Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 15:36 Post subject: NordVPN setup with Netgear R8000 issues
Hello all, I have a new VPN setup on my Netgear R8000 with dd-wrt firmware r44714. I have a few issues and questions.
First issue is that I notice that internet speeds drop to about 40Mpbs when the VPN is turned on in DD-WRT. If I turn off the VPN and use the Nord app for VPN the speeds jump to 200Mbps. I asked Nord support on this and they said that it may be the DD-WRT firmware version and to check on a newer version. But when I go to the latest version of dd-wrt, the VPN will not connect. So I downgraded back to firmware r44714 and it connects, but still slow. Any ideas on this and maybe someone knows of a working stable faster version of firmware?
Second issue, my ISP was down for about 4 hours yesterday. When it came back up the internet came back up automatically, but the DDwrt Nord connection on the DDWRT router was still disconnected. I had to reboot it. I thought it would detect that the internet was back and it would try to reconnect automatically.
So I also mentioned this to NordVPN and they said this: "In this case, reconnecting is a job for your router and it's firmware, I'm not sure if it should reconnect or not, but you should contact your manufacturer for more information on that."
Joined: 18 Mar 2014 Posts: 12923 Location: Netherlands
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 15:55 Post subject: Re: NordVPN setup with Netgear R8000 issues
mortacci wrote:
Hello all, I have a new VPN setup on my Netgear R8000 with dd-wrt firmware r44714. I have a few issues and questions.
First issue is that I notice that internet speeds drop to about 40Mpbs when the VPN is turned on in DD-WRT. If I turn off the VPN and use the Nord app for VPN the speeds jump to 200Mbps. I asked Nord support on this and they said that it may be the DD-WRT firmware version and to check on a newer version. But when I go to the latest version of dd-wrt, the VPN will not connect. So I downgraded back to firmware r44714 and it connects, but still slow. Any ideas on this and maybe someone knows of a working stable faster version of firmware?
Second issue, my ISP was down for about 4 hours yesterday. When it came back up the internet came back up automatically, but the DDwrt Nord connection on the DDWRT router was still disconnected. I had to reboot it. I thought it would detect that the internet was back and it would try to reconnect automatically.
So I also mentioned this to NordVPN and they said this: "In this case, reconnecting is a job for your router and it's firmware, I'm not sure if it should reconnect or not, but you should contact your manufacturer for more information on that."
So, for both issues, what can someone suggest?
Thanks
Please first tells us what router model you have.
You are running an old and outdated build.
See the forum guidelines with helpful pointers about how to research your router, where and what firmware to download, where and how to post and many other helpful tips:
https://forum.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=324087
OpenVPN setup guides are a sticky in the Advanced Networking forum.
OpenVPN is very slow so the speed you are seing might be normal for your router (but we do not know your router yet)
WireGuard is three times faster so is the preferred choice for VPN.
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2024 16:00 Post subject: Re: NordVPN setup with Netgear R8000 issues
egc wrote:
mortacci wrote:
Hello all, I have a new VPN setup on my Netgear R8000 with dd-wrt firmware r44714. I have a few issues and questions.
First issue is that I notice that internet speeds drop to about 40Mpbs when the VPN is turned on in DD-WRT. If I turn off the VPN and use the Nord app for VPN the speeds jump to 200Mbps. I asked Nord support on this and they said that it may be the DD-WRT firmware version and to check on a newer version. But when I go to the latest version of dd-wrt, the VPN will not connect. So I downgraded back to firmware r44714 and it connects, but still slow. Any ideas on this and maybe someone knows of a working stable faster version of firmware?
Second issue, my ISP was down for about 4 hours yesterday. When it came back up the internet came back up automatically, but the DDwrt Nord connection on the DDWRT router was still disconnected. I had to reboot it. I thought it would detect that the internet was back and it would try to reconnect automatically.
So I also mentioned this to NordVPN and they said this: "In this case, reconnecting is a job for your router and it's firmware, I'm not sure if it should reconnect or not, but you should contact your manufacturer for more information on that."
So, for both issues, what can someone suggest?
Thanks
Please first tells us what router model you have.
You are running an old and outdated build.
See the forum guidelines with helpful pointers about how to research your router, where and what firmware to download, where and how to post and many other helpful tips:
https://forum.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=324087
OpenVPN setup guides are a sticky in the Advanced Networking forum.
OpenVPN is very slow so the speed you are seing might be normal for your router (but we do not know your router yet)
WireGuard is three times faster so is the preferred choice for VPN.
OpenVPN does not reconnect by nature but DDWRT has a watchdog option (but probably not in your outdated build) there is limited fail over in OpenVPN and full fail over in WireGuard
I have the Netgear R8000. There are so many firmware versions, which would you recommend trying? I have tried the latest version and it will not connect. Tried also some other versions and the vpn will not connect. It appears to only connect for me when I use r44714.
You are probably using outdated/wrong instructions from Nord.
Latest build 54682 should be good.
Please see the DDWRT OpenVPN Client setup guide which has a paragraph about NordVPN.
But as said WireGuard is the better choice.
For your R8000, 40 Mb/s on OpenVPN is the normal speed, WireGuard should triple that.
I was able to get build 54682 working now. As far as the WireGuard that you mentioned, not sure what it is but would I use that in replacement of NORDvpn?
WireGuard is also a VPN but much simpler to setup and much faster.
Almost all providers support it but for NordVPN you need some tricks (that is why NordVPN is not on my recommended list)
Ask NordVPN about WireGuard on the router and see the WireGuard Client setup guide (also a sticky in the Advanced Networking forum).
About OpenVPN you can set multiple servers (if they use the same keys) and also enable the watchdog as described in the OpenVPN client setup guide (also look into using the Killswitch etc.)
Ok I like the idea of setting up WireGuard Client. But will I be able to get it to work with NordVPN? I cannot find any guides on this.
You should ask NordVPN you are paying them and not me
But the WireGuard Client setup guide has a paragraph about it.
Ok well I just changed VPN to SurfShark and used WireGuard. It is working now and much faster. At least 3 times faster.
Now a new issue has come up. The clients that are connected need to be able to access the local network on the main router. 10.0.0.x. That is blocked now. So, Main router is 10.0.0.1 and the DDWRT router is connected using the WAN port. It receives an ip of 10.0.0.5 as the WAN IP. The DDWRT local is 10.10.0.1. So Any client that is connected to DDWRT is VPN protected but they will need to access all devices on the main network 10.0.0.x. I imagine I need to configure the DDWRT for some routing. Can this be done?
