My router is capping my internet speed

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:44 pm

Ive had 35/4 speed for years. Charter just a week or so ago upped speeds to 60/4 . But All I can get is 45/4. Ive rebooted and unplugged and replugged both the modem and the router multiple times and was stuck at 45/4. Just now I figured Id bypass the router and plug the modem right into my PC. So I did that, reset the modem, and rebooted the PC. Low and behold I get 66/4 on all speed test. About 4 of them.

So it seems to be a router problem. As I said Ive unplugged it multiple times during these tests and it didn't help. Its a WRT54GL LinkSys which I put Tomato on years ago when I got it.

So what are my options to keep this router and yet get my speed? And Im talking speed on my PC not just on my wireless devices which I wasn't even considering till just now as I typed this. Off to Google this too.

EDIT: Looking at my other thread on the router I dont think it has tomato after all. Sigh. Anyways still wonder why my PC is capped. Its a wired conenction from the router to my PC.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 5:28 pm

Its looking like Ill need a new router. I dont understand either. Isn't a WAN port just a pass through? Whether the cable is plugged into the pc or the router I should get the same throughput speed. But no...plug the modem into the PC I get 66/4...plug it into the router I get 45/4. No idea why. I also cant get into the router's setup. I dont remember how I did it before. I thought it was it's IP number. I used ipconfig to see it and used it and it never connects to the page.

Really would hate to buy a router only to find the other one here is fixable some way.

Moat_Man · Post by **Moat_Man** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:18 pm

WRT54G's were the gold standard back in the day but depending on your version the technology inside them is up to 13 years old now!

I've had to replace a lot of them over the past few years after customers started complaining about slow internet speeds. Unfortunately they just can't process the data fast enough. Replace it with something modern that can handle the throughput and you should be good to go.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:28 pm

*Looks at the WRT54G sitting on his desk*

*Looks at wireless router prices for the hundredth time*

*sighs and goes about his business*

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 6:46 pm

Thats the way I feel. And after reading about how bad routers today are at being unstable and requiring reboots all the time and stuff it is made me even more worried. This thing has been a champ and is actually still working as intended after all these years. It never f's up by itself and needs a reboot. It gets rebooted if Im trying to reset my cable modem so I do it anyways or when Im trying like now to get it to do something it doesn't do lol. These horror stories of rebooting each day is scary.

I could just spend yet more money and get an Airport Extreme but Im just not happy about this. I found what I thought was great...A Tsomething or other I never heard of.. That was until I went to other sites...then its another modem..another site...yup another modem is best. I had settled on a Netgear...internal antennea and all (this one's two external ones have become annoying over the years)....but then I found reviews and customer posts that didn't like it for one reason or another. It never ended.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:01 pm

After reading up on routers for 6 hours now Im disheartened and disgusted. Other than speed my old Linksys is perfect. I must have read up on 15 routers. They'll almost all have 6 glowing reviews followed by 4 completely negative reviews. Most of those are with stability. Something I must have in my router. Things like constant intermittant signals, losing connection constantly, and needing to be rebooted every day is not something I will pay for.

I recall having this same fear when I got my LinkSys so not much has changed it seems in the years since.

It mus t have 3 things.
1. No external antennea
2. MUST be stable
3. Must be fast

I can do without features and options.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sun Jan 04, 2015 10:25 pm

Read the cnet reviews?

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 12:36 am

Yup. Same things...problems with connections staying up. The ones I saw that were better ran $150- $200. If Im going to have to pay that Ill get a Airport.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 1:31 am

I find it ironic that Neweggs top rated router is the same one I have with (3,995) ratings.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 2:27 am

I've been running Linksys E2500s and they work well.

Moat_Man · Post by **Moat_Man** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 3:51 am

I replaced my Linky with a Buffalo N450 and it's a champ. It comes with DD-WRT which is great. Speeds are fantastic and it's rock solid. Too bad they don't sell that model any more. D'oh!

This looks pretty close to the one I have. But I bet it's pricey. The N450 was great in the $80-90 range.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 4:59 am

I was just about to flash mine a min ago to DD-WRT and realized if I F it up then my wife..and me.,..wont have use of our stuff for a few days. Sad thought so I passed it up. Wife says order a router. I just cant find one Id be happy with other than that damn expensive Apple one. Im still looking though. Will check into Buffalo. I think Ive checked Belkin, Netgear, Linksys, Asus, and some others.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 10:49 am

Daehawk wrote:Ive had 35/4 speed for years. Charter just a week or so ago upped speeds to 60/4 . But All I can get is 45/4. Ive rebooted and unplugged and replugged both the modem and the router multiple times and was stuck at 45/4. Just now I figured Id bypass the router and plug the modem right into my PC. So I did that, reset the modem, and rebooted the PC. Low and behold I get 66/4 on all speed test. About 4 of them.

