Virgin Hub 3 Modem Mode Slow

[incandisco]

I've just upgraded to the 600Mbps package, since Gig1 isn't yet available in my area. However, I have a hub 3 in modem mode, and I can't get wired speeds above 180-190Mbps.  If I connect my existing Netgear Nighthawk router with the Hub 3 in Router mode, I get up to 650Mbps.  So why is modem mode clobbering the speed so much?  The Hub 3 doesn't have decent QoS settings or parental controls, so I need to use my existing Netgear to run that side of things.

Any help, please Virgin?  I can see that this Hub 3 is capable of 600Mbps, but it's delivering less than 200Mbps in Modem Mode.

[ivixor]

I mean technically you can leave it in router mode and then ignore the wifi network from the hub and only use your own. Still, a puzzling situation and it seems not that uncommon.

Did you try the solutions listed here: https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-WiFi/Modem-Mode-Slow-Speed/m-p/4888407#M448685 ?

[legacy1]

Change the MAC of your PC and try again in safe mode with networking 

[incandisco]

I won't change the MAC on my PC - I can see that it works in Router Mode, but not Modem Mode and I shouldn't have to make changes like that to test things. I spoofed the PC's MAC to the Netgear router last night without success, but the same MAC was able to get 640Mbps in Router Mode before AND after doing that.

@ivixor - whilst technically true, it would be adding more WiFi signals to the area, adding to possible interference or bad signals for others in the immediate area. It also means reconfiguring DHCP and other things on the Hub3 to make everything compatible as my Netgear gives out DHCP addresses on the 192.168.1.x range, and the Hub won't change to that range, telling me there's an error with the address.

Hopefully someone from VM will see this topic in the next 24 hours and make contact, and if not then I'll try again with support. At least I'm still well within the 14 day cooling-off period and can go back to my original plan to move to BT's fibre-to-premesis offering that's not available from Virgin in this area yet.

[legacy1]

I'm just trying to make you jump around some WAN IP's in different subnets by changing the MAC to come to a conclusion as to why your speed is so slow in modem mode.

[incandisco]

Ah - I see, 

Well I could just plug a different machine (a laptop with a wired connection) into the modem instead.

Should I use a "What's My IP?" site to see if the WAN IP is changing when the Hub3 is rebooted in Modem Mode, or am I missing something?

[legacy1]

Well if DHCP server randomly can get you a IP in modem mode in the same subnet as router mode that would be helpful yes but just having it jump around is good too should their be a subnet with rate limiting some where that could explain the slow speed.

One theory is VM for your area are making hubs in router mode have high priority or something like Non hub MAC's have a speed limit and that VM may review non hub MAC's and set them to higher speed at some point.

[adampryor92]

I realise this thread is long dead, but in case it helps you or anyone else stumbling on this later on (like I did) I found the thing that was causing the problem in my instance.

I'd been bumped from 100 to 250 and found I could only get those speeds in router mode. In modem mode, connected to my Netgear Nighthawk, I was only able to pull around 100 up, 10 down.

I went to disable QoS, and noticed the speedtest option, which was last run when I was on the 100 package. I re-ran the speedtest, hit "Apply" at the top of the page, and now I'm getting the full 250 from the Nighthawk.

I can only assume QoS limits bandwidth to whatever the latest speedtest result is. I'm guessing that wasn't the problem for you, as you tried disabling QoS altogether, but it might help someone else who stumbles on this thread in the future 🙂