that device and it's immediately getting either absorbed, refracted or reflected on both sides. 

 

TV screens typically have shielding in them that is meant to attenuate/dampen interference, not to mention the metal and other parts. Depending on the wall or furniture that's behind the TV/AP, it's also absorbing or distorting the signal that goes in that direction. Not good for signal propagation.

 

Same with your recessed box there- as beautiful as it looks, you have that AP stuffed in a tightly enclosed space, right up against a wall and in the midst of all that other electronic equipment-— and also very low to the ground, so I'm not surprised if the signal from that one doesn't go far at all. I would pretty much expect it.

 

You know you have the 2.4 and 5ghz bands (I know there's others but let's talk about these two)....

 

Higher frequencies (5ghz) have the benefit of being able to send more information in the same amount of time (faster)... but with the trade off that they have a lesser ability to penetrate objects. The denser the object (and the more objects it has to pass through) the quicker the signal is lost. 

 

2.4ghz is slower, but is more able to penetrate through objects.

 

— Sorry got distracted by work, pets and kids lol... forgot where I was headed with that but...

 

Regarding whatever AP's you have, try to get them out a bit away from the wall, don't put them behind or underneath things— like hiding it in a cabinet or stuffing it behind stuff is going to degrade your wifi range and speed. How badly depends on what it's in/behind... but the real problem materials are the denser ones like metal, glass, brick/concrete, wood.

 

anyhow. If you can get those things a little more fresh air that could really help. I know they have some nice looking wall mounts for those AP's that would get them up higher and out from behind things if you would consider. Nice thing is since they're PoE you'd only have a single thin cable coming down.

 

and last thing is that orientation also can affect signal propagation. I know these have beam forming so it may be less of an issue but AP's generally have vertical, horizontal or omnidirectional antennas. You wouldn't want to mount an AP with vertical antennas on its side.

 

i can't speak to the PoE ones you have there, I'd have to look it up, but I noticed the one was mounted sideways. Maybe that's ok as I notice the logo is pointing that way. But I would check on that, see what the suggested orientation is for them. 
 

there is a setting under the last tab at the bottom that can be changed that says something about mounting direction whether it's vertical or horizontal, might want to check that out. 
 

Hope that gives you some ideas. Gotta run, work is reaching out to me again— but so glad you got your full speed and you're very welcome for the help!

 

 

  @YourStupid 

 

I tried to answer this earlier, but it said something about unallowed links in the reply, for which there was none.

The gist of my reply is I do indeed know about the propagation of Wifi from a router point, and the difference between 5G and 2G. But, each router point needs power, or a CAT5E cable (if using PoE) or both back to your primary router. This is a luxury to have in an optimal router location. I'm stuck with 110V outlets where they are (close to the floor except behind the television) and only CAT5E jacks one per room, only in bedrooms. So centrally locating routers in optimal positions requires cable points I don't have; adding them is costly and invasive.

 

Right now, every router node is hidden or nearly so; nice and tidy. One X55 on my office desk, along with a gigabit switch, a MacMini, two monitors, a T-Mobile Microcell, a USB hub, a label printer and more. So it's lost on the desk. The X55 in a bedroom is under the bed, hidden. The X50 behind the TV is hidden. Primary X50 router in the garage, recessed into a wall. There's an X55 in a hallway on a table behind a vase, nearly hidden. So, an extremely unobtrusive installation with all but the hallway node hardwired back to the primary.

 

Speeds good all over; superb via hardwired by my office and TV. The QoS is set for the television and office computer as priorities. All is good.

 

In a perfect world I would have wired this house completely differently, but the way the builders do things here is home run wiring to the outside of the house. Some of the smarter builders do it to a media closet (like my recessed wall box) under a stairs or in a laundry room.

 

Again, thanks so much for bringing up the QoS thing!