Two PC's via Netgear router?

[Johnyhewitt]

Got one of the new Virgin router's yesterday and connected it up via RJ45 to the modem and my PC. No issues and running fine, however, as soon as I connect another PC to the router the Internet on both machines slows down or stops completely.

Both machines are running XP and both are getting IP addresses. If you take one of the PC's off, the other then runs normally, connect it up again and both slow down or fail to get on the Internet.

I am using two RJ45 cables and it doesn't matter which machine I disconnect the other will run fine, connect the other up and no joy.

Anyone any ideas??? Both firewalls on both machine are off and so is ICS.

Cheers

the modem is connected to the wan port?

[pabscars]

sorry to but into your thread Johny, but i,m also having a few issues with slow speeds through the vm supplied router WNR2000, i phoned netgear today and they said to try reducing the mtu value to 1400 in the wan set up, and to try disabling the spi firewall, then power cycle the router.

I dont know if it will help but it cant hurt to try, i would have thought that reducing the mtu to 1400 would slow things down though, but willing to give it a go.

for me both ps3 and xbox 360 are running very slow through the router, as is the lappy and pc also.

as soon as i go through the modem alone, its back to full speed

[Johnyhewitt]

Hi, yes its defo connected to the WAN port. Spent most of the day yesterday on the phone to Virgin's India helpdesk, that was a complete waste of time.

Are the MTU settings somewhere in the Router config pages?

I'll wait for you pabscars and see if you manage tp sort it. I was wondering how the router aportions bandwidth per PC, is it 50\50?

[smee init]

Hi you could try setting both the NIC's to full duplex and see what happens as sometimes when set to auto detect they might change to half duplex when other traffic is detected on the lan also if it has duplex settings on the router try that as well.

[pabscars]

Originally Posted by Johnyhewitt

Hi, yes its defo connected to the WAN port. Spent most of the day yesterday on the phone to Virgin's India helpdesk, that was a complete waste of time.

Are the MTU settings somewhere in the Router config pages?

I'll wait for you pabscars and see if you manage tp sort it. I was wondering how the router aportions bandwidth per PC, is it 50\50?

Had a bit more of a play with the settings last night, as i noticed the xbox was downloading demos very slowly in comparison to my ps3, so i opened the nat in the router which seemed to make a big difference to the speed on the xbox live download.

The mtu value is in the WAN settings in the router config pages, these are accessed by typing in 192.168.1.1 into your address bar of your pc, then you will be prompted to enter your user name and password, which unless youve changed them should be admin and password.

then if you look down the left hand side you should see a box saying WAN setup, click on that then try playing with your mtu value, mines now 1400 but default is 1500.

Once youve changed the mtu value you will need to click the box at the bottom of the screen which says APPLY.

I,m not too sure how the router aportions bandwidth but the qos settings on mine are off, (maybe yours are on?) again these can be accessed the same way and are at the very bottom left hand side of the router config pages.

spi firewall is also off on mine, dont be too scared at having a play, i just make note of any changes, that way if things dont improve you can put them back to the original settings. I dont know if this will help you in anyway but it may help someone.

However I do have another problem.
ive made the mistake of settings up the new router using the same name and password (derrrrr) as my old netgear router, and when i check the vm wireless manager settings on the laptop its still says i,m connected via my old router (now disconnected) so it obviously cant be.

i think what is happening now is the router is connecting twice to the wireless laptop, once via vm wireless manager and once via the newly downloaded software disk that came with the 50 meg upgrade.

So my question is how can I sort this out, as the current download speeds are shocking through the wireless laptop and pc but now rapid through the wired consoles.

---------- Post added at 09:29 ---------- Previous post was at 09:26 ----------

Originally Posted by Johnyhewitt

Got one of the new Virgin router's yesterday and connected it up via RJ45 to the modem and my PC. No issues and running fine, however, as soon as I connect another PC to the router the Internet on both machines slows down or stops completely.

Both machines are running XP and both are getting IP addresses. If you take one of the PC's off, the other then runs normally, connect it up again and both slow down or fail to get on the Internet.

I am using two RJ45 cables and it doesn't matter which machine I disconnect the other will run fine, connect the other up and no joy.

