LE11 - Students back, DNS goes to pot.

[ShadowTD]

As usual when the students return to Loughborough, the broadband takes a hammering and speeds generally go to pot. But this year is the first time I've been on the overlay network, so I was hoping things wouldn't be as bad.

Fat chance! Middle of last week things began to get a bit ropey but I was too busy to do any investigating until yesterday. So while things were running terribly just for pure browsing I did a Speedtest. Hmmm, full speeds and sub 20ms ping. Is it the DNS servers?

Yep, seems to be. Switched over to Google and everything's smooth as butter again. Annoyingly, due to now having the (generally OK for me, especially since R30) Superhub, I have to change the DNS servers on all of my devices individually. Annoy.

Anyone else in the area having the same problem?

[General Maximus]

that proves a nice point dude and if I were you I would go a step further and whacked the hub in modem mode and get yourself a proper router where you can manually configure the dns servers.

[kwikbreaks]

Changing the DNS may or may not improve your browsing experience but it won't have any effect on speedtest results. Any variation will be pure chance.

My own connection is normally fine but yesterday evening it all when to pot with a terrible looking TBB ping chart and a drop in down from 50 to ~30 and upstream sub 2 when it's normally ~ 4.5. On cable **** happens and it can happen very quickly it seems. I'm hoping mine will go back to normal and this was just a new 100Mbps customer downloading the internet.

Download Failed (1) (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/e498982ed3cdbf86b564887c2b8214cb-04-10-2011.html)

[ShadowTD]

Kwikbreaks: If you look at my original post when I speedtested originally I was getting my full 30mb but browsing was lousy. So my speedtest wasn't affected - just general browsing.

Last night came the realisation that my iTunes home sharing and Airplay remote speakers set up wasn't working properly. The last time I used it was before I joined the R30 beta... uh-oh. Busting out the old Netgear 854 immediately solved the problem.

So the SH is now in modem mode, and I'm no longer a member of the 'they're actually pretty good' camp. :/ Only problem with the 854 is it's a bit unstable and likes to lock up every now and then. Question: why are home routers so poor?

[kwikbreaks]

Kwikbreaks: If you look at my original post when I speedtested originally I was getting my full 30mb but browsing was lousy. So my speedtest wasn't affected - just general browsing.
Yep that's what you posted all right. I must have been half asleep still when I read it :(

[Sephiroth]

My Airport Extreme isn't poor. I wouldn't touch a low end Netgear router. As if the Hub wasn't enough proof!

[ShadowTD]

Hmm. I'm a bit soured on Apple networking kit after a gen1 Airport express which was a piece of tat. I'm well aware that they've moved on a lot from then.

I'm currently looking at the Asus N56 - seems like a solid bit of kit with excellent network throughput. The price seems right as well.

[Chrysalis]

Changing the DNS may or may not improve your browsing experience but it won't have any effect on speedtest results. Any variation will be pure chance.

My own connection is normally fine but yesterday evening it all when to pot with a terrible looking TBB ping chart and a drop in down from 50 to ~30 and upstream sub 2 when it's normally ~ 4.5. On cable **** happens and it can happen very quickly it seems. I'm hoping mine will go back to normal and this was just a new 100Mbps customer downloading the internet.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/e498982ed3cdbf86b564887c2b8214cb-04-10-2011.png (http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/e498982ed3cdbf86b564887c2b8214cb-04-10-2011.html)

indeed it can happen fast, consider how small the shared capacity is and that a single user can use 60% of it, a good area can turn bad with just 1 heavy user.

thanks for backing me up that the graph doesnt have to be 'extremely' horrible for speeds to drop, my speeds are also still variable. Currently from about 2pm until about 3am weekdays and about 9am till about 2am weekends.

yours looks like mostly p2p/nntp as can see it starts looking horrific then 5pm to midnight its managed although still looking shaky during those hours.

[kwikbreaks]

TBH I don't really understand how it ever works with umpteen users some with 100/10 capablity and none with less than 30/3 on pipes that only do ~ 200/20 but it mostly does seem to so I guess the majority only take the higher speeds for willy waving rights.

This was the speedtest that goes with the monitor...

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2011/10/65.png

[kwikbreaks]

Here's an example of what I think must be a single users activity impacting the local network. Look at the step change at ~ 2:00am. I had no overnight downloads running although there could have been some small automated FTP uploads and possibly some other upstream activity at any time. I kicked off a download at ~ 6:30am and the impact of that on my own router can clearly be seen - I don't know if other people's monitors would show the same or not.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share-thumb/4b4ecb6357608321e784e4dbdc6d7987-06-10-2011.png