wirless setup on 50mb router, slows down, unreliable

[jason4656]

all the pcs are set to aes, but the router is set to be auto which is tkip/aes it says, transmission rest is set to best(auto)

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by jason4656

all the pcs are set to aes, but the router is set to be auto which is tkip/aes it says, transmission rest is set to best(auto)

Sounds fine to me. Does it give you wireless speed options? If so set to max. eg. 300Mbs.


After this I run out of ideas.

If you do go for dual band with 5Mhz you will need an adaptor to accept it. You can get these same place as dual router.

---------- Post added at 01:40 ---------- Previous post was at 01:34 ----------

Originally Posted by jason4656

dont know if its the time of night and I am only using speedtest so it could be unreliable now can manage 44mb on the mac and 31mb on the win 7pc all set to be on N, there are quite a few options for N though on the laptop hardware setup, mac just does it automatically

---------- Post added at 00:13 ---------- Previous post was at 00:07 ----------



lol keep your wig on! ive been reading it as im talking and trying other things!

lol@keep wig on I would be happy with those stats. You may not find the expense of a dual wireless router worth the difference. I mostly have mine to serve my gigabyte set up. ie HD video streaming across the whole house + games and stuff.


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Good night and good luck

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by jason4656

dont know if its the time of night and I am only using speedtest so it could be unreliable now can manage 44mb on the mac and 31mb on the win 7pc all set to be on N, there are quite a few options for N though on the laptop hardware setup, mac just does it automatically
......

Then, of course, you are contending in your own house for wireless channel space! I'm not adequately au fait with the wireless buffering in the router to know whether contention occurs there. My maths / queing system "sense" tells me you'll have less contention if you set the N speed lower. I believe the benefit comes from being on the "rarer" 5 MHz bandwidth.

I don't think what I've said is utter bollox - but I'm not totally certain of myself here. It's just what I'd be trying (and no doubt will have to one day).

EDIT: http://www.iis.sinica.edu.tw/~cclljj...IEEE802_11.ppt might be an interesting read on the topic. It's pre-802.11n but the issues are identical.

One of my lines of thought is that downloading is constrained to 50 mbps from all sources; this can be punted into the router (depending on model) at up to 1 Gbps. You've got your wireless N set to 300 Mbps - so there's potential for buffering at 1 Gbps input. Then the router punts that out at 300 Mbps (instantaneous). In the meantime, the other download is contending for the router's resurces and buffers and ultimately the wireless channel space. Something like that.
HTH.

[jason4656]

its all good info guys thank you, things I would probably end up trying myself, I certainly didnt think of the other router though, I would like to have faster wireless for file transfer accross my home network for streaming stuff also if possible.

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by jason4656

its all good info guys thank you, things I would probably end up trying myself, I certainly didnt think of the other router though, I would like to have faster wireless for file transfer accross my home network for streaming stuff also if possible.

To enhance my HD streaming I spent £50 on running cat 5.0e ethernet to my network HDD and to my main mediaplayer TV. With the 1000Mbs link to my network HDD all my wireless machines receive really smooth HD vid from the router.

[Ignitionnet]

Data will never go from the cable modem to the router at 1Gbps. This would require the modem to buffer the 53Mbps stream for 19 seconds out of every 20 so that it can then throw it at the router at 1Gbps for 1 second which of course doesn't happen. It passes it to the router in a stream as it receives and demodulates it, which in the case of VM is no faster than 53Mbps. Network devices don't hold onto traffic so that they can burst transmit at far higher rates 20 seconds down the line.

If the wireless link is incapable of keeping up with the 53Mbps coming from WAN to LAN TCP congestion control will ensure that the flow never gets to 53Mbps or will alternately reduce to a manageable level as required if wireless conditions change - this can be observed by watching a TCP flow slow starting and watching it go to a zero length window if wireless conditions cause a stall in receipt to try ensure that the receive window doesn't overload or stay overloaded for too long and too many packets drop.

If using a protocol which has no congestion control of its' own you're SooL as the router will have no concept of this it'll have a small buffer in it and if that fills it just starts dropping traffic until the buffer is under control.

I have no idea why dropping the 802.11N bandwidth down would lower the contention, it would just give less bandwidth to be shared between the devices it wouldn't lower their contending for the bandwidth it would just mean less is usable and reduce WAN and LAN throughput accordingly though this is a non-issue as these devices are all 'visible' and would be scheduled accordingly.

The issues relating to contention on wireless networks relate to contention between different wireless networks at the RF level, not devices on the same network these are managed by their AP. This management is why one can have one device on a low wireless speed and another on a higher one, the AP changes the modulation of its' transmission / expected receive bursts depending on which device it is addressing at the time. By reducing the speed of the network artificially you are just hamstringing the devices that previously were on higher speeds.

The extended band for 802.11N is 5GHz btw, not 5MHz. Broadcasting at 5MHz tends to result in a visit from Ofcom

Summary - never drop speeds on wireless kit intentionally unless there are compatibility issues between your wireless router and wireless dongle / card which are causing problems at 300Mbit, in that instance drop to mixed mode so that the problem devices can acquire at 54Mbps / 802.11G or get wireless dongles / cards which are properly compatible with the 802.11N standard.

[jason4656]

well i have just downloaded a test file of 10gb and it gave me 5.99mb/s solid on wireless on the mac so I would say thats about perfect? well pleased with that. Do people find they get capped on the 50mb? and at what point?

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by jason4656

well i have just downloaded a test file of 10gb and it gave me 5.99mb/s solid on wireless on the mac so I would say thats about perfect? well pleased with that. Do people find they get capped on the 50mb? and at what point?

No sir, no capping at all.

Glad your wireless is rocking now. Mine even using the WNR has been fine throughout, drops a bit in some dead spots but solid full speed in most rooms.

[jason4656]

i have no doubt it will be up and down and this debate will go on for a long while while trying different things but for now, im happy

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by jason4656

i have no doubt it will be up and down and this debate will go on for a long while while trying different things but for now, im happy

Good man. If it slows down again have a think about changing the Wifi channel.

[roughbeast]

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

Data will never go from the cable modem to the router at 1Gbps.

That is not why I have 1000Mbs ethernet. It is for internal network purposes only. eg HD Video streaming to more than one outlet at a time.

Good to see things are working better Jason.

I just noticed something weird with my Netgear n-adaptor laptop. Even though it is connected, through one ceiling only, at 300Mbs, it is currently only downloading at 6.0Mb

An identical lappy, in the same room as my WNDR3700 router, but with a 54Mb connection downloads at 30Mbs+.

Just when you think you have it all sorted something pops up. So now I have to test router to lappy transfer rate and packet loss to see what's up.

A nerds work is never done!

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by jason4656

i have no doubt it will be up and down and this debate will go on for a long while while trying different things but for now, im happy

For the sake of others who follow with this issue, any chance you could set out the "as was" and "as is" settings? So that it's in one place.

Glad you're sorted. Thanks

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by roughbeast

That is not why I have 1000Mbs ethernet. It is for internal network purposes only. eg HD Video streaming to more than one outlet at a time.

Just as well really that what I mentioned was nothing to do with your network but was referring to Seph's comment about modems sending data to routers at 1Gbps. I appreciate that the fastest connection anyone posting about Virgin cable and its' supplied routers will have will be 53Mbps unless one of the blessed few in Ashford.

[roughbeast]

Just updated my Netgear N11 adaptor drivers. That did the trick. Back to 30Mbs+ on all my wireless machines.

[jason4656]

my vaio on windows 7 doesnt seem to want to compete with the imac and they are right next to each other, one will do 40mb and one will do 3mb the sony being slower cant work out why on them