RV130W WiFi slow down in every 2 or 3 days

[Seito Seito]

I got my RV130W wireless router over 3 months, but the WiFi problem made me feel very frustrated. 

The Problem is the router running in 2 or 3 days, the WiFi will slow down, the speed will become below 10 Mbit/s , in normal status , the WiFi speed can more than 50Mbit , and the only solution is to go to Web setup page Wireless > Basic Setting > click save once.

Here is my config :

firmware : latest from Cisco official site

WAN : 100MB Ethernet , DHCP got it from the ISP 

WLAN setting:

Basic Setting:

-Wireless mode : B/G/N mixed

-Wireless Band Selection: 20/40

-Wireless Channel: 9 ( have tried other channel , but not much help for this case )

-Vlan : 1

-U-APSD (WMM Power Save): ( Disable )

Advanced setting:

-Frame Burst: ( Enabled )

-WMM No Acknowledgement: ( Disabled ) 

Any other setting system default

I can confirm that the CPU is a low usage status when WiFi slow problem occur .

Any ideas to fix this problem is welcome , thank you.

Br,

Kenny Huen 

[rubelope]

Hello Seito,

Thanks for using the Cisco Small Business Support Community. I'm sorry to hear that you are experiencing slow Wi-Fi speeds, and I hope that we can help you find a solution.

Are you in a dense residential area? There are a few things you could try to reduce interference and improve your wireless performance:

1. First off, use Wireless Channel 1, 6, or 11.  Using channel 9 can cause "overlap" with neighboring wireless networks around you, which is bad.  Using channel 1, 6, or 11, allows for co-channel existence and "airtime fairness". In other words, nearby wireless networks will all cooperate and transmit at better speeds.  More info here: Why Channels 1, 6, and 11.

2. You should also try Wireless Mode: N-Only. Using B/G/N-Mixed can slow down wireless N devices because you may have to dedicate some time to B/G airwaves.

3. Lastly, for your Wireless Band Selection, try just using 20 MHz.  Using 40 MHz with a 2.4 GHz radio is not recommended in dense residential areas. 

I hope you will find this answer useful.

If this post solves your issue, please remember to mark your question as resolved and rate any helpful posts to help other members in the community! Thanks!

all the best,

Ruben

[Seito Seito]

Dear Rubelope, 

Thank you very much for you reply!

For your suggestions, I have change my WiFi setting as below:

- Wireless channel: 1

- Wireless Mode: N only

- Wireless Band: 20 MHz only

I will test this setting with 3 days and let you know if the problem has been fixed.

Thanks again !

Br,

Kenny Huen

[Seito Seito]

Dear Rubelope, 

I am sorry to tell you that the wireless slow down problem happen again this morning , I have tested it with Samsung Galaxy S5, and the speed drop down to max upload 2.5 Mbps and max download 1.5 Mbps, and just like what I said before, the only solution is to go to web config page > wireless > save one!

I have found an important clue that may cause the problem, because of backup data, I have setup a schedule at 3:00 am on every 2 days, and the schedule will copy a lot of files from LAN 1 PC to another site by WAN (internet), the schedule will complete within 2 hours, but it seems the CPU will nearly 100% full load when the schedule is running, and after that the wireless will slow down, but I need to reaffirm, because the schedule running  is completed, the CPU usage is below 10% and memory usage is below 70 MB when I test the wireless speed, I have tested the WiFi speed usually at 8:00 am in every morning.
 

An idea about this case ? thank you very much for the support.

Br,

Kenny Huen 

[cristgon]

If you could temporarily stop the automatic backups or use another device entirely, that could help confirm if the back ups are causing the problem. I also advise testing your speeds on both a wired and wireless connection to see if it is your network that is being slow or specifically the WiFi.

[Seito Seito]

Dear Cristgon,

Thank you for your reply.

To confirm the reason why the WiFi will slow down, I have disabled the WiFi function in RV130W, and installed a Linksys WAP54G AP on port 3 for WiFi usage, so far after 48 hours and have backup schedule running once, no any WiFi speed drop down again, so I can confirm the problem is caused by RV130W internal WiFi function, but it is the truth, I cannot confirm the problem is caused by hardware failure or firmware bug.

Any idea is welcome for fix this problem,

Thank you.

