ISP Router Problems

**stj** · 09-08-2017, 01:53 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

NOBODY has 1GB download without a dedicated 10gb fibre line - only people like tv studio's and bank clearing centers / fraud sites(trading floors) would even try to have that.

**diif** · 09-08-2017, 02:47 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Do you mean 1Gbps ? this is 125MB/s.
What band is the router set on ?
Yes your card can made a difference and also what it's plugged into.
I'm not sure why you also wouldn't want to be running your best PC as well as the one you like.

**bigbeark** · 09-08-2017, 04:45 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Originally posted by diif

Do you mean 1Gbps ? this is 125MB/s.
What band is the router set on ?
Yes your card can made a difference and also what it's plugged into.
I'm not sure why you also wouldn't want to be running your best PC as well as the one you like.

Thanks, yes 1Gbps. How do I determine what band the router is set on?
BTW I'm using CAT5 Ethernet cable.

How does 125MB/S relate to the speedtest scores? I'm pretty sure the ISP-supplied modem is defective. Does it seem this way to you?

BTW It seems to me that the later versions of Firefox are much laggier than the earlier ones. I had been running Mint 13. I got messages telling me my browser was deprecated. But It supported 1920 full-screen viewing at 480P. Shouldn't have bothered updating.

I could run my "best" PC, but am trying to tune my ISP package to give me the best bang per buck. If I'm paying $1500 a year for this package, I expect it to be demonstrably better than a cheaper, slower package. I consider this a learning experience.

**diif** · 09-08-2017, 05:37 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Your speed test scores are from your PC to the internet. 10/100 is a theoretical 100Mbps but depending on the hardware it's usually lower. How are you expecting to get anywhere close to a Gbps using a 10/100 card ?
125MB/s relates as a way of showing the issues that can arise if a 'b' is a 'B' are you talking Mb or MB ?
Log into your router and check under the wireless settings. Is it b ? change to n.

$1500 for a year for internet but on a $20 PC ? for real ?

**stj** · 09-08-2017, 05:37 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

make & model of the router?

**bigbeark** · 09-08-2017, 09:28 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Originally posted by diif

Your speed test scores are from your PC to the internet. 10/100 is a theoretical 100Mbps but depending on the hardware it's usually lower. How are you expecting to get anywhere close to a Gbps using a 10/100 card ?
125MB/s relates as a way of showing the issues that can arise if a 'b' is a 'B' are you talking Mb or MB ?
Log into your router and check under the wireless settings. Is it b ? change to n.

$1500 for a year for internet but on a $20 PC ? for real ?

The card is 10/100/1000. It's a 3COM 3C940. The Rogers Tech confirmed that it's a Gigabit card. Just did another speed test. Download is 47.72 Mbps.

The Router is supplied by the ISP. It's a "Hitron". It's definitely an 'n' router. The ISP tells me it's valued at about $200. It's new.

Really think that a Gbps line and a Gigabit card should give me more than 47Mbps, regardless of the value of the computer

**eccerr0r** · 09-08-2017, 11:23 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

No, some computers just won't get 1Gbps, especially old PCI bottlenecked computers. If you have a 32/33 PCI and your disk shares the same PCI bandwidth, there's no way you're getting 1Gbps, expect no more than 400Mb/sec or less, unless reading to RAM where you probably won't get more than 600Mb/sec. Also need to ensure your hub/switch can negotiate Gbit speeds, if applicable.

Also depends on what you're connecting to, if the remote can't do it, yours won't either.

Also depending on the codec and what acceleration you have available, a 2.8GHz P4 doing all software rendering may have trouble displaying full speed. I have a 3GHz P4 that chokes on some streams.

**diif** · 09-09-2017, 03:03 AM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Originally posted by bigbeark

The card is 10/100/1000. It's a 3COM 3C940. The Rogers Tech confirmed that it's a Gigabit card. Just did another speed test. Download is 47.72 Mbps.

The Router is supplied by the ISP. It's a "Hitron". It's definitely an 'n' router. The ISP tells me it's valued at about $200. It's new.

