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[Internet] Questions on Router Performance

For starters Bridging your UBEE was the right thing to do great job!!!. Now if your looking for a high end Router I suggest ASUS RT-N66U flash with Tomato by Shibby. Asus RT-N66U not only does it have alot of power under the hood 600MHz CPU Processor, 256 MB RAM, But you have External Antennas that provides great signal Range. However with that said for Gamming and Netflix Streaming its best to use a wired LAN Cord or the very least a powerline adapter. BHNtechXpert Swears by the ASUS RT-N56U , I'm sure he will have some suggestions also about that model
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Bakersfield Region Taft CA Brighthouse Customer Since 2003

reply to swanny
Hey Swanny before I give you my answer (I'm sure there will be others) I want to check your equipment real quick and make sure there isn't something I can fix before you spend the money. Simply post a direct thread with this thread title and your IP only...no need for additional text as conversation will continue in this thread the other is just so I can verify stuff on my end.

After I check that I'll have several questions and then my answer for you.
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~All truth goes through three phases. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident. - Arthur Schopenhauer ~

reply to Guide_Tim

reply to swanny
Direct Forums Link to post your IP for BHNtechXpert
»Bright House Networks Direct
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Bakersfield Region Taft CA Brighthouse Customer Since 2003

reply to BHNtechXpert

reply to swanny
Okay Swanny,

Nothing screams problem at me so lets move forward as this being a router specific thingy...so first things first..

1) I want to commend you on your choice of networking purchases that minimize your use of wireless whereever possible (Homeplugs). Very good decision on your part. That said it does not appear that your gaming consoles take advantage of them but instead are wireless...why?

2) Make sure you have installed the lastest firmware from Cisco with that router.

3) Do you have the latest firmware on the Sony Bluray player. Sony has several models which have received serious complaints about this specific thing both wired and wireless. The assumption is they will or have fixed it via firmware.

4) Are most of the concerns you have related streaming or do the PC's also have issues and explain in detail please.
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~All truth goes through three phases. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident. - Arthur Schopenhauer ~

Thank you for the reply.

1-I actually got the original idea for the Powerline adapters from this site… so the credit is back to you

As for the Game Consoles, sorry if I was not clear… The game consoles will use the Powerline units as well. Currently the Xbox is in my son’s room and I have a 4 port switch that his computer and Xbox plug into and that connects to the Powerline. He only games with this and currently doesn’t have an Xbox Live subscription so he has limited online interaction with his Xbox.

The Sony Blu-Ray and Playstation are in living room and I manually switch the network cable between the 2 units as needed. The only items using wireless now are one laptop (used very little), the phones and 2 tablets.

2-I have not updated the firmware on the Router for awhile… I will get that done tonight.

3-I believe the Blu-Ray is up to date on its firmware but I need to double check the model number to confirm.

4-As for my concerns… Yes, the majority of my issues are based on Streaming and the online gaming. We use the online games as one source of our ‘family’ entertainment. The online game issues are minor, but would like to try and optimize our performance as best as we can. In reading this forum I started wondering if the router could be a bottleneck of the performance.
Streaming I would say IS a concern. If we want to watch anything streamed we will encounter multiple times the system will pause to buffer the data… then continue. This occurs on the Blu-Ray, the Playstation or the Xbox.

The PC’s do not have any issues, non-online games play fine. We are not heavy PC gamers, but for the few games we have there is no issues playing. Can’t say there isn’t something going on with PC’s but I don’t see any issues other than the online game issue.

Hope this helps...

reply to swanny
Okay next question and thanks for clarifying...

Go into the management console for the homeplug adapters and what are the respective datarates to/from each adapter. The software should tell you and also give you a quality rating of excellent, good, fair, poor.

The 2 that are currently used have:

Device 2 = Rate (Mbps) 113.00
Device 4 = Rate (Mbps) 83.00
Device 3 = not in use right now

The quality is a hard to read as it has a bunch of bars... not sure what best is but both appear to be on the higher side say if 15 total bars...

Device 2 = 11 of 15
Device 4 = 9 or 15

I can post a screen shot if needed. Just to be completly clear.. The powerline units are TrendNet TPL-303E2K 200Mbps.

Let me know if more specific details on these would help, I can post in the direct thread.

Thanks

reply to swanny
Okay so you have excellent connection quality across the house then so we know its not something there...well that leaves the router based on what I see so far. Get that software updated, make sure all your settings are golden and lets see how it goes...

My preference on the Asus is still the 56 but the 65 now has custom firmware for it as well so either would be a good choice...let me check the stats side by side.
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~All truth goes through three phases. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident. - Arthur Schopenhauer ~

okay so the Router is up to date on the firmware:

Router = Firmware Version: 2.00.01 build 15 Sep. 13, 2010

Cisco Website = Firmware 09/13/2010 Ver.2.00.01.15

reply to swanny
And has this always been this way or did it just recently start and is it consistent day and night or?

It has been this way for awhile which we have been living with... Just getting to a point where I know we should be able to do better

reply to swanny
Okay just to be sure its not something we missed on this side I'm going to send you a test link I need you to let run for 24 hours...no streaming or big downloads during the test and it must be on a wired pc please...

The test you requested is now running.

reply to swanny
Perfect... I'll take a look at it mid day.

reply to swanny

Well I am not a networking expert but hey, this is an open forum so I will throw out an idea. Since bandwidth looks good with only one machine generating traffic maybe it is the way contention is handled on your lan that is causing an issue. Do you think wireless settings like Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) and wired settings like flow control and interrupt moderation could be causing an issue? Someone once told me that throughput is affected by bandwidth AND LATENCY. If contention exists and is not managed properly on your LAN I guess that could increase latency. Maybe a pro can chime in.

reply to BHNtechXpert
I want to thank you for the time and really going the extra mile to ensure everything checks out. A+ in my book!

Based on the findings and recommendation I will be looking at the ASUS RT-N56U and update with the custom firmware.

Thanks again for all the help!