Gaming World Forums

General Category => Technology and Programming => Topic started by: Grogrog on March 26, 2008, 11:21:58 pm

Title: Bandwidth monitor / speed issues / network optimization
Post by: Grogrog on March 26, 2008, 11:21:58 pm
So this is my setup:

I have rogers cable, which is supposed to be an 8 meg connection (I need to run some tests because I don't think I'm getting anywhere close to that). I have a motorola modem, a linksys router (WRT54Gv6) with custom firmware (DD-WRT). 3 computers on the network, all xp, two wireless, one wired (my moms). Going wired is not an option for me (except for testing purposes)

The major thing I'm looking for right now is some kind of tool that lets me monitor whats using bandwidth on my network and any sort of thing that could help me test what's happening on my network, so I could restrict certain things to make it so gaming or browsing would have priority.

I will probably update this topic with more information as I get pissed off/stuck on trying to make my network less gay, for lack of a better word.
Title: Bandwidth monitor / speed issues / network optimization
Post by: goat on March 27, 2008, 08:26:29 pm
I also have the wrt54G, and it's stock firmware has a QOS tab in "Applications and Gaming" that will let you prioritize traffic. You can set priority for MAC addresses, the physical ports on the router, or even per application. Most ISPs have speed test applications on their website, but if not you can try DSLReports.com and find the closest location to run a speed test. If you're getting less than full speed, call your cable company and complain. If you do get full speed (1000K/s with 8meg), then you have a problem with your network from the modem inward. Also, make sure none of the other computers are downloading/uploading when you start the test or you'll have a less-than-actual score.

Title: Bandwidth monitor / speed issues / network optimization
Post by: Grogrog on March 27, 2008, 08:35:48 pm
Quote from: goat on March 27, 2008, 08:26:29 pm
I also have the wrt54G, and it's stock firmware has a QOS tab in "Applications and Gaming" that will let you prioritize traffic. You can set priority for MAC addresses, the physical ports on the router, or even per application. Most ISPs have speed test applications on their website, but if not you can try DSLReports.com and find the closest location to run a speed test. If you're getting less than full speed, call your cable company and complain. If you do get full speed (1000K/s with 8meg), then you have a problem with your network from the modem inward. Also, make sure none of the other computers are downloading/uploading when you start the test or you'll have a less-than-actual score.


Yeah I know all of that stuff. I haven't gotten around to doing any tests, because I know the speeds are nowhere up to par, but I haven't ruled out my moms computer. So I'm going to bypass that, connect my laptop straight to the modem, and do speedtests when I get the chance.

The messed up part is I'm trying to figure out what is eating the bandwidth. Like I started having minor disconnect issues, but I think that was do to a poor wireless signal, which is fixed. But I still get bad pings at bad times in games.

And I already have restricted the ethernet port 1 to 2 megs (which I don't even think I'm getting through the router). So yeah, I'll try to do testing later tonight, and post here with any updates.

edit: didnt see the image, but it won't help me, like I said, I have custom firmware, (http://www.dd-wrt.com). but I've already set similar settings on my router.
Title: Bandwidth monitor / speed issues / network optimization
Post by: goat on March 27, 2008, 10:09:16 pm
I had minor disconnect issues and frequent packet loss (huge ping spikes) with 1.00 of the stock firmware, I tried DD-WRT and it was only a little better, upgrading the firmware to 1.02 helped solve both problems, however.

Limiting speed to 1-2 MB still means they can suck up that precious <1mb of upload bandwidth your cable modem gives you. And too much of that upload used will affect download speeds/ping/connectivity. Try port/MAC/app priority instead (DD-WRT has them).

Also, connect directly to your modem when you run the test, and try it again connected to your router with nothing else connected, both with a cat-5 cable, disabling wireless on your router for the duration.
Title: Bandwidth monitor / speed issues / network optimization
Post by: Grogrog on March 28, 2008, 02:30:50 am
Fuckers. Tested on testmy.net:

Code:[Select]
Your connection is: 1019 Kbps or 1 Mbps
You downloaded at: 124 kB/s
You are running: 18 times faster than 56K and can download 1 megabyte in 8.26 second(s)
Member Ident: CompID:910047864130
Test Time:: 2008/03/27 - 8:23pm
Test Browser and OS info: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.13) Gecko/20080311 Firefox/2.0.0.13
Test ID: 2LP00CIHA (if this is a screenshot go to testmy.net to see if this is fake)
Diagnosis ^info^: May need help : running at only 24.88 % of your hosts average (rogers.com)

Testing from my works FTP website (I should get max speeds) the download started at 160kilobytes, went down to 130kB, then stuck around 180.

This is on a fairly fresh install on my laptop, directly into my modem, wireless disabled, firewalls disabled, anything else using internet disabled. Before I worry about my network I think it would be wise to contact my ISP. I think I'm getting jacked. :)

Only thing I could think of is maybe I hit my cap by downloading too much. That is very possible. But either way I am going to bitch at them and blah blah blah. Thanks for the help goat! I'll find out the info from Rogers and post in this topic.