Why is DLink DI-524 router slower than DLink Switch?

For many months, I have been using a D-Link DSS 5 Plus Switch to network three PC’s and everything worked fine. I decided to try substituting a DLink DI-524 Wireless Router for the DSS 5 Plus Switch. The DI-524 worked fine too. But when I measured the download/upload speed to the internet using a speed test provided by my ISP provider, I found something strange. The download speed for the DI 524 router averaged half or less the download speed for the DSS 5 switch. The upload speed was the same for the DSS 5 and for the DI 524. This seemed odd to me since the DI 524 is actually newer than the DSS 5 Plus switch. Does anybody have any suggestions or comments on why the download speed of the newer router is less than half the download speed for the older switch? Or let me know if there is a better place to ask this question. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

Have you enabled the firewall in the router ?

 

Umm, I guess I don't know whether the firewall was enabled. I just plugged the router in. Would enabling/disabling the firewall affect the speed? By the way, another detail that I forgot to mention is that the WIRELESS connection with the DI-524 DOES run at the same speed as the DSS 5 plus switch. So the wireless connection seems to work properly, but the wired connections are slow. Not sure if that is helpful or not, but that's what happened.