1 edit | reply to NeedForSpeed5
Re: [Wired] WRT54GS Limits Bandwidth Thanks everyone for all your help and suggestions. Unfortunately, I was not able to resolve the speed issue.
I think my best bet would be to get a brand new router. Hopefully, the throttle for such a router would be much higher than what I currently have.
said by no_one :
Does your modem show what speed the lan connection is to the router?
Have you tried a different cable to the modem? Or is this cable the same one as tested straight to the computer?
My Motorola modem interface doesn't provide that info. I did try to swap cables, and even substituted a Cat 6 in place of a Cat 5, but that didn't seem to help.
said by Engineer_TA:After reading around, it was suggested in a few other forums that playing around with the MTU . . . If that doesn't help, just for giggles, you should try the "ND" version of the driver. I played with the MTU settings, but to no effect. Then I installed the ND driver. I admit I thought my router would turn into a brick after the install, but at this point I didn't care anymore. The ND install was successful, but it didn't really effect the speed.
said by TX CS Aggie:if you are already spending $99.99 + tax in store I would consider going on line and looking at newegg.com Thanks for the tips and advice. I will take a look at the other routers you suggested. If I get one, I will be sure to post the speed results on this forum. |
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| If you still have Tomato installed, you could try to change the WAN port to a LAN port and play with it to see if it makes a difference.
Telnet into the router (login: root password: your regular password) and then from the command line (CLI) type the following:
nvram set vlan1ports="0 5"
nvram set vlan0ports="3 2 1 5*"
nvram commit
reboot
This would assign port 4 (I think) as another WAN port. |
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| said by Engineer_TA:If you still have Tomato installed, you could try to change the WAN port to a LAN port and play with it to see if it makes a difference. I successfully re-assigned the WAN port to port 4, and plugged the cable from the modem into port 4.
I can connect to the Internet, but I ran the speed test, and I didn't detect any change.
I have a suspicion that this might be a duplex mismatch between the router and modem. Else the router is simply busted. |
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| FYI, I started a thread on the Road Runner (Time Warner Cable) forum about hardware that can handle 20 Mbps or greater:
»[TWC] Hardware for Bandwidth 20 Mbps or Greater (Survey) |
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| Sorry, I'm out of ideas right now. If I think of anything, I'll be sure to post it.  |
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 Bill_MIBill In MichiganPremium,MVM
join:2001-01-03
Royal Oak, MI
kudos:1
 ·Comcast
·WOW Internet and..
2 edits | reply to NeedForSpeed5
Just some far fetched ideas The WRT54GS v4 is virtually identical to the WRT54GL. No reason in the world it should go that slow. In the stretching-it department...
Just to make sure you've completely reset to defaults?
Any chance you have a bad cable only showing up with this unit? Swap them all just to look for a surprise.
The IP it pulls from your ISP... often linked directly to the MAC address... isn't in a crappy subnet while your other connections are not?
For fun, clone the MAC address of a speedy connection - to make sure the ISP isn't doing something funny with the MAC in that unit.
Like I said... all in the far-fetched department. 
EDIT: These LAN-to-WAN benchmarks were done with a WRT54GS v3. Except for memory size it should be identical to your v4. Notice 24mbps should be NO problem with stock firmware: »Benchmarking WRT Firmware... Some Surprises! |
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| said by Bill_MI:The WRT54GS v4 is virtually identical to the WRT54GL. No reason in the world it should go that slow. In the stretching-it department... Just to make sure you've completely reset to defaults? Any chance you have a bad cable only showing up with this unit? Swap them all just to look for a surprise. The IP it pulls from your ISP... often linked directly to the MAC address... isn't in a crappy subnet while your other connections are not? For fun, clone the MAC address of a speedy connection - to make sure the ISP isn't doing something funny with the MAC in that unit. Like I said... all in the far-fetched department. EDIT: These LAN-to-WAN benchmarks were done with a WRT54GS v3. Except for memory size it should be identical to your v4. Notice 24mbps should be NO problem with stock firmware: » Benchmarking WRT Firmware... Some Surprises! You know Bill, that's a great thought. Possible that the ISP is bandwidth limiting based on IP. Never thought for a moment of cloning the PC's MAC with the router and so very easy to do in Tomato. Go to Tomato setup page (login), go to Advanced, MAC Address and select "Clone PC" beside the WAN port. and reboot (if necessary to reboot) and then see what happens. Great suggestion (fingers crossed). |
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| Hey, I have good news!! My Linksys router has registered a dramatic improvement. Here is one speed test result for this configuration:
PC --> Linksys Router (Wired) --> Motorola Modem
Here is how I did it. I started a thread on the official Linksys forum. Then someone posted a response saying I should set the MTU to 1300. Earlier on this thread, Engineer_TA did advise me to change my MTU, but I guess I wasn't agressive enough.
I took another look at the MTU, which was set at the default of 1500. I tested a MTU range from 1200 to 1300, and found my optimum MTU at 1243. At that optimum, I noticed a speed improvement from 8 Mbps to 14 Mbps, which broke the 10 Mbps barrier.
I made another change to the WAN port speed from Auto to 100 Mb Full, so I can force the duplex setting to that speed. That actually made it worse, because my speed dropped back below 10 Mbps, so I immediately set it back to Auto.
