Network upgrade advice

[riccochet]

Hey everyone,
I have been struggling with some network issues for the past while that i haven't really been able to fix myself. Was hoping to get some advice on the issue.
At the moment i am using an Asus AC-RT66U for my main router and using an Asus EA-N66 to extend range to my upstairs. The router is in my utility closet in the basement. I am having a lot of network slowdown lately, especially with wireless. I have CAT5 running throughout my house, and all of those are just connecting through a Netgear 16 port 10/100 hub. The wired connections all seem to be pretty good. I get good ethernet speeds on most of my PCs that i have connected to it, full 100mb within my internal network. However my wireless seems to be all over the place.
I have at any given time 20 - 30 clients connecting through my router at any given time, at least 50% - 70% of them being wireless. They are all legit connections, meaning nobody stealing bandwidth, but wireless connections drop and fail all the time. On my samsung galaxy note 3, it will often pop up with "wireless connection unstable" and switch to LTE. I've been trying to figure out what i can do to optimize my connection, or if i need to move to a slightly more robust router, which i'm fine with, but i really am not sure where to start looking for the most cost effective solution. It would need to be a router with at least 4 gig LAN ports in it, but i could also deal with moving to a managed gig switch with a router and wireless access point. I just really want to come up with a setup that won't constantly stutter and crash due to congestion.
I have been reading a bit of the articles on this site but nothing seems to really deal with this specific kind of issue (many clients connecting at once). Unless i suck at site search... which i am willing to concede might be an issue...

 

[coxhaus]

You don’t mention how fast of a internet connection you bought. If you have 30 clients using a 3 meg connection you are probably over budget.

You also need to look at the router utilization and see how hard you are pushing the router.

I would dump the hub and buy a cheap switch. Hubs are old enough now that it could be causing issues. I don’t have an answer as to whether you should buy a gig or 100 based switch. Is your cable CAT5 or CAT5e? How long are the runs? I have read on this forum some of the ASUS routers are sensitive to cabling and may require CAT6 for good gig connections. We will need someone to chime in on this.

Probably the most important issue is the wireless. Is there any way to move some wireless connections to a wired connection? Are you seeing any problems with the wired clients? How did you extend your wireless network? What is the configuration? Is the wireless load divided with part of the clients on one wireless with some clients on the other wireless? 70% of 30 active clients can be a lot if they are all on one wireless device.

Hopefully this is an overview to get you started with this problem and maybe drum up some more comments.

 

[riccochet]

All good questions. The internet is a 100mb connection, which i never mentioned before cause I really didn't assume the issue was there, although i guess nobody here knew that.
My cabling is all CAT 5e. With no run really exceeding 50-70m. All my wired connections seem to be fine, except one, which i suspect is a cabling issue since tests indicate it really only gets about 50-60mbits throughput even when its the only thing running on the network.
My network itself, is the asus router in the basement, connected to the 10/100 hub, which in turn connects to all my wired connections in the house. I have a windows server 2008 R2 machine that i use as my media server in the basement utility closet right beside the asus router which is plugged directly into the GB LAN port on the asus router. Testing shows that server has a full 1gb connection. I am only using one of the GB ports on the server rather than both teamed together since my network throughput does not necessitate using a teamed GB connection (that and the router can't really handle it anyways as you usually need a managed switch that can handle that type of connection). My house is 3 floors, with all my networking 'gear' and my server in the basement utility closet, and then the asus EA-N66 is on the third floor in the house, with a CAT5e connection directly into the AC-RT66U. I use it as an access point. I have the 2.4 and 5GHz radios on the AC-RT66U as separate networks, and run my sonos equipment, and wireless printer dedicated on the 2.4GHz network and any video game consoles and phones all connecting to the 5GHz network. I have my devices basically roam between the AC-RT66U and the EA-N66 since in the basement i can't connect to the EA-N66 and on the third floor of the house i can't get any signal from the AC-RT66U in the basement. Although i get connection issues on any and all of them and generally i will switch to whatever network lets me connect since switching networks seems to temporarily alleviate connection issues.
I have not checked the utilization on the router since i seem to have missed that option somewhere. I will double check it.

 

[thiggins]

My guess is too many wireless clients and not enough airspace to go around. And 11ac compatibility issues are probably mixed in.

How many other networks are in range?


What are the clients doing? Streaming, email, torrenting?


How many clients are N, how many G and how many AC?



How many connected to 2.4? How many to 5 GHz?

 

[riccochet]

Thanks for the help.

3 networks in range. all of them at minimal signal strength. I'm in a detached house, so the only networks i see are from my immediate neighbours.

Wireless clients are streaming (music mostly - the sonos, with some video youtube streaming once in a while on phones), web browsing, and checking email for the most part. I would say i might do a small torrent with it maybe once every 3 months... but its not a regular occurrence.