Really think that a Gbps line and a Gigabit card should give me more than 47Mbps, regardless of the value of the computer

What did the Roger's tech say then regarding the speed ? Which incidentally is plenty enough to stream 1080p 60fps. It's about the capacity I see when using my VPN. I get 95Mbps without it.
It might be an 'n' router but it could be configured wrong/poorly. Did you check it was set to n ? What encryption are you using ?
$1500 a year for the line, a router they say costs $200 and still with the $20 PC that won't play 60fps 1080p video. The quality of the PC is as important as it's configuration. Perhaps your Ethernet card is only doing 100Mbit.
Easiest way to find out is use one of your decent PCs.

**bigbeark** · 09-09-2017, 02:36 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

I compared the 32-bit machine to a 64-bit Socket 939 Asus A8N-E. This one had a 10/100 card as the onboard gigabit router was dead. The 939 was able to play video at 1920x1200 without problems, using 64-bit OS, despite Speedtest rating of only 25,

So the main bottleneck would seem to be the 32-bit processor. So adios 32-bit machines.

I did try my Core-2 machine on the wire as recommended. I got 280Mbps out of that box.
Of course it met all my requirements,

Had I not tried the older machines I would not have been aware of the router deficiencies as the Core-2 would not have raised any obvious problems.

Looks like it does not take that much to stream to a 32-inch TV wirelessly. Got the speedtest numbers for the IPAD and cellphones. Their performance sucks. Ammunition to get Rogers to fix my line problems.

I think this exercise was helpful and am grateful for all your input. At the end of the day, the computer architecture is still the main bottleneck. Upgrading the Ethernet cards will help some too. Thanks to all!

**diif** · 09-09-2017, 03:47 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

As expected the PC was the bottleneck.
Have you checked the wireless settings in the router ?
Are there other SSIDs visible to your devices.

**bigbeark** · 09-10-2017, 12:59 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Originally posted by diif

As expected the PC was the bottleneck.
Have you checked the wireless settings in the router ?
Are there other SSIDs visible to your devices.

Yes, other SSIDs are displayed but not accessible (password protected).
Don't know how to access the router as it is proprietary to my ISP. It is a modem and router in one plastic box. BTW, my neighbour also has the same ISP, he complained, they gave him two boxes, I assume one is the modem and the other is the router. He previously had the all-in-one box that I have now. I'm seeing a pattern here. My brother has the same ISP with the 100Mbps linespeed. He's getting 58Mbps wirelessly, twice the speed I'm getting,
with one-tenth the supposed linespeed I have. He runs a 70-inch High Def TV on Ethernet with no problems. I suspect my TV is operating at lower resolution than 720P but don't know how to access this info through the XBOX360.

**diif** · 09-10-2017, 01:33 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

If If the other SSIDs are on the same channel then you will get interference. Being on the wrong band will be slow also.
It's not hard to find the IP of router router and login info. Then you can check the wireless settings. Unless the Rogers tech has already checked when you spoke to them.

**bigbeark** · 09-12-2017, 07:08 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Originally posted by diif

If If the other SSIDs are on the same channel then you will get interference. Being on the wrong band will be slow also.
It's not hard to find the IP of router router and login info. Then you can check the wireless settings. Unless the Rogers tech has already checked when you spoke to them.

Per your suggestion, I entered 192.168.0.1 into the address bar and logged in.
Wireless Mode (2.4 GHz) 802.11 g/n Mixed
Wireless Mode (5 GHz) 802.11 a/n/ac Mixed
There appears no way to modify any data here.

Re: Other SSID's in the same channel, very likely. My understanding is that there are multiple people sharing a line,IE the line is not dedicated. The other ISP, Bell, gives you a dedicated line, but they only offer 5Mbps as I live in a small town of 32,000 and they are in the process of upgrading their fibre optic network, but not rolling out til late this year.