Then I read your suggestion yesterday:
said by Engineer_TA:said by Bill_MI:The IP it pulls from your ISP... often linked directly to the MAC address... isn't in a crappy subnet while your other connections are not? For fun, clone the MAC address of a speedy connection - to make sure the ISP isn't doing something funny with the MAC in that unit. Like I said... all in the far-fetched department. You know Bill, that's a great thought. Possible that the ISP is bandwidth limiting based on IP. Never thought for a moment of cloning the PC's MAC with the router and so very easy to do in Tomato. Go to Tomato setup page (login), go to Advanced, MAC Address and select "Clone PC" beside the WAN port. and reboot (if necessary to reboot) and then see what happens. Great suggestion (fingers crossed). I was skeptical at first, because I couldn't see why the speed should depend on the device MAC address connected to the modem, and even then, only the modem MAC address should be visible to the ISP, or at least I thought.
Then I performed the following experiment this morning. I tried out different MAC addresses (on the Tomato firmware) for the exact same hardware configuration of:
PC --> Linksys Router (Wired) --> Motorola Modem
I ran the speed test 5 times for each MAC address and averaged the results for each trial. Here are the results (in Mbps):
Random Number MAC
Download (average): 21.33
Upload (average): 1.86
Default Router MAC
Download (average): 17.96
Upload (average): 1.84
PC Clone MAC
Download (average): 16.90
Upload (average): 1.85
Random Number MAC
Download (average): 30.62
Upload (average): 1.87
The last trial "Random Number MAC" was another MAC number randomly generated by Tomato, with the impressive average result of 30.62 Mbps.
I will post later explaning what I think might be going on. But I think my ISP throttled my original MAC number at 8 Mbps. |
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4 edits | 
I've had my ISP do the same thing when I changed the device connected to the router. Usually, cloning the MAC address of the original item fixes it. I have had to call on occasion to the ISP to get them to reset the system to allow the new MAC (new router for example) to run at full speed. I had forgotten.
As for the MTU, it was suggested that you start around 1,400 and then go + or - 10 until it gets better. I think I posted poorly so you might have just went 1390, 1400, 1410 and not any higher or lower. Sorry if that were the case.
What is your MTU set at as you are now running faster than your original post with PC connected directly to the modem?
Also, did you reset your port #4 back to LAN or leave it on the WAN port? I think you can do a NVRAM reset under Administration, Configuration, Restore Default Configuration section of Tomato. I can also try to figure out how to manually turn port 4 back to LAN, lol.
Finally, Kudos to Bill for suggesting it!!!
Great job!
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Bill_MIBill In MichiganPremium,MVM
join:2001-01-03
Royal Oak, MI
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Comcast
·WOW Internet and..
| reply to NeedForSpeed5
I'd like to hear your theory. I wouldn't put too much weight on intentional settings... it sounds like your cable system has a lot of cobwebs or something.  You've found a few things that don't make sense (MTU is hardly EVER that subtle).
Suggestion. Watch the public IP you get (»ipchicken.com). The same MAC may tend to get the same address or it may be random. The IP range you get may correlate to other things - find the bad and good ranges or verify it makes no difference. |
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TX CS AggieTX CS Aggie
join:2009-07-22
College Station, TX
kudos:1
1 edit | reply to NeedForSpeed5
Upon seeing that you got your problem resolved... good kob by the way... i thought i would play with my routers mac just to see if there was anything going on with my connection
Each one of these results represents and average of 5 samples from speedtest.com
Cable modem: Motorola SB5120
Router:WRT54GSv4 (tomato 1.25)
Default 1st time
DL 8.298
UL .48
PING 46.4
Clone PC 1st time
DL 8.336
UL .48
PING 46.8
RANDOM
DL 8.34
UL .48
PING 51.6
Default 2nd time
DL 8.152
UL .48
PING 47.2
Clone PC 2nd time
DL 8.264
UL .48
PING 46.2
RANDOM (diff mac)
DL 8.272
UL .47
PING 52.4
Default 3rd time
DL 8.214
UL .474
PING 52.2
Clone PC 3rd time
DL 8.31
UL .48
PING 46.2
After doing the 3rd default test I decided it was best to clone my pc mac for best ping and good speed.
But now i am wondering if i want the best gaming performance for playing on my Xbox 360 would it be best to clone the mac of my 360......hmmmmm.........hmmmmm.... the solution to this thread has raised some interesting questions in my head.
and why would a random MAC give be a not as good ping but best DL? |
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2 edits | reply to Engineer_TA
said by Engineer_TA:What is your MTU set at as you are now running faster than your original post with PC connected directly to the modem? MTU of 1243. My original MTU was the default at 1500.
said by Bill_MI:I'd like to hear your theory. I wouldn't put too much weight on intentional settings... it sounds like your cable system has a lot of cobwebs or something. You've found a few things that don't make sense (MTU is hardly EVER that subtle). I think I can be reasonably confident that the MTU adjustment did enhance the router speed, at least a notch above 10 Mbps (12 to 14 Mbs). This is because I can change the MTU without having to reset the modem, thus keeping the I.P. constant.
If I adjust the MTU either below or above a MTU of 1243, then my speeds falls below 10 Mbps, and I can replicate this consistently.
Before my speed rarely exceeded 10 Mbps, and was stuck at 8 Mbps most of the time.
said by Engineer_TA:Also, did you reset your port #4 back to LAN or leave it on the WAN port? I think you can do a NVRAM reset under Administration, Configuration, Restore Default Configuration section of Tomato. I can also try to figure out how to manually turn port 4 back to LAN, lol. I reinstalled Tomato and wiped out all the previous settings, so all my ports are normal now. I'm also using the WRT54GSv4.bin now. |
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