Mesh access points very slow

[JFDonnelly]

I am having a problem with my Synology mesh wireless network where the network slows down to a crawl. Environment as follows ....

- Small single level home with a garage.
- Optimum ISP
- Demark where cable modem is set up, in a room approximately center of house.
- Rt2600ac router connected to modem.
- 3 MR2200rc access points distributed through the house ...
- Unit 1 - bedroom side of house
- Unit 2 - kitchen side of house
- Unit 3 - garage, attached to kitchen side
- 1 DS1815+ NAS
- Apple desktops, laptops, mac mini server.
- Nest thermostats
- Several Alexa units
- Several Wyze IP cameras
- Several Wyze smart bulbs

- Testing performed with speedtest app installed on Mac laptops.

The problem - laptop speeds degrade, often as low as 5 mbps up and down, while connected to any of the MR2200ac units. Average speeds are 10 to 20 mbps. After rebooting the access points, laptop will connect to RT2600ac and wireless speeds increase into the 50 to 100+ mbps range. Within a couple hours, speeds decrease back to the 10 - 20 mbps range as the laptops reconnect to the access points depending on location in the house. During the daytime certain of the Wyze cameras have trouble connecting. This is a problem because I'm taking care of an elderly parent and use the cameras to check in on him periodally. While speeds between access points and wireless devices often suck, speed between the units in the house average in the 250 mbps range, back and forth. The garage unit averages a respectable 100 - 75 mbps, back and forth.

I've tried changing configurations on the RT2600ac, turning a few things on and off and/or modifying settings, based on suggestions in various tech forums. Nothing seems to correct the problem. On a side note, occasionally the Alexa units report loosing their network connection in the middle of the night as well. I have to reboot both the modem and the RT2600ac, to correct the problem. Not sure if its related to the main issue, but it is an additional annoyance with the Synology equipment.

Two questions after all this .....

1. Has anyone else experienced this speed issue, and have they found a solution?
2. Barring that, can anyone give me some guidance on how to reconfigure the MR2200ac units as standard access points, rather than as part of a mesh system? I'm thinking the issue may be the result of the mesh configuration, with the possible solution being downgrading the functionality.

While there are alot of things I like about the synology set up, but if I can't resolve the speed issues, I'm going to have to start shopping for an alternative system. The Synology equipment was installed as a replacement for an Apple airport network which never had these issues, which most likely rules out an ISP problem.

 

[Rusty]

1. Has anyone else experienced this speed issue, and have they found a solution?

Haven't had issues like this so far with my mesh setup (same hw as you just not so much Alexa devices).

can anyone give me some guidance on how to reconfigure the MR2200ac units as standard access points, rather than as part of a mesh system?

You can set them up as independent AC units with their own SSID (I have one Syno router in my sub-terrain location that is not part of the mesh), but my question is are your 2200 units connected via wifi or using LAN as a backhaul channel? Guessing wifi. Do you have an option just to test it via cable to see if this will still be an issue for your wifi units?

 

[fredbert]

You don't say how you've connected the back haul (uplink) connection from the MR2200ac to RT2600ac, I'm guessing it's wireless back haul not ethernet. I use ethernet back haul and also only have one MR2200ac AP. But I get +900Mbps on ethernet back haul but this drops to 250-350Mbps with wireless, and the two units are that far apart.

If you place a mesh AP at a location that had rubbish wireless connectivity for your devices then it too will have rubbish connectivity.

If you've looked on here for other posts on wireless speeds then you'll see I suggest (and I see you use a Mac, so good, hopefully a MacBook) using something like WiFi Explorer to walk round and see how the wireless signals vary and any interfering networks from other properties. You may find better places to locate the APs, e.g. in better line of sight/physically unobstructed.

Another test you can do is to get iperf3 command line tool or application that uses it. On Mac you can install it a few ways, but Homebrew is fairly easy or you can get the free WiFiPerf. Run on one device as server (iperf3 -s) and another as client (iperf3 -c IP_OF_SERVER). Do this when connecting across different APs.

You can also run speed tests within SRM on the RT2600ac: Wi-Fi Connect -> Wi-Fi Point -> Wi-Fi Point Performance Test.

I don't know but it may be possible to ethernet back haul the nearest MR2200ac to the RT2600ac, and then the other APs connect to that ethernet'ed MR2200ac. If possible then it would probably require good placement of those APs to stop them linking to the RT2600ac.

 

[DaClown]

I'll assume you are using your mesh over WiFi with speeds like that.

In the WiFi Connect > WiFi Point settings, select each of your MR2200's and under the Manage dropdown, choose Select Uplink Type and manually set them to connect only to the RT2600. As it is a dual-band router, the tri-band backhaul on the 2200's doesn't really work properly unless it was all 2200's in the mesh.

This way each unit is forced to stay direct connected to the RT2600 host router and are not trying to connect/disconnect from themselves. Again, the RT2600 does not have the 3rd 5Ghz band like the 2200's for backhaul.

This will stabilize the connection and speeds to each of the mesh access points.

Also, set your WiFi to use specific channels rather than Auto. Use WiFi Explorer Lite to see what channels are the least used around you and set them to those. When I used WiFi for the mesh this made a large difference and stayed stable.

Average throughput between the mesh points and the RT2600 was 275-300Mbps. Pretty respectable. My devices did not suffer from disconnections.

Of course with all WiFi, YMMV depending on your setup, distances between points, construction materials of your home etc. Using what I have said above helped my mesh setup work great for a long time in a very large home. I experienced lacklustre mesh performance at first as well until I got it set up to play nice with the older RT2600. After a long time using it like that, my mesh points are now wired.

Good luck.