**bigbeark** · 09-12-2017, 07:23 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

The ISP tech support told my to exchange the modem, I did so. The replacement modem had ZERO connectivity on Ethernet and really bad Wireless Speed Test (12Mbps).

Back to the store, to get my 4th Hitron modem. This one actually works. The P4P8X-SE
showed 130Mbps. Nice to see, but did not help video performance at all.

Other machines showed much improved scores as well. Wife's IPAD speeds went from 24 to 40Mbps. She tried to upload some photos to Kijiji, but upload failed. Turned out upload speed was only 4Mbps and the connection probably timed out.

I doubt that I will ever see 400Mbps download on the wire here. The Tech support suggested I might get 100Mbps on wireless, so I would expect a max of maybe 250 on a wired connection. Put that down to shared lines. The Core-2 machine gave me 220Mbps.

I did see online that there were a spate of "No Ethernet" complaints on Hitron modems in 2014 so this may be just par for the course.

**diif** · 09-13-2017, 12:25 AM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Consumer grade routers tend to be chosen on price by the ISP not quality.
Most offer a way to turn them into a dumb modem and connect your own router. This is the way I would go if i wanted better speed. You get to set the mode and channel.
Shared lines ? Are you talking contention ratio of the cable to your house. Wireless speed is not really influenced by the max download you can get over Ethernet.

**bigbeark** · 09-14-2017, 10:59 AM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Originally posted by diif

Consumer grade routers tend to be chosen on price by the ISP not quality.
Most offer a way to turn them into a dumb modem and connect your own router. This is the way I would go if i wanted better speed. You get to set the mode and channel.
Shared lines ? Are you talking contention ratio of the cable to your house. Wireless speed is not really influenced by the max download you can get over Ethernet.

Yes, contention ratio of the cable to my house, exactly, Will investigate dumb modem idea.
Thanks for help!

**mattch** · 04-04-2018, 07:15 AM

Re: ISP Router Problems

I’m late to the party
1) iperf test though your equipment, with modern hardware like a laptop. This will identify bottleneck. There’s precompiled windows and Linux binaries.

2) dump the crap routers and do your self a favor by installing pfsense on an old pc with two NICS or a virtual machine. Try to use something with pci-e to achieve full throughout.

**Curious.George** · 04-04-2018, 12:41 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Originally posted by stj

NOBODY has 1GB download without a dedicated 10gb fibre line - only people like tv studio's and bank clearing centers / fraud sites(trading floors) would even try to have that.

Actually, there are parts of the country (USA) where Gbe is available to "average joes" -- I think part of Google's attempt to coerce the other broadband providers to step up... REALLY up!

Though, at that sort of bandwidth, all you will ever use it for is "entertainment".

**Curious.George** · 04-04-2018, 12:52 PM

Re: ISP Router Problems

Originally posted by bigbeark

So the main bottleneck would seem to be the 32-bit processor. So adios 32-bit machines.

8<

At the end of the day, the computer architecture is still the main bottleneck. Upgrading the Ethernet cards will help some too. Thanks to all!

It's not the fact that they are 32 bit machines that's the problem. Rather, how they are connected to their I/O's -- and, the structure of the software. E.g., you may get better performance from your "64 bit" machine running in 32 bit mode due to other architectural differences!

[N.B. any PCI NIC will have the inherent limitations of the PCI bus to contend with]

If the network traffic has to share resources (bus, disk, CPU) with other aspects of the system, then "something" has to decide who gets priority. If the driver (for the NIC) requires the CPU's involvement in pulling packets off the network (wired or wireless), then the CPU isn't as available to do "other things" (e.g., decode video). The same applies to the mass storage and video subsystems.

You can try to eliminate some of the unknowns by, for example, doing a (rough) speed test using the same wired connection (that currently tethers you to the router) to "talk" to another WIRED PC. You will have to design your test so the fewest aspects of the "other PC" as possible impact the performance (e.g., reading from /dev/zero instead of a physical medium)

Once you know the limitations of your "computer", you can then better evaluate the performance you are seeing when connected to your provider.

ISP Router Problems

ISP Router Problems

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