Anyone any ideas??? Both firewalls on both machine are off and so is ICS.

Cheers

Ive just thought, are both machines trying to use the same ip address?

[smee init]

If that was the case pabscars then only one computer would work as no two computers can have the same ip and which ever one has that ip 1st will work while the other one will not work and give error message.

---------- Post added at 11:44 ---------- Previous post was at 11:41 ----------

What is your connection speed i.e download speed 2Mb 8Mb 10Mb 20Mb?

[pabscars]

I had 50 MB installed saturday just gone

---------- Post added at 12:09 ---------- Previous post was at 11:57 ----------

Originally Posted by pabscars

I had 50 MB installed saturday just gone

from the ps3 it indicates at times well over 50 meg down and 1.5MB up, its hard to quantify what speed i,m getting wirelessly because it varies but roughly between 4 to 10 meg down and 1.5 up.

why i open the vm wireless manager its says i,m still connected to my old WGR614v9 router, which of course it cant be as i,m on the new WNR2000.

So i was wondering if this was the issue with slow speeds on both wireless devices.

also when I clicked on and opened the settings for the little wireless N dongle thingy supplied by vm, you can scan to see what networks are in range, and it shows what wireless channel you and your neighbours are on, so i changed mine to channel 2, so as not to clash with anyone (was on 11, same as a neighbour), yet on the same page it says i,m connected via 2 channels? eg 2 and 10.

Changing the channel made no difference.

Ive had a drop on the pc speed because a friend downloaded a lot of antivirus, malware scanning stuff, so i can appreciate a drop in performance for that, but the laptop had always downloaded at full speed before the new router was installed.



This is what drew my attention in the first place

[Johnyhewitt]

Cheers, I'll have a go tonight. Has it improved your performance significantly?

Originally Posted by pabscars

Had a bit more of a play with the settings last night, as i noticed the xbox was downloading demos very slowly in comparison to my ps3, so i opened the nat in the router which seemed to make a big difference to the speed on the xbox live download.

The mtu value is in the WAN settings in the router config pages, these are accessed by typing in 192.168.1.1 into your address bar of your pc, then you will be prompted to enter your user name and password, which unless youve changed them should be admin and password.

then if you look down the left hand side you should see a box saying WAN setup, click on that then try playing with your mtu value, mines now 1400 but default is 1500.

Once youve changed the mtu value you will need to click the box at the bottom of the screen which says APPLY.

I,m not too sure how the router aportions bandwidth but the qos settings on mine are off, (maybe yours are on?) again these can be accessed the same way and are at the very bottom left hand side of the router config pages.

spi firewall is also off on mine, dont be too scared at having a play, i just make note of any changes, that way if things dont improve you can put them back to the original settings. I dont know if this will help you in anyway but it may help someone.

However I do have another problem.
ive made the mistake of settings up the new router using the same name and password (derrrrr) as my old netgear router, and when i check the vm wireless manager settings on the laptop its still says i,m connected via my old router (now disconnected) so it obviously cant be.

i think what is happening now is the router is connecting twice to the wireless laptop, once via vm wireless manager and once via the newly downloaded software disk that came with the 50 meg upgrade.

So my question is how can I sort this out, as the current download speeds are shocking through the wireless laptop and pc but now rapid through the wired consoles.

---------- Post added at 09:29 ---------- Previous post was at 09:26 ----------



Ive just thought, are both machines trying to use the same ip address?

[pabscars]

Originally Posted by Johnyhewitt

Cheers, I'll have a go tonight. Has it improved your performance significantly?

regarding download speed to my consoles as mentioned, before i tweaked the router, the xbox would take approx 10 minutes to download 50% of smallish demo, so i stopped downloading at 50% made a few changes to the router as mentioned and then restarted the demo download, and it seemed to fly through the final 50% in a bout 2 minutes so

before 50% took 10 mins
after 50% took 2 mins

so thats a fairlt big increase in throughput

[Johnyhewitt]

Well, had a go last night and still no resolution. Adjusted the MTU settings and the NIC settings, still nothing. This is one fecked up problem as there seems to be little info around regarding this issue. Ultimately it has to be to do with the way the router uses bandwidth management within the LAN. I even tried this freebie software that purports to look after your LAN by optimizing your router settings, pish it was. As a last resort I got on the phone to Virgin again. Once more they hadn't a clue, however, they did say they'd issue me with a new router if the problem persists.

