Fortinet 50E Slowing down internet throughput

[mon2]

Hello. Coming to you from the laptop forum. Have a client with the Fortinet 50E that has 320 Mbps as internet input speed but only 20 Mbps output on each and every downstream port (using FAST.COM to benchmark).

Reseller is stating the Fortinet is 'worn out' which does not sound logical at all unless the flash memory is 'worn out'. They, of course, want to sell another + onsite installation fees.

Can anyone share feedback on this unit? What can cause this sluggish behavior. From our knowledge, this device is snooping on the traffic to halt viruses / hack attacks, etc. so is database driven.

How can we restore this unit back to a proper working throughput? Many thanks in advance.

[stj]

check the caps.
or monitor the network for packet errors.
if the caps start to fail the electrical noise will start corrupting packets and they will need to be re-sent

[CapLeaker]

Also make sure you actually get 320Mbps from the modem! Not that you are blaming the wrong part! Never seen a “worn out “ Fortinet.

[rogfanther]

Also, check configurations. If the poor fortinet is doing a lot of checking in the traffic, that will slow things down.

[mon2]

Thanks for the feedback. We applied the latest firmware onto this box and now this POS is operating @ 9 Mbps. Garbage. Will investigate further. The unit is at a doctor's office and is managed by Telus so we are the odd man at the wheel and trying to diagnose without proper access to the device (password restrictions).

[CapLeaker]

Are the pins in the Ethernet ports good and not bent? I wonder if it's defaulting the cable to 10 Mbit or if it is really a software / or other hardware issue? So without that fortinet box you get full speed?

[rogfanther]

Something happened along the time the problem started ? Like, someone changing configurations, electrical problems in the place, new cabling installed, etc ?

[stj]

if it's "managed" by a company then tell the fuckers to sort it - they are being paid to do so!

[mon2]

1000% agree. Telus wants $800 to sell them a new unit + $1000 for an onsite installation fee (Toronto driving to our city = ~3.5 hour drive). After some strong arming, the customer did get Telus to remotely upgrade the firmware to the latest (thanks SMDFlea for the suggestion) but the throughput fell to the reported 9Mbps. This is a new low. Each of the 5 ports are benchmarking at the same slow speed. Cogeco has their modem feeding into this VPN with a Cisco unit between. Cogeco (series 860) has pinged their modem and the Cisco unit and confirmed their devices are @ ~300Mbps till the traffic hits the Fortinet. Being a doctor's office, Telus has to be involved for this VPN and only they can alter the configuration.

So without that fortinet box you get full speed?

Cogeco has assured us they can remotely ping their 2 pieces of hardware in front of this Fortinet and are benchmarking this data rate. To date, with us, Cogeco has never been wrong on such claims.

[mon2]

Given that the same hardware setup degraded to 9Mbps from the original 20Mbps after the firmware update, perhaps some more rules are being checked by this VPN?

To date, we have used fast.com as our test tool. Is there a better method? The customer was complaining about the slowdown of the internet and this website confirmed the slow throughput. For an office, this is like Morse code slow.

[CapLeaker]

Did you try flashing back a very old firmware to the fortinet and factory default everything? As far as a speed test made by the ISP, I've rarely seen accurate testing or repair methods, unless they send a senior that knows what he is doing. So unless you can verify that claim yourself or can look that person over the shoulder, I'd take their word with a grain of salt.
as for speed check tools google “Speedtest” and you find quite a few. The test depends also on how far the server is away. Some servers are faster than others.
Also on some devices like fortinet and other routers there is something called IPS and whatever else “inspection” there are many threads on Google. Search for “fortinet slow”. Tons of chit to read about this cheese box

[stj]

unplug the box, plug in a laptop and download the biggest file you can find - like a Linux dvd image.
see how fast it is.
the issue with ping is it checks latency and not true speed.
to check speed you have to move enough data to fill the buffers

[mon2]

Thank you all for the support and feedback. The case was resolved today and Telus ended up being hired to replace the unit with a new one with an onsite installation ($1800 CAD). They continue to claim these boxes wear out after 4 years. The doctor's office still has the older unit and we hope to investigate further on whether the fault is in the hardware or something else. They spent 4 hours on this setup of the box and the end result is that the expected speed is finally back to the ~300 Mbps. Cogeco benchmark was correct as they had claimed. Due to liability issues this client must retain the services of Telus but we can certainly review the condition of the original hardware. Will update this thread after the review. Thank you all again.

[stj]

is Telus an israeli company?
"tell"-"us" ??
kind of sounds like the company doing all the phone billing in the u.s. that got outed after 9/11!
that was AmDocs btw.
"American" "docs" ??
they love to give it away in the names!

[CapLeaker]

I would have told them to take their new fortinet and shove it 1800 times every 4 years. The fortinet is good, but not $1800 every 4 years good.

[stj]

well are you allowed to open the old one now for a visual inspection of the caps?
also, as the old one is decomisioned they should have reset the password or told you it.

[mon2]

The vendor (Telus) is quite fishy. Telus is keeping the old equipment password locked and insisted to the client to retain it as a backup for the future. Respectively, Telus does not want us to open up the unit to maintain the certified box status for their sensitive data. Once again, we are locked out of the review. Clients like this one are often held hostage by their suppliers. We do not agree with such nasty business tactics.

[CapLeaker]

Huh? What's the old one good for if it does only 9mbps? Makes no sense.

[stj]

fuck telus - send me the main pcb and i'll pull and dump the flashchip.
passwords for everybody!
serve them right if they only use one globally!!!!!

get the top off and take pictures - it's not theirs and never was.
wouldnt it be interesting if it's forwarding to an external address!!!!!!

[CapLeaker]

Would I ever be tempted to flash the shit out of it and make Bob my uncle.