Does Merlin have trouble with fast internet connections?

[wayner]

My router is an Asus RT-N66U and I am running Merlin 374.40 (which is close to a year old now). My internet is with Rogers cable and is advertised as 250/20. My cable gateway/modem is a Hitron CGN3 running in Bridge mode.

When I run speedtests with my computer connected directly to the gateway in either bridge mode or gateway mode I get results of 325/21 (this is consistent with other people who have subscribed to this same internet service). When I run tests from a PC connected to the router I get speeds of about 230/20. So when the router is in the equation it can't seem to handle the faster speeds. I can't say for certain whether it is Merlin or if you would get the same results with the stock firmware and I don't want to spend too much time installing all sorts of different firmware. To be honest this isn't a huge issue since it is rare that I can ever sustain any internet services above 200 Mbps but I am just wondering why I see this.

Does anyone else with internet above 250 Mbps see the same issue or is this something unique to my network?

 

[Nullity]

This topic has been covered a few times, I forget the thread names though. Use search for more info.

The RT-N66U's processor just cannot handle much more than 300Mbps. Disabling unnedeed features may increase your speed.

You may try overclocking. I have been overclocking my RT-N66U with no problems. I advise mounting it vertically though, for better airflow to the heat-sink.

 

[Nullity]

Do you have hardware acceleration enabled?

 

[wayner]

According to the WAN to LAN throughput charts here on SNB the router can handle 731.6 - how does that jive?

Yes Hardware acceleration is enabled.

Any recos on what routers can handle higher speeds, perhaps up to a gig?

Edit - By the way I did search but I didn't find anything relevant. I tried "rt-n66u maximum download speed", "rt-n66u maximum wan speed","rt-n66u wan speed". Any suggestions on what exactly I should be searching for?

 

[L&LD]

Hardware acceleration needs to be not only enabled, but actually active.

On the Tools menu under Network, does it say enabled?

Also, I would stop using such old firmware and update to the latest RMerlin firmware available.

Along with a reset to factory defaults and minimal and manual entry of the settings required to connect to your ISP and secure your router (admin and wireless).

 

[unknownbeef]

I have the RT-AC66U and have gigabit up and down speeds via my ISP. My connection is delivered to me via ethernet cable so there is no modem involved. I can speed test at ~500mbps down and ~400mbps up using speedtest.net. This is an older computer so I'm not sure if that is the reason I don't see higher speeds.

This might be the one of the threads Nullity was referring to:

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt...expected-on-high-speed-fibre-connection.9425/

 

[wayner]

Hardware acceleration needs to be not only enabled, but actually active.

On the Tools menu under Network, does it say enabled?

Also, I would stop using such old firmware and update to the latest RMerlin firmware available.

Along with a reset to factory defaults and minimal and manual entry of the settings required to connect to your ISP and secure your router (admin and wireless).

Yes, it does say HW acceleration is enabled under Network|Tools.

Unless I am sure that it will fix the problem I am not too keen on having to redo my router config from scratch. I know the firmware is almost a year old but if it doesn't have any subsequently patched security vulnerabilities then is there a strong reason to upgrade? I have several dozen ports forwarded, I have configured OpenVPN server on the router, etc. If all goes well I could do the upgrade and get everything running in a few minutes. If all doesn't go well it could be a day or two of futzing around. And I have only ever configured OpenVPN server and that was a bit of trial and error the first time.

I ran top while doing a speedtest, as suggested in the thread that unknownbeef linked to above, and while doing a speedtest the sirq goes up to 98%. Does that mean it is CPU bound? Does anyone know if anything that helps this issue has been addressed in recent releases of Merlin?

 

[L&LD]

Can't say if it will help with your speed. But yes, a ton of security issues have been patched with the releases from last year.

 

[Nullity]

I ran top while doing a speedtest, as suggested in the thread that unknownbeef linked to above, and while doing a speedtest the sirq goes up to 98%. Does that mean it is CPU bound? Does anyone know if anything that helps this issue has been addressed in recent releases of Merlin?

The hardware acceleration (referred to as CTF/"cache through forwarding") refers to forwarding, not routing, speeds.

sirq @ 100% means you are at your hardware limit.



Though, think I have seen threads regarding the RT-N66U being capable of 900Mbps+, but the ISP-supplied router/modem/whatever was in DMZ mode.

 

[wayner]

If you read through to the third page of the thread linked to above you will see that someone said an older version of Merlin solves this problem for them. They are using version Asuswrt-Merlin build 3.0.0.4.354.29.BETA1.

Not too keen on going backwards another year or so in firmware builds...

 

[L&LD]

Of course going backwards is not in your best interest.

Trying the very latest firmware though will at least get you more people to help with your problem, including possibly RMerlin.

 

[wayner]

I finally got around to updating Merlin to the latest build and now I get a consistent 320/21 speed rating so the later versions of Merlin solve this issue. Note that I was on a version at least two years old until today. I am now on 380_64.