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vvuk
join:2013-07-20
Toronto, ON

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vvuk

Member

[Cable] successful 150/10 upgrade (update: router problems)

Just wanted to report that my 150/10 upgrade finally hit today. Original order was placed via myWorld on 7/23 (or 7/22, can't remember). New modem was provisioned on 8/3, speed upgrade happened at 7pm today. So, about two weeks for the whole process.

Speeds are looking great, Bloor POI:




(Side note -- I spent about 3 hours trying to figure out why I was getting crappy speeds behind my router, but fine speeds directly at the modem. Turned out that the cable between router and modem was flaky, and may not have been rated for 1Gbps. Doh! Also, that speedtest above is repeatable, but *only* with Start's speedtest server. With TS/Beanfield/Nexicom I can get 36Mbps down at best. That's not quite the full story, see update.)

Update:

So, doing more testing, now with a newer cable. I'm guessing now that my DIR-825 is partially/largely to blame, or at least that it doesn't play nice with the DCM476.

Plugged directly into modem, I get:

Speedtest - TekSavvy - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 3902.png - 185/10 (!!!!)
Speedtest - Beanfield - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 1933.png - 171/7
Speedtest - Start.ca - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 4589.png - 138/10
wget »speedtest.newark.linode. ··· wark.bin - 16.12 MB/s
wget from Amazon S3 - 7.56 MB/s

Plugged into router:

Speedtest - TekSavvy - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 7855.png - 30/10
Speedtest - Beanfield - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 9926.png - 22/10
Speedtest - Start.ca - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 3161.png - 130/9 (!!)
wget 100MB-newark.bin - was stalling and going at around 250 KB/s (didn't wait for finish)
wget from Amazon S3 - 291.3 KB/s

There's something quite wrong at my router. The max theoretical bandwidth of WAN-LAN on the DIR-825 is around 220Mbps; my guess is that the speeds I'm getting are getting way too close to that, and I'm blowing buffers. Congestion control starts kicking in and I get punted back to smaller and smaller TCP windows, and thus much worse speeds. Start.ca's speedtest server may be just under the "upper bound", and close enough RTT-wise, that the windows can stay large enough for my router to process.

Time for a trip to Canada Computers. Also, I wonder how much of my 300GB cap I'm blowing on bandwidth testing

Update #2

Bought an Asus RT-AC66U. TekSavvy speedtest:




wget downloads, etc. everything as fast as plugged directly into modem.

So, safe to say -- if you go with 150/10, make sure your router can handle it. DIR-825 can't.

TwiztedZero
Nine Zero Burp Nine Six
Premium Member
join:2011-03-31
Toronto, ON

TwiztedZero

Premium Member

Re: [Cable] successful 150/10 upgrade

Congrats. And yes the CaT5e between the modem & router matters occassionally and certainly is notable at higher speed packages; just make sure its not a low quality cable.
34764170 (banned)
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON

34764170 (banned) to vvuk

Member

to vvuk
You just plain had a bad cable. It doesn't matter if its Cat 5 or 5e.
18286719 (banned)
join:2013-02-02
Whistler, BC

18286719 (banned)

Member

standard cat 5 can only support 100mbps so you do need cat 5 e, i had a cat 5 between my modem and router and was only getting 92mbps down because it was cat 5, got cat 6 and got 98 down

and that connection looks nice, i envy your upload
34764170 (banned)
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON

34764170 (banned)

Member

Completely wrong. Cat5 is fine for GigE for shorter runs as long as your expectation isn't 100% full throughput. You would have no problem running in the high hundreds of megabits per second; as in easily exceeding 500Mbps.
HKPolice
join:2002-08-09
Scarborough, ON

HKPolice

Member

said by 34764170:

Completely wrong. Cat5 is fine for GigE for shorter runs as long as your expectation isn't 100% full throughput. You would have no problem running in the high hundreds of megabits per second; as in easily exceeding 500Mbps.

+1
18286719 (banned)
join:2013-02-02
Whistler, BC

1 edit

18286719 (banned) to 34764170

Member

to 34764170
my d link wouldnt accept the 1000mbps mode untill i used cat5e or cat 6, i did have about a 20-30 ft cat 5 tho, i think my cable was only using 2 pairs of the 4 like stated below, i wonder why wiki sais cat5 works with gigE cause i think its wrong

and just googling cat 5 gave this

Definition: CAT5 (also, CAT 5) is an Ethernet network cable standard defined by the Electronic Industries Association and Telecommunications Industry Association (commonly known as EIA/TIA). CAT5 is the fifth generation of twisted pair Ethernet technology and the most popular of all twisted pair cables in use today.
CAT5 cable contains four pairs of copper wire. It supports Fast Ethernet speeds (up to 100 Mbps). As with all other types of twisted pair EIA/TIA cabling, CAT5 cable runs are limited to a maximum recommended run length of 100m (328 feet).