Honest question, intended more for perspective than anything else:

Is this meaningful anywhere but a speed test? What can you do a 66 that you can't do at 45? Streaming the highest quality video out there only takes about 25 down. The speed difference makes zero difference for gaming, and I've yet to see a Steam download that got anywhere near 45 down (ie - the limitation is on Steam's side.)

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 10:53 am

Blackhawk wrote:I've yet to see a Steam download that got anywhere near 45 down (ie - the limitation is on Steam's side.)

I hit 8.2 MB/s down yesterday while downloading Steam games to my new laptop. That's by far the fastest I've ever seen (and it works out to aboot 66 Mbps).

I have an Airport Extreme, and I used to love it. It now has the same problem as almost every other router I've ever owned, which is that it locks up or turns itself off every few days now. It's irritating, but I don't want to spend the money to replace it.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 11:10 pm

Thats what Im owrried about. But I have to get one. I was in the same boat the day I bought this Linksys. It has not even burped once. If it was faster Id just keep on going. Makes me sad to stop using it cause I have an awful feeling Ill regret it.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Jan 05, 2015 11:26 pm

Life's too short to live with router regret.

Also, I'd stab a homeless person to have your capped speeds.

Alefroth · Post by **Alefroth** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 2:56 pm

So you're considering spending good money because your Internet speed is 10mbps faster than it was last week?

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Tue Jan 06, 2015 3:10 pm

Alefroth wrote:So you're considering spending good money because your Internet speed is 10mbps faster than it was last week?

Yeah, of all the reasons to go out and drop cash on a router...that's got to be way down on the list. Daehawk, check your QoS and WMM settings.

Last time I needed a router, I got a cheap refurb.

Worked fine until AT&T made me get a new modem with built-in router.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 2:27 am

Getting about 58-59m down wirelessly.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 11:10 am

Daehawk wrote:
Getting about 58-59m down wirelessly.

So what's the problem here? I don't claim to know all the details of how wireless works, but there is probably added parity or error correction wirelessly. Additional overhead. Plus it may be your wireless device not the router.

Losing about 10% of your bandwidth doesn't seem like that big a deal for wireless.

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 12:39 pm

And what are you doing that you can tell a difference between 58 and 66 Mbps?

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 12:54 pm

stessier wrote:And what are you doing that you can tell a difference between 58 and 66 Mbps?

Conducting internet speed tests.

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:14 pm

RunningMn9 wrote:
stessier wrote:And what are you doing that you can tell a difference between 58 and 66 Mbps?
Conducting internet speed tests.

Well played.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:31 pm

I'm telling you, I would smother an old person with a hospital blanket to get those speeds - wired or wireless. It's at the point now where we cannot reliably get a HD feed from Netflix. I think we're averaging somewhere around 3.5 Mbps, paying for 5. I can't even get my mind around 58-66 Mbps. It would be like living in the future.

Alefroth · Post by **Alefroth** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:46 pm

Daehawk wrote: Getting about 58-59m down wirelessly.

Damn. Why is your latency so high?

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 2:03 pm

Alefroth wrote:
Daehawk wrote: Getting about 58-59m down wirelessly.
Damn. Why is your latency so high?

He has to feed the ticker tape from the wireless router into his laptop.

Smoove_B wrote:I'm telling you, I would smother an old person with a hospital blanket to get those speeds - wired or wireless. It's at the point now where we cannot reliably get a HD feed from Netflix. I think we're averaging somewhere around 3.5 Mbps, paying for 5. I can't even get my mind around 58-66 Mbps. It would be like living in the future.

You really don't need that much unless you are running a ton of things at the same time. We went from 30-60 and I never noticed except when we were running a laptop, streaming netflix in two rooms, and playing with the tablet all at the same time. Granted, that would still be a 6x increase for you, but it should feel more attainable, right?

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 2:08 pm

stessier wrote:You really don't need that much unless you are running a ton of things at the same time. We went from 30-60 and I never noticed except when we were running a laptop, streaming netflix in two rooms, and playing with the tablet all at the same time. Granted, that would still be a 6x increase for you, but it should feel more attainable, right?

I would massage my Dad's back for the SuperBowl Halftime Show to be able to get 30 Mbps. We can do one thing at a time with our current speeds. One person can watch a streaming show (of varied quality) or I can download something from STEAM. The idea that I could be in a house where multiple people are watching a device streaming content and I'm downloading a game? It's incomprehensible to me.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 2:16 pm

Smoove_B wrote: I would massage my Dad's back for the SuperBowl Halftime Show to be able to get 30 Mbps. We can do one thing at a time with our current speeds. One person can watch a streaming show (of varied quality) or I can download something from STEAM. The idea that I could be in a house where multiple people are watching a device streaming content and I'm downloading a game? It's incomprehensible to me.