Br,

Kenny Huen

[Seito Seito]

Dear Cristgon,

I have disabled the internal WiFi function and replace it by WAP54G, so far till this morning, no any problem happens again, do you think it is a hardware problem and I need to replace this product with the supplier?

Thanks.

Kenny Huen

[1Robbie246]

Hello All,

I am having a very similar speed problem with my RV130W which impacts WiFi as well as hard-wired connections. Every few days the device slows down from the typical speed of 50Mbps to < 3Mbps. If I reboot the unit all is fine for a day or so. This seems to be consistent with the RV130W (we have 3 of the units). Cisco, please look into this.

Thanks.

-- rob

[1jpduffy3]

I am experiencing very low speeds for my RV130Wnow as well.  This happened recently after a few months of good operation.  It appears to be the signal strength.  It is now way down, even though the router is very close to the wireless devices.  Sometimes, we get only one bar.  We used to get 5 bars (the max on our wireless devices) consistently.  Now, we never see it.  This is generally true for all wireless devices, including cell phones, iPads, printers, etc.  We replaced several RVSW4400Ns.  They were real workhorses.  Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case for the RV130W. 

Has anyone found a solution?  

[cbjwthwm]

I would reduce the wifi band from 20/40 to 20 (a good rule of thumb in general for 2.4ghz performance), and try reducing the B/G/N to a more simplified mode eliminating support for old wireless-B connections.  Simplifying the encryption to only support WPA2 / AES may improve long term stability as well.

If the actual signal strength is diminishing, the power supply could be weak or the device could be overheating and going into a thermal protection / rollback type state.  These routers run fairly hot, so I am usually pretty conscientious about making sure they can cool adequate compared to other routers that run cooler.  That being said, I saw these symptoms on the older firmware--which was possibly related to the CPU pinning and the router overheating more easily.

[1jpduffy3]

Thank you for the suggestions.  I have made the changes you (and some others) recommended (no real benefit that I could see, by the way), and I also checked the temperature of the router.  It is quite warm to the touch, almost to the point of being too hot to touch for long.  Perhaps you are on to something.  The router is on an open shelf with very good circulation, but it runs very hot.  Short of putting a fan nearby, there is really no practical way to have it run cooler than it is.  What have you been able to do to keep your RV130W cooler and does that make a real difference?  I would really like to get the RVWS4400Ns back.  They were very reliable.  The RV130W is definitely not an improvement.  

[sosovivian1]

I have exactly the same problem about every 2 weeks.  Wifi just come down from 50MB to 3MB with no clue.  I hardboot the router and problem could be resolved.

Another even more annoying problem is that the wired network sometimes just simply failed.  I have 3 desktops.  Sometimes (about twice a week) they cannot connect and I have to disable/enable the network adaptor on the Windows and it will work again.  Since it happens to more than one Windows, I would say the problem is not in my Windows network setting but RW130V.  

What info should I collect for your diagnosis?

[Seito Seito]

I have replaced a new RV130W from dealer , but the new one still have the same problem , so I think all the RV130 should have the same problem , finally I have replaced the RV130W with Ubiquiti wireless router , and all problems has gone , I am very disappointed with the Cisco RV series product , I will not suggest our company and our customer to to buy that product again!  

[sosovivian1]

I've been using another brand for 4 years and only recently it has becoming unstable.  I suppose that is normal wear down and so I was trying invest 3 times more for a Cisco as the shop said it is the "choice of stable", hopefully it can last for even longer and save me from any hiccup for a reasonable long period.  However to my very disappointment, I have been seeing this since the 2nd week of usage (7-day return not valid anymore) and now I've been using for 2 months with worry every day!

[cwatson]

I have pretty much the same problem. Wi-fi signals dropping even after switching to channel 11, N-only and 20 MHz.

The WRVS4400N was bullet proof compared to this.  The hardware was stable, thee wifi signal was flawless - but the security features were lacking over time so I had to upgrade.

Now clients are complaining of their data plans increasing because their phones switch when RV130W Wifi signal drops. Moreover, wifi laptop connections constantly drop while connected for site-to-site VPN for critical work.  The error "Fail to delete IPv4 ARP entry" has been a problem in this router since day one and never resolved.

Running the latest firmware of 1.0.3.16 doesn't resolve any of these issues.