Wi-Fi & connectivity

[ChefLamont]

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 am having is that both of the Rokus will not maintain a throughput higher than about 9-10Mbps on the ethernet cable. I have gone through my network and double checked everything.  I cannot get them above 10Mbps for love or money.  I have been through every setting in the Roku and nothing addresses it. As a test I plugged an Apple TV I have into the same ethernet cable one of the Rokus was on, and it immediately pulled content well north of 100Mbps. My old Roku 3s (that sadly have gone to the thrift store because I never imagined I would need them again with the new Ultras) never had this issue on the same connections.  So, even when pulling modest quality 1080p content from plex, it buffers constantly and then quits unless I downgrade the stream to 8 or even 4 Mbps. 

Before someone says "just switch to wifi", that would probably be ok for one of them, but the other is in a location in the house where the wifi signal is less than ideal.  Plus, it is a bit frustrating to buy the flagship model of a product and not have what is common current technology (gigabit) included much less be able to use it as it is even designed (100Mbps). I will stay off that rant though. 

I have contacted customer support three times and they have been no help and utterly clueless. I have to get pushy and almost rude to convince them that it is NOT a problem with my internet service provider.  Their latest solution is to send me another 4K Ultra and hope it works. Sure, great. 

I was hoping someone here may have an idea.  Thanks for the help (and maybe letting me vent a bit).

[atc98092]

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. 

[ChefLamont]

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.

[atc98092]

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. 

[ChefLamont]

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

[Justy74]

We have a few roku tvs.. express 4+.. an Ultra box. Not one of them on ethernet will go over 100 mbs. So that tells me the port on the back of roku is 100 max. Which comes around 90-92 mbs. If you are getting less than 90 I would say a bad cable or something. But you wont get like 1 gb because from what I have seen roku ethernet does not support that speed. Actually when I look at my router dashboard page all the rokus show full duplex at 100 mb. So only way to get a faster speed would be wifi. But nothing far as I know uses anything close to 100 mb so faster would be overkill. However with ethernet your latency and stuff is better. And I will always choose ethernet over wifi. Usually more reliable and less lag. Less streaming issues. Just my 2 cents.

[atc98092]

@Justy74 Roku devices with Ethernet ports are all 100 BaseT, also called Fast Ethernet. Yes, that has a theoretical limit of 100 Mbps, but with network processing and overhead you are correct that they max out around 92 Mbps. 

The fastest speed I can get on WiFi is using my Ultra 4800 connected to a 5 GHz access point that is less than five feet away from the Roku. It tops out around 230 Mbps, which I feel is the hardware limits of the Roku processor and associated hardware. Even playing a video using the USB port, which bypasses all networking within the Roku, I cannot play a fixed rate 250 Mbps video without some buffering. So the current hardware simply won't handle anything faster. My Premiere 3920 can't even reach 200 Mbps, again with an access point within a few feet. That tells me the hardware in the Premiere has less capability than the Ultra (which isn't a surprise given the price difference between the two and the fact it's only 2.4 GHz WiFi).

[ChefLamont]

I wanted to give an update of sorts.  I kept working on the ultras I had and even got a replacement from Roku.  All three were the same.  I could not get a transfer rate at or above 10Mbps.  To watch shows buffer-free I had to have my plex server stream them at 4Mbps 720p or maybe 8Mbps 1080p. 

I decided this was just unacceptable for a flagship product at this price point, and I returned them for a refund.  Fortunately, I still have my old Roku 3 units that will get me by until I decide what is next.  

Thanks for the good ideas.  Roku on.

[atc98092]

@ChefLamont A bad Ethernet cable can reduce a 100 BaseT connection to a 10 BaseT, which sounds like your issue. There's 8 wires twisted together inside the cable, and if there's a break in any one of them you cannot get the full Fast Ethernet connection. Just a thought. Especially since you experienced the same issue with multiple devices, that really does eliminate the Roku as the problem.