Although CAT5 cable usually contains four pairs of copper wire, Fast Ethernet communications only utilize two pairs. A newer specification for CAT5 cable - CAT5 enhanced ("CAT5e" or "CAT 5e") - supports networking at Gigabit Ethernet[ speeds (up to 1000 Mbps) over short distances by utilizing all four wire pairs, and it is backward-compatible with ordinary CAT5.
34764170 (banned)
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON

34764170 (banned)

Member

said by 18286719:

my d link wouldnt accept the 1000mbps mode untill i used cat5e or cat 6, i did have about a 20-30 ft cat 5 tho, i think my cable was only using 2 pairs of the 4 like stated below, i wonder why wiki sais cat5 works with gigE cause i think its wrong

and just googling cat 5 gave this

Definition: CAT5 (also, CAT 5) is an Ethernet network cable standard defined by the Electronic Industries Association and Telecommunications Industry Association (commonly known as EIA/TIA). CAT5 is the fifth generation of twisted pair Ethernet technology and the most popular of all twisted pair cables in use today.
CAT5 cable contains four pairs of copper wire. It supports Fast Ethernet speeds (up to 100 Mbps). As with all other types of twisted pair EIA/TIA cabling, CAT5 cable runs are limited to a maximum recommended run length of 100m (328 feet).

Although CAT5 cable usually contains four pairs of copper wire, Fast Ethernet communications only utilize two pairs. A newer specification for CAT5 cable - CAT5 enhanced ("CAT5e" or "CAT 5e") - supports networking at Gigabit Ethernet[ speeds (up to 1000 Mbps) over short distances by utilizing all four wire pairs, and it is backward-compatible with ordinary CAT5.

Yes, the whole Internet and the 1000Base-T spec is wrong because you had a cable where someone only connected the two pairs.

rodjames
Premium Member
join:2010-06-19

rodjames to vvuk

Premium Member

to vvuk
If you guys are sitting here figuring out cables at this point in the game, you have spent WAY too much time doing speed tests and posting said speed tests.

creed3020
Premium Member
join:2006-04-26
Kitchener, ON

creed3020 to vvuk

Premium Member

to vvuk
Nice to see the speedtest come in exactly at or above the rated speeds.

Wishing I could get that upload but that package is just overkill for me.
Ree
join:2007-04-29
h0h0h0

Ree to vvuk

Member

to vvuk
said by vvuk:

(Side note -- I spent about 3 hours trying to figure out why I was getting crappy speeds behind my router, but fine speeds directly at the modem. Turned out that the cable between router and modem was flaky, and may not have been rated for 1Gbps. Doh! Also, that speedtest above is repeatable, but *only* with Start's speedtest server. With TS/Beanfield/Nexicom I can get 36Mbps down at best.)

Had a similar problem -- in my case it wasn't a flaky cable, but the fact that it was a cross-over cable so it only ever connects to the router at 100mbps.
vvuk
join:2013-07-20
Toronto, ON

vvuk

Member

Yep, it was just a plain flaky cable. Full 4 pairs wired up and everything.

Of course now I want to go back to my original OpenWrt firmware (ended up reflashing stock, and then dd-wrt to test if that was the problem... hit on the cable when I flashed dd-wrt), but am too lazy to. DIR-825, I may upgrade to an asus n66u/ac66u for better wireless perf.

I do wish there was a 75/10 package, or even 50/10. I can't really find anything that's not a speedtest that will saturate the downstream, which is understandable. I don't often pull down many large things at once

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

said by vvuk:

I do wish there was a 75/10 package, or even 50/10. I can't really find anything that's not a speedtest that will saturate the downstream, which is understandable. I don't often pull down many large things at once

Yeah, funny thing Rogers offers 60/10 for business, which is a decent price too at $85/month unlimited.
vvuk
join:2013-07-20
Toronto, ON

vvuk

Member

Re: [Cable] successful 150/10 upgrade (update: router problems)

Didn't end up being the cable. Was the router itself, more updates in OP!

Pir8pete
join:2003-09-05
Ottawa

4 edits

Pir8pete to vvuk

Member

to vvuk
said by vvuk:

Just wanted to report that my 150/10 upgrade finally hit today. Original order was placed via myWorld on 7/23 (or 7/22, can't remember). New modem was provisioned on 8/3, speed upgrade happened at 7pm today. So, about two weeks for the whole process.

