This might be a dumb networking question, but...

I've just moved to Austin TX (Yeehaw!). Got google fiber but can't get it to work with more than one device. There is a google port on the wall - they gave me two wireless hubs for a mesh system. Great, if all you want is wireless. I like my pc wired. I had it wired like this: wall port to mesh hub to switch to a) pc, b) nvidia shield, laptop. etc. But speeds were very very low. Change to wall port to switch to a) pc, b) shield, c) mesh unit and speeds improved (on the pc). It actually worked like that last night. But tonight I had to unplug everything and wire the pc directly to the wall port to get service. Once it started, I switched back to wall port to switch to a) pc, b) shield, c) mesh unit. PC still works great, but I've got NO service on shield or mesh unit.

Should I put a router into the mix? Is that the problem? Google Fiber advised last night moving the mesh unit on the other side of the switch, and it worked. Last night, but not tonight. Now they say pc to wall port - if that works we're done. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

It sounds like they expect you to have a router, though the presence of the mesh system negates that idea.

Absent the mesh setup, I've done the same dance with cable before, and recommend trying it with a separate router if you have one available.

They say the mesh unit acts as a router, but it really slows down the PC. Instead of hundreds of Mbps I'm getting about 10.

Can you post a picture of each device. Typically in a mesh system something needs to be the router in this scenario. But ideally you want this:

ONT(fiber comes in from street) out Ethernet to router. Connect the mesh/base station directly to router and then dumb switch(not hub) into router for wired devices connect to. But never dealt with Google mesh stuff or there fiber stuff

I added a used FB Marketplace router and that seems to have cured all the problems. Google fiber wall outlet goes right to router, then from there to PC, laptop dock, and Comcast mesh unit. Smooth as could be, although speeds are "only" in the 200s on the PC (vs 900s when directly wired into Google Fiber wall outlet).

So you got a sucky router that can't handle anything over 200Mbps.

Get a better router.

The speed I noted above was from google's own fiber speedtest (on the PC) last night. This is what I got from Ookla and from Google Fiber Speed test this morning (on the laptop).

It would be helpful to understand what the "wireless hubs" in order to troubleshoot. You mentioned "comcast mesh units"? Is there a model number or something on them you can google?

Is this an apartment setup or a home? Do you know where the ONT is? Typical fiber setup os ONT -> Router -> Any other devices. May be a different setup if you are in an apartment setup.

When I signed up for google fiber in new apartment I was given the option to get two free "wifi points". This is what one looks like (net to Amazon Echo Dot for comparison).



You're supposed to plug one directly into the google fiber jack on the wall, power it up, then set it up through your smart phone. Once one is done, you can plug in others around the house as needed and they'll pretty much auto-configure based on the first one.
This is what the bottom looks like.


The first mesh unit takes an ethernet cable in the slot on the left, with power (shown) in the middle.
Initialy I ran the cable from the wall jack into the left slot, set up the first mesh unit (with a second with just a power cord as input in another room).
I then used the second ethernet jack (shown on the right in the picture above) to run another ethernet cable to a five-port switch.


From the switch I ran additional lines out to the PC, laptop dock, and Nvidia Shield.

The poor performance of this setup led to my initial post and a lot of questions.

ep3w said:

It would be helpful to understand what the "wireless hubs" in order to troubleshoot. You mentioned "comcast mesh units"? Is there a model number or something on them you can google?

Is this an apartment setup or a home? Do you know where the ONT is? Typical fiber setup os ONT -> Router -> Any other devices. May be a different setup if you are in an apartment setup.

Click to expand...

Apologies for any references to Comcast. That was my old ISP and the name just sticks in my head. Comcast is not involved in any way, shape, or form. It is all Google. I can see where I muddied the water pretty well with that.
It is an apartment.
I do not know where the ONT is. Unclear if the small Google Fiber box on my wall is the ONT, or just the last piece, somewhere down the line from the ONT.

Looks like it is the first gen google wifi device. I don't have any experience with these but it sounds like you set it up correctly.

My understanding is you setup the first device, one ethernet port becomes the WAN port, the other is a LAN port. Then you setup the second device and both of those ports then act as ethernet ports. Do you have only one of the devices plugged into the wall outlets or both? Having both plugged in may cause issues, worth trying it with only one plugged in for troubleshooting if you haven't already. The device you setup first should become the router then (seems like you shouldn't need a third party one).

https://store.google.com/product/google_wifi_first_gen

I wonder if your switch is causing some NAT issues? It's possible the way the complex setup the ports is its expecting only one device on the other end of the port, not multiple.

Sounds like you are only having issues with wired devices? Have you tried the PC connected directly to the ethernet port of the google device that's wired into the wall? The other google device should have no ethernet connections (if i'm understanding how they work correctly).

One other thought, reset everything to factory and do the setup again if you haven't. Sometimes that can clear some weird issues, especially if you think you set it up properly in the first place. I would test ethernet with just the google devices first, then introduce your switch and test again.

First conversation with google we tried speed test on pc directly to wall, then speed test through first mesh unit.
The mesh unit CAN supposedly act like a router, but it was def the bottleneck. Speed dropped from 900+ down to about 10, with only those two devices.
Putting switch first (wall-switch-PC/mesh/Shield) helped a bit but still had problems. Switch should have been able to handle speeds and fix no-connect issues but didn't.
After some thought (and more discussions with Google and othes) decided to add a router in first position. Hence the FB Marketplace purchase (Netgear AC 1900 Nighthawk - not a crappy router, despite cclone3d's comment).
Since then everything is better. I don't have to unplug and reset EVERYTHING when I make a change, and speeds are good.
I just don't understand why Google Fiber Speed Test is so slow compared to Ookla.

You are correct - the second mesh device only gets a power input, not an ethernet (see pic above).

Based on tests and Google support discussions we thought the first mesh device was the bottleneck when tried to use it as a router. Doesn't make any sense, right? Google fiber (at 900+) in at one end and shitty 10 Mbps out the other?

I did try the PC only directly only to the wall port. Speeds great. But I had no wifi at all that way, plus WFH I need laptop connection, too (and I prefer that wired vs wireless for security).

Since everything is working nicely now (and money is already spent) I'm good with current set up. I actually now have two wifi networks - one with the mesh units and the one from the router. Very much overkill but that's the situation.

The two mesh units were included as part of my Google package at no extra charge, so may as well keep/use them.