[pabscars]

Originally Posted by Johnyhewitt

Well, had a go last night and still no resolution. Adjusted the MTU settings and the NIC settings, still nothing. This is one fecked up problem as there seems to be little info around regarding this issue. Ultimately it has to be to do with the way the router uses bandwidth management within the LAN. I even tried this freebie software that purports to look after your LAN by optimizing your router settings, pish it was. As a last resort I got on the phone to Virgin again. Once more they hadn't a clue, however, they did say they'd issue me with a new router if the problem persists.

Exactly which router is it that you have, and have you tried ringing netgear customer support.#

I,m on the 50 meg package and the new router comes with full support from netgear themselves, not vm.

If you suspect it is a netgear router issue, then i suggest you contact them directly.

However if you have WGR614 version 9 router, this has tweaked firmware by vm so maybe netgear wont support it.

Did you answer my question regarding are both computers trying to use the same ip address.

---------- Post added at 13:25 ---------- Previous post was at 13:17 ----------

Originally Posted by pabscars

Exactly which router is it that you have, and have you tried ringing netgear customer support.#

I,m on the 50 meg package and the new router comes with full support from netgear themselves, not vm.

If you suspect it is a netgear router issue, then i suggest you contact them directly.

However if you have WGR614 version 9 router, this has tweaked firmware by vm so maybe netgear wont support it.

Did you answer my question regarding are both computers trying to use the same ip address.

What colour ethernet cable have you got going from the router to the modem, it should be the yellow one from the modem to the router, then the blue one from the router to your pc's.

The reason i ask is the yellow one is wired differently inside, and i think is called a crossover cable, where as the blue one is a normal standard ethernet cable with the wiring being identical at both ends, I dont know if you were aware of this.

[Johnyhewitt]

Hmm, interesting! I have the standard router from VM which come with the XL package, I think the last digits are something like 6 v 4??? Both PC's get different IP's within the alocated range, so no issue there. But the cable colours, you may have something there???

I have the yellow which came with the box for the modem/router, however, I'm using another yellow and a long red cable to the PC's (they were cables I had lying around) That might be something to do with it. I'll try and use some grey one's also lying around and see if it makes a difference.

[southwell]

Originally Posted by Johnyhewitt

I have the yellow which came with the box for the modem/router, however, I'm using another yellow and a long red cable to the PC's (they were cables I had lying around) That might be something to do with it. I'll try and use some grey one's also lying around and see if it makes a difference.

Thats just networking cable, as long as its straight (the internal cables are the same layout at each end of the plug) then it wont make a difference what colour the cable is.
In other news i have had problems with PS3 on COD, joining parties mainly, i removed the router last night and directly connected with no problems at all. I think i might power up my old Linksys router later as the Netgear doesn't seem to be working 100%.

[pabscars]

Originally Posted by southwell

Thats just networking cable, as long as its straight (the internal cables are the same layout at each end of the plug) then it wont make a difference what colour the cable is.
In other news i have had problems with PS3 on COD, joining parties mainly, i removed the router last night and directly connected with no problems at all. I think i might power up my old Linksys router later as the Netgear doesn't seem to be working 100%.

Ah right southwell, i was under the impression that the yellow ethernet was wired slightly differently, my apologies

initially i had loads of problems with the connection through the vm supplied but now its absoluteley spot on, as i did the port forwarding (not triggering), assigned ip addresses to all appliances, opened nat and lowered mtu to 1400 on the router and dissabled the spi firewall.

downloads always take less than 10 mins, and the gameplay online is absoluteley fantastic.

I played all night last night on cod5 and kicked butt all night, whereas before the connection on the ps3 was almost unplayable on cod5.

Initially i did what you did and tried it directly through the modem, and the difference was staggering, so i knew the router was the problem, thankfully thats set up now, and working a dream, and the connection on the ps3 is better than my xbox.