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Can routers suddenly get slow?

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DLD

New Around Here
Hi,

My ISP recently upgraded the Internet in my area (Virgin in the UK) and my Internet speed dropped dramatically. After speeking to their customer support (which was useless) I eventually ended up talking to someone helpful at Virgin. He decided that my cable modem was failing and replaced it with a new SuperHub2 (a rebadged Netgear) and the connection performance increased a little. But it was not to the speed I had previously had. So, I connected directly to the Superhub and I got the 50M I was supposed to get.

Does this mean that my router is failing? My router is a Linksys BEFSX41 which has always been reliable. I did a speed test on my LAN and found that the speed was only about 13M. The speed on the Internet varies between 5M and 11M. I think the ports on the Linksys are 100M so I don't know what is going on.

I have long been looking for a box to install Pfsense as I want to improve my security etc. but it is very hard to find a suitable box in the UK. I would use an old PC but it is difficult to find physical space for it in the room with my ISP connection.

Any suggestions on what might be causing my current problems and if I need a new router any suggestions on what to get?

DLD
 
My God, man. A BEFSX41?! It's way past time for an upgrade.

Our 2002 review measured throughput around 35 Mbps, which was shockingly fast for the time. But it's now limiting your ability to get your full new 50 Mbps service.
 
My God, man. A BEFSX41?! It's way past time for an upgrade.

Our 2002 review measured throughput around 35 Mbps, which was shockingly fast for the time. But it's now limiting your ability to get your full new 50 Mbps service.

I realise that it needs replacing but I have been looking for a pfsense box for ages and not found anything suitable in the UK (it must be small). But I'm also interested in why I'm only getting between 1-11 when you measured it at 35. I really just want to understand what is going on. Until the upgrade I was getting faster speeds and they only just upgraded me to 50, so the router was not a bottleneck before.

Any suggestions on what to get?
 
Look on ebay for embedded boxes. I remember seeing inexpensive AMD embedded boxes with at least 3 ports similar to what pfsense sells on their websites. I know things in the UK are way overpriced way more than just the tax differences so you'll be looking to spend around £100 for such a box. If you want a small box you can make one yourself. If you want cheap, you can get micro ATX with a media center box that can fit it. The main costs would be the PSU and the CPU. You can get a low profile 4 port intel server NIC from ebay for about £20 or less used so you can get a cheap motherboard or even use AMD. Size isnt really much but rather what you use that determines the performance and power usage. If you want that tiny AMD embedded box with 3 NICs there is a name for it you can search for on ebay but i dont remember the exact name. Still a bit of searching will help in finding one. Even in the UK ebay is actually full of imitation at genuine prices even newegg in UK is just a list that is just like ebay/amazon unlike newegg US.

It could be additional features or configs are being used.

Virgin media may brag about DOCSIS capabilities but truthfully virgin media's network isnt very good and the cable protocols are worse compared to VDSL that uses a star based topology in which there arent bandwidth issues as long as each link going to the ISP core is using a pipe big enough for all the bandwidths added together.

If you take a close look at offerings virgin media's connection isnt very reliable and their superhub is very very unstable and their network isnt as good as BT's although neither ISPs actually have a good setup. Virgin media is stingy on uploads and BT related ISPs are limited by cost, medium and protocol but give uploads as protocol suggests (better ratios). If you really plan to make use of your internet with modern things like cloud storage/backup, media streaming,vpn and such upload is important too and despite cable companies bragging about their speeds they are very stingy on upload.
 
But I'm also interested in why I'm only getting between 1-11 when you measured it at 35. I really just want to understand what is going on. Until the upgrade I was getting faster speeds and they only just upgraded me to 50, so the router was not a bottleneck before.

I think it is a waste of time trying to understand why such an old device won't work on current ISP's anymore. Don't forget, network gear does die (some slowly and some in an instant).

The upgrade might have been just the thing to push it over the edge and I think it will fail completely soon, if you continue to use it.

The RT-AC56U or higher is what I would recommend you replace it with (members here have bought this router for $55 or less).
 

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