I'm honestly not sure which devices are on N, G, or AC. I believe the only AC device i have at this time is the samsung galaxy note 3. Everything else is N. The sonos system is supposed to use a proprietary wireless mesh system to connect to each other, but they do exist on my network, so i'm not sure what kind of traffic they generate or which connection type they use.

8 devices on the 2.4 GHz band, thats the sonos system and my printer.
at least 6 devices on the 5GHz band, which is computers and phones.

 

[coxhaus]

Since you have CAT5e in spec then I would buy a gig switch to replace your 100 meg hub. You might want to buy a CAT6 patch cable to attach the ASUS router to the switch.

I think you will need to play around with the wireless until you can figure out where the problem lies.

 

[riccochet]

Any suggestions on how to optimize my wireless settings or how to troubleshoot to narrow down the issues?

 

[coxhaus]

I think you will need to figure out how to recreate the wireless problem and what is causing it. Once you can create it then start changing things along those lines to see what helps. I think it going to be a trial and error kind of thing.

What if run the routers reversed do you have the same problem?

If it was me I would replace the hub first.

 

[PrivateJoker]

What if run the routers reversed do you have the same problem?

I don't believe he can, IIRC the EA-N66U just has one wired port on it.

If it was me I would replace the hub first.

I very much agree, I'd get that hub the heck out of there and replace with an unmanaged gig switch.

I don't own a Sonos, nor am I intimately familiar with their operation, (so take this worth a grain of salt) but if any of your Sonos devices can be easily hardwired, that might be a step worth looking into. I know you mentioned their proprietary mesh wifi that they use, so this may not be something you can even do. ... But in my own setup w/ several Airplay devices, I have all but one hardwired just because streaming audio/video/VOIP where it's essential for the packets to be in order is seemingly a kind of tall order for a network even when speeds are fast and stable over wifi.

So I concur w/ @coxhaus and say get a gig switch, for sure. I'm a little hesitant to offer this next thought b/c it's my anecdotal experience based on a sample size of one, but...I owned an EA-N66U for awhile and never was able to get it to perform well or reliably. I ended up swapping it out with another router in AP mode to do my cross-house network extending with much better results. If it were me and you were still having issues after swapping the hub for a gig E switch, I would swap the EA out with maybe an RT-N66U in AP mode, same SSIDs, different channels as the AC router.

You actually might want a mix of same SSIDs on one band (maybe 2.4ghz) and dissimilar on 5ghz. Even though you only have one AC device it might get confused seeing/handing off between an N SSID & an AC SSID with the same name.

Also make sure your settings are identical between APs for channel width (20mhz on 2.4ghz is usually best, and wide or 40mhz on 5ghz N), legacy tolerance (ie if you're including/excluding 802.11g clients on one, your other AP must do the same), that kind of stuff. I have one 802.11g 2.4ghz only, and no Ethernet port, airplay device that drove me a little crazy in tracking down what the erratic connectivity it was having - turned out to be dissimilar settings on 2.4ghz between my routers.

One last thing, it sounded like your AC router was in the basement, right? If it's possible to bring it up to the first floor (assuming you have more wifi clients on first floor than basement) you might be able to push more of the wifi burden onto it and away from the EA-N66 on the third floor.

When I wired my house (also have switch, patch panel, and all low voltage wiring terminate into a central area in basement), I ran a bundle of 5x Cat5e cables & 75ohm coax to two different corners of my first floor, so I could easily put router/s and/or modem in a better spot with less attenuation than the basement. That decision was made like half or 2/3rd of the way into my actual cable pulling, and I just ended up cutting the original single pulls and taping the 6 new wires on and pulling it up to the first floor. So it was like an hour-two of just re-pulling and punching new jacks, no extra fishing, etc, etc.

HTH!

 

[thiggins]

Any suggestions on how to optimize my wireless settings or how to troubleshoot to narrow down the issues?

There is no simple way. I would first shut down the Sonos because it is not 802.11 and could be being seen as an interference source.

Then you need to experiment and observe. Do the problems occur at certain times of day or with particular devices in use? 20 - 30 devices in a single AP is a lot. Do the problems occur when more devices are connected to one of the APs than the other?

Are all devices using WPA2/AES encryption?

G devices connect at 54Mbps maximum. If you have enough if them, set up a separate network for them.

You should also be using 20MHz bandwidth mode in 2.4 GHz.

And I agree to replace the hub with a switch. A hub sends all traffic to all ports, which reduces available bandwidth. A switch connects traffic only between the two devices that are communicating. So another experiment is to see if wireless problems correlate to high wired network activity.

 

[riccochet]

Thanks for all the advice.
I was also planning on ditching the hub as well, so this just reinforces the idea and spend some money on it.
I have been out the network game for a quite a while now however and i'm not really sure what switch i should be looking out for. Most of the gigabit switches i can find locally are all just dumb switches, little better than hubs. Not sure what the most cost effective route is. If you guys can suggest a good switch to look out for i would appreciate it.

I owned an EA-N66U for awhile and never was able to