Apple TV 4k wired ethernet slower than wifi

[Derek87]

i recently upgraded my home ISP which provides 600 mbps down, 200+ mbps up data. last night i happened to installed the Ookla Speedtst and i see it maxing out at only about 270-290 mbps , but hit the expected 215-220 mbps up. via wifi, i see rates of around 500 mbps down.

any thoughts on what is going on here? in reality, it's more an intellectual exercise, but i would have thought i'd be seeing the max bandwidth via a wired connection. i've tried multiple cat5e cables and they all produce the same sort of numbers. a Macbook pro connected with the same cables to the access point (ethernet ports) test out around 600 mbps for download rates so it's no the cable nor stream of data coming in through the cat5e cable.

i've tried rebooting the apple tv 4k and it should be running the latest tvOS.

 

[FarmerBob]

MY TV4K is at the end of a LAN line that starts as a Cat8 trunk from the router, to a 5 port Gigabit Switch with a Cat7b line to another 10 port Gigabit Switch in my AV rack where the TV4K is connected with Cat7 jumper. My speed is 935/930Mbps from Fiber. By the time the TV4K gets its signal using the same SpeedTest on the TV4K I get: 925/935Mbps wired. WiFi6, 802.11ax I get: 311/185Mbps. There are probably tweaks I can do in the router to boost it a bit. But I have always subscribed to hard wired connections for the best speed.

 

[niteflyr]

There was a thread not too long ago about how someone thought if wifi and ethernet were both on at the same time, they might be competing if both were set up and ethernet cable connected. If you're curious enough, you might try going into ATV network settings while on wifi, ethernet unplugged, click on your wifi network and select "forget this network". In other words, disconnect from your wifi network completely. Then disconnect power to the ATV, plug in the ethernet cable and power up again. Then see if your Speedtest on ethernet improves.

 

[Derek87]

There was a thread not too long ago about how someone thought if wifi and ethernet were both on at the same time, they might be competing if both were set up and ethernet cable connected. If you're curious enough, you might try going into ATV network settings while on wifi, ethernet unplugged, click on your wifi network and select "forget this network". In other words, disconnect from your wifi network completely. Then disconnect power to the ATV, plug in the ethernet cable and power up again. Then see if your Speedtest on ethernet improves.

my ATV4k currently has not network to join. when i disconnected the ethernet cable, in setting i saw the option to choose a wifi network, but it didn't have any credentials to join any. [ i should clarify that that same access point is delivering 500 mbps to my iPhone. i haven't run speed test via wifi on the ATV4k, but i guess i could try it out to see what happens]

i am finding it very strange...of course, i have thought about completely resetting the Apple TV and setting it up from scratch. but i'm not sure it's worth the effort

 

[HDFan]

First thing to figure out is whether the issue is with your iSP or your local network configuration. You want to test your local network speed, not your ISP speed.

On your apple TV install an app such as Network Speed Tester. On another device install Network Speed Tester server. Test the speed of your local network.

 

[Derek87]

First thing to figure out is whether the issue is with your iSP or your local network configuration. You want to test your local network speed, not your ISP speed.

On your apple TV install an app such as Network Speed Tester. On another device install Network Speed Tester server. Test the speed of your local network.

good thoughts: i didn't think to test the local network via the apple tv. i've done scp transfers between machines on my network and they are all approaching 1 gbps, so all is well there. something is/was amiss with the apple tv. last night, i manually assigned the apple tv an IP address (rather than using DHCP), rebooted the access point (which has LAN ports because it can be used as a router too) and low and behold things are what they should be.

i'm still going to do some sleuthing to see if this was a permanent fix (i also did try to hook the ATV to wifi and it speedtested at nearly 400/210 mbps

 

[xmach]

good thoughts: i didn't think to test the local network via the apple tv. i've done scp transfers between machines on my network and they are all approaching 1 gbps, so all is well there. something is/was amiss with the apple tv. last night, i manually assigned the apple tv an IP address (rather than using DHCP), rebooted the access point (which has LAN ports because it can be used as a router too) and low and behold things are what they should be.

i'm still going to do some sleuthing to see if this was a permanent fix (i also did try to hook the ATV to wifi and it speedtested at nearly 400/210 mbps

Were you ever able to resolve your ATV Ethernet issue, and/or determine what the problem was?

After years of having reliably used Ethernet for connectivity on my ATV 4K 1st gen, I'm now experiencing an issue that sounds similar to yours -- extremely slow Ethernet connectivity. I used to get near gigabit speeds up/down, and now am getting only ~10 Mbps up/down.

I'm not sure if this is a coincidence, but this started late last year shortly after I upgraded from tvOS 18.6 to 26.0.

I've verified that the LAN, Ethernet access point and Ethernet cable are all working perfectly, so the issue has to be either a spontaneously-occurred hardware problem (I've had the unit since 2021 and never before had any problems), or a bug in iOS that was recently introduced.

 

[sublunar]

Were you ever able to resolve your ATV Ethernet issue, and/or determine what the problem was?

After years of having reliably used Ethernet for connectivity on my ATV 4K 1st gen, I'm now experiencing an issue that sounds similar to yours -- extremely slow Ethernet connectivity. I used to get near gigabit speeds up/down, and now am getting only ~10 Mbps up/down.

I'm not sure if this is a coincidence, but this started late last year shortly after I upgraded from tvOS 18.6 to 26.0.

I've verified that the LAN, Ethernet access point and Ethernet cable are all working perfectly, so the issue has to be either a spontaneously-occurred hardware problem (I've had the unit since 2021 and never before had any problems), or a bug in iOS that was recently introduced.

Have you tried changing network cabling and maybe rebooting switches/routers? Plug something else into the port to confirm the issue is with the AppleTV and not any aspect of your network? Plug the AppleTV into a different port?

 

[Ruggy]

Cat 5e should be enough
However, your router switch port can also limit your speed so you need to check out the specs to see if that's it
Oh I see the macbook gets better sorry, can't delete a post here..

 

[xmach]

Have you tried changing network cabling and maybe rebooting switches/routers? Plug something else into the port to confirm the issue is with the AppleTV and not any aspect of your network? Plug the AppleTV into a different port?

Yes, as I mentioned I've verified that the port, cable (Cat 6), network, and router are working perfectly (I get Gigabit speeds when I swap out the Apple TV for a MacBook Pro).

So logically I think it is now 100% confirmed that there's a problem with the Apple TV. I just don't know whether it's a hardware defect (that is just now showing up after almost 5 years of flawless function) or a software defect (a bug introduced in a recent version of tvOS).

 

[sublunar]

Yes, as I mentioned I've verified that the port, cable (Cat 6), network, and router are working perfectly (I get Gigabit speeds when I swap out the Apple TV for a MacBook Pro).

So logically I think it is now 100% confirmed that there's a problem with the Apple TV. I just don't know whether it's a hardware defect (that is just now showing up after almost 5 years of flawless function) or a software defect (a bug introduced in a recent version of tvOS).

Bit strange that the port would not just totally fail if it were a physical problem, sounds like it's negotiating a slower speed. I'd be thinking a software reset/reinstall of the AppleTV at this point to see if something's gone wrong there.

Have you taken the AppleTV to another location to see if that makes a difference?