Same boat for me. We can watch Netflix on multiple devices (provided both aren't HD) but if I'm D/Ling from Steam, streaming is out and vice versa. If I'm doing multiplayer and someone decides to fire up Netflix, I get pings worse than I did 10 years ago. And I can't even pay anyone for better bandwidth short of some nuclear option like multiple T1s or something. Well, there's cable but my neighbors complain that it always slows to a crawl from 5pm-11pm and the latency sucks all day long.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 2:17 pm

Steam downloads will make my Hover Zoom on reddit look like I'm on dialup speeds.

RunningMn9 · Post by **RunningMn9** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 2:19 pm

Smoove_B wrote:I would massage my Dad's back for the SuperBowl Halftime Show to be able to get 30 Mbps. We can do one thing at a time with our current speeds. One person can watch a streaming show (of varied quality) or I can download something from STEAM. The idea that I could be in a house where multiple people are watching a device streaming content and I'm downloading a game? It's incomprehensible to me.

I set a new RM9 household record the other night when the speed test reported 119 Mbps down. You can come over and sip Scotch while downloading Steam games or something.

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 2:26 pm

I play older games, but I downloaded Borderlands 2 from Steam over the break and it took 10 minutes to install. It took about 20 minutes for Starcraft 2, but that was mostly installing and not so much downloading.

Fast internet was a requirement when house hunting. We passed up neighborhoods if they said they only had DSL.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 4:14 pm

Tons of Steam games. I hard cord game too especially FPS, wife has become me and uses the Xbox whgile on her laptop plus we have a tablet now that I drag around to the bathroom in another part of the house. But a lot of streaming movies too.

Ok ok its all porn.....I keed. No porn at all actually.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 5:06 pm

Daehawk wrote:Tons of Steam games. I hard cord game too especially FPS, wife has become me and uses the Xbox whgile on her laptop plus we have a tablet now that I drag around to the bathroom in another part of the house. But a lot of streaming movies too.

Ok ok its all porn.....I keed. No porn at all actually.

None of those things would be significantly improved with the extra 10%. Bandwidth at that level makes zero difference when gaming (once you have enough to pass the data - and you have many times that - it is all about the latency), streaming movies takes less than what you've got, and even porn doesn't take advantage of that kind of speed.

Steam? Maybe, but you're talking about the difference between a 15-minute download and a 17-minute download - and only rarely, as Steam's servers rarely ever go as fast as your download speed.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 5:58 pm

Im a min / maxer.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 6:06 pm

Daehawk wrote:Im a min / maxer.

Maximizing time/money spent on a new router for a minimal gain in performance.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Thu Jan 08, 2015 6:49 pm

Daehawk wrote:Im a min / maxer.

I get that. I've kept gaming systems viable long, long after they stopped meeting minimum requirements through careful optimization. That isn't what you're doing, though. You're maxed.

You're installing an old game and getting 400 frames per second, then spending a bunch of extra money to get 440.

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Fri Jan 09, 2015 1:01 pm

RunningMn9 wrote:
Smoove_B wrote:I would massage my Dad's back for the SuperBowl Halftime Show to be able to get 30 Mbps. We can do one thing at a time with our current speeds. One person can watch a streaming show (of varied quality) or I can download something from STEAM. The idea that I could be in a house where multiple people are watching a device streaming content and I'm downloading a game? It's incomprehensible to me.
I set a new RM9 household record the other night when the speed test reported 119 Mbps down. You can come over and sip Scotch while downloading Steam games or something.

Ever since I bought my new asus router I'm constantly hitting 124 Mbps and 6up wirelessly!

Post by **FishPants** » Fri Jan 09, 2015 2:51 pm

Any of you guys still running WRT54G series routers should replace them ASAP. The reason you're getting crappy throughput rates on that thing:

1. Just because it says it's 100mb port doesn't mean the ASIC supporting it can run that speed.
2. Your router is easily pwned, who knows maybe every time you plug it in you've become part of a botnet and that's killing some of your bandwidth by participating in DDOS attacks?
3. It's an old piece of crap, find one that's readily DD-WRT compatible (or has good stock firmware). My old Netgear WNDR3700 routers were champs on stock firmware (DD-WRT was mediocre on it).

I'm currently running a Fortigate 60D at home for the intrusion prevention stuff (Was doing a PoC for a work related project and got to keep it). Unfortunately they are about $500 unbundled, and around $1000 with a year of support and subscriptions. If you've got the money they are worth every cent of it for the added protection, but more importantly they are rock solid.

Alefroth · Post by **Alefroth** » Fri Jan 09, 2015 4:02 pm

Glad to see another Fortinet user. That's what I support at work.

I think the 30B would provide the same IPS for a little less money. Have a couple of remote workers using those.

edit: Nevermind, looks like it's been discontinued.

grumpy · Post by **grumpy** » Sat Jan 10, 2015 9:40 am

FishPants wrote: 1. Just because it says it's 100mb port doesn't mean the ASIC supporting it can run that speed.

Better than that even. Traffic between the internet and other ports on a wrt54g is done in software.