Speeds are looking great, Bloor POI:

[att=1]

(Side note -- I spent about 3 hours trying to figure out why I was getting crappy speeds behind my router, but fine speeds directly at the modem. Turned out that the cable between router and modem was flaky, and may not have been rated for 1Gbps. Doh! Also, that speedtest above is repeatable, but *only* with Start's speedtest server. With TS/Beanfield/Nexicom I can get 36Mbps down at best. That's not quite the full story, see update.)

Update:

So, doing more testing, now with a newer cable. I'm guessing now that my DIR-825 is partially/largely to blame, or at least that it doesn't play nice with the DCM476.

Plugged directly into modem, I get:

Speedtest - TekSavvy - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 3902.png - 185/10 (!!!!)
Speedtest - Beanfield - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 1933.png - 171/7
Speedtest - Start.ca - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 4589.png - 138/10
wget »speedtest.newark.linode. ··· wark.bin - 16.12 MB/s
wget from Amazon S3 - 7.56 MB/s

Plugged into router:

Speedtest - TekSavvy - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 7855.png - 30/10
Speedtest - Beanfield - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 9926.png - 22/10
Speedtest - Start.ca - »www.speedtest.net/result ··· 3161.png - 130/9 (!!)
wget 100MB-newark.bin - was stalling and going at around 250 KB/s (didn't wait for finish)
wget from Amazon S3 - 291.3 KB/s

There's something quite wrong at my router. The max theoretical bandwidth of WAN-LAN on the DIR-825 is around 220Mbps; my guess is that the speeds I'm getting are getting way too close to that, and I'm blowing buffers. Congestion control starts kicking in and I get punted back to smaller and smaller TCP windows, and thus much worse speeds. Start.ca's speedtest server may be just under the "upper bound", and close enough RTT-wise, that the windows can stay large enough for my router to process.

Time for a trip to Canada Computers. Also, I wonder how much of my 300GB cap I'm blowing on bandwidth testing

Update #2

Bought an Asus RT-AC66U. TekSavvy speedtest:

[att=2]

wget downloads, etc. everything as fast as plugged directly into modem.

So, safe to say -- if you go with 150/10, make sure your router can handle it. DIR-825 can't.

did you try the DD-WRT firmware on the router? -> »www.dd-wrt.com/site/index
mikee
join:2012-12-21
Gloucester, ON

mikee to vvuk

Member

to vvuk
i just bought asus rt n56u today, and just did a speed test... my results we're the same as yours but now i am hitting 200s+ :0

»www.speedtest.net/result ··· 3571.png

also during the test it was hitting up to 240-250mbps for a few seconds then went down to 205 eventually but still pretty sweettttttt
34764170 (banned)
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON

1 recommendation

34764170 (banned)

Member

Jealous of you guys. If only the price of the 150 tier would come down to something reasonable.
KoroshiyaX
join:2008-08-01
Mississauga, ON

KoroshiyaX to vvuk

Member

to vvuk
Congrats OP! I'll be getting the 150 package as soon as it's available in Wolfdale. I already preemptively upgraded to a DCM476 from a SB6120, since finding out that TSI cannot do a new modem provision and plan switching at the same time
mikee
join:2012-12-21
Gloucester, ON

1 recommendation

mikee to 34764170

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to 34764170
Yeah it's expensive but i'm sharing the internet with my neighbour so we both pay 50% of the price

FTTHTechie
@pathcom.com

FTTHTechie to vvuk

Anon

to vvuk
DIR-825 B1 is rated for 214Mbps WAN-LAN so I doubt it was the router. It could perfectly handle it. It's a cabling issue not a router issue.

Refer here:

»www.smallnetbuilder.com/ ··· -charts/
34764170 (banned)
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON

34764170 (banned) to Ree

Member

to Ree

Re: [Cable] successful 150/10 upgrade

said by Ree:

Had a similar problem -- in my case it wasn't a flaky cable, but the fact that it was a cross-over cable so it only ever connects to the router at 100mbps.

Doesn't make any sense. A crossover cable will not and cannot change the speed of the Ethernet link. You just had a bad cable.

Also anything relatively modern for FastE or as included by spec GigE comes with PHY supporting Auto-MDI/MDIX (Thank you HP!) which eliminates the necessity for cross-over cables; you can just use straight through cables anywhere and everywhere (I've always hated the concept of cross-over cables). Only one end of the connection needs to support this for it to work.
Ree
join:2007-04-29
h0h0h0

Ree

Member

After realizing I was using an old crossover cable I searched online and came across some references indicating that gigabit wouldn't work with older crossover cables. Not really a networking guy though, so maybe I mis-interpreted what was being said.

So maybe it was just a flaky cable after all!