Very Slow Roku Ultra Ethernet Speed
I recently purchased two Roku 4K Ultras (4802X). I have both of them connected via ethernet cable to my gigabit network. I stream content from both the internet and a local plex server. The issue I...
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Roku devices with Ethernet ports use the Fast Ethernet protocol, so they are 100 Mbps max. Real world is about 92 Mbps. I have tested this on my Ultra 4800. But I can get about 240 Mbps using 802.11ac WiFi, so that's what I use.
Your speeds sound like the Ethernet cable you are using is damaged and not all wires are connecting. It's possible to still connect with some broken wires but speed will be down to no faster than 10 Mbps, which is about what you are experiencing. It's unlikely your Ethernet cable is so old that it isn't actually using all eight wires, but some older cables did just that. That is the first thing I would try, using a different Ethernet cable.
Do I agree that they should be Gigabit by now? Absolutely. But when you consider the market the Roku is designed for (streaming from Internet sources), Fast Ethernet is more than sufficient for those sources. It's the reason I use an Nvidia Shield for my local media streaming, since it does have Gigabit, as well as support for bitstreaming the lossless audio codecs.
Thanks Dan,
I had the same thought. I have tested this in 2 ways. First, I ran a brand new cable directly from the Roku to the router (no switches in between). I had the same experience, nothing over 10Mbps on the old cable and the brand new direct one.
Second, right after getting 10Mbps on the Roku, I plugged the same wire into an Apple TV and got ~200Mbps on some very high bit rate content that the Roku would not even load and start.
Still scratching my head.
Thanks again for the idea.
Yeah, that sounds like a defective Ethernet chip. Not much you can do about that, as the Ultra doesn't support using a USB Ethernet adapter. What you could do is use the existing Ethernet cable and add another WiFi access point that would be close to your slow Ultra and connect wirelessly. I have a Netgear router connected in this manner near my Family Room equipment. The Netgear is in Access Point mode, and works great for that purpose.
That is definitely a possibility. I thought about that as I have a few spare, good routers laying around. I may end up doing that.
Thanks!
-Steve
