I am using two BR1 Pro 5G routers I’ll call Pepwave1 and Pepwave 2. Both running 8.1.2s109 firmware
I’m in my motorhome where I have the two routers connected by ethernet. Pepwave 1’s WAN port connects to Pepwave2’s LAN port. This allows me to assign Pepwave2 as a WAN source on my main router that is Pepwave1 and have multiple cellular carriers or wifi options.
First off, I’m a software dev and do my own networking too for my biz so I’m somewhat tech savvy.
Everything works perfect when using WiFi connections such as to the Pepwave1 from all of my devices. However, as I’m using a Synology NAS for my network attached storage and to minimize any degradation from WiFi I prefer to have all of my dev systems connected via ethernet to maximize use of the 1 GB connectivity across devices and storage. So I just reconfigured my lan to have my mac and windows laptop connect using ethernet instead of WiFi, simple setup.
Everything is effectively stock settings on the Pepwave’s, they work great out of the box. But with the Ethernet setup I’m having a problem. If I put Pepwave2 in the Priority 1 slot as a WAN source to feed Pepwave1, i.e. all of my devices with Pepwave2’s cellular connection, I’m having very unstable connectivity. I try to download a 500 MB file and it always fails a few mb into the download “network error”. Nothing showing in the Windows Event log to help with what’s wrong.
If I disable Pepwave2 and use a cellular option on Pepwave1, all still connected over Ethernet then it works fine. So the cabling is not the issue, the problem is something between the cabled connection of Pepwave1 and 2 when using an ethernet connection to Pepwave1. If I do all of this over WiFi then there are no issues so this is not a cable problem between Pepwave1 and 2, i.e. not a hardware issue. WiFi connectivity is fine and large downloads work when WAN sourced via Pepwave1 or 2.
So the question comes as to why is this happening when using an all ethernet setup? All MTU’s are defaults, I did try testing for defrag using ping -l -f commands thinking something is wrong along the path, no change.
Any advice as to what’s causing this failure, any networking setup I may have missed (I’m not using any IP passthrough’s, or anything out of the normal. If you wish to connect in to my computer to view both router configs I’d be happy to allow that.
If I disable Pepwave2 and use a cellular option on Pepwave1, all still connected over Ethernet then it works fine. So the cabling is not the issue, the problem is something between the cabled connection of Pepwave1 and 2 when using an ethernet connection to Pepwave1. If I do all of this over WiFi then there are no issues so this is not a cable problem between Pepwave1 and 2, i.e. not a hardware issue. WiFi connectivity is fine and large downloads work when WAN sourced via Pepwave1 or 2.
So the question comes as to why is this happening when using an all ethernet setup?
It sounds like packets between ethernet-wan of Device 1 and LAN on Device 2 are the culprit.
Have you tried replacing the ethernet cable between Device 1 ethernet-wan → Device 2 LAN? The patch cable between BR1 Pros.
On Device 2 are you utilizing the ethernet-wan as a LAN port? Are any of the problematic devices attached via that? I have same devices and similar configuration as you and found that BR1 Pro 2.5Gb port does not auto-negotiate properly to 100Mb…/ in my campervan my Vizio tv only goes to 100Mb not Gig. It connected but half duplex and performance was bad. After moving 100Mb device off that 2.5Gb port to a regular LAN port it worked perfectly.
Your issue sounds similar. Which is why I am speculating the patch cable between BR1 Pro’s is only negotiating to half-duplex.
Thanks for the replies, for some reason I didn’t get notifications.
If the cable connection between router 1 and router 2 was bad, I would probably see the errors when connected to Router 1 via Wi-Fi where I see no issues. Only when I connect to Router 1 via ethernet (lan) is there a problem.
I did go to support.cgi and I am seeing dropped packets and errors.
I typically leave wi-fi off on router 2 but it is on at this time, I’ll do another test with it off and see if it makes a difference.
On device 2 I have not changed configurations of the ports. I’m using one of the two lan ports and nothing is connected into the wan port.
I reviewed the connections in support.cgi and all show 1000 mbs full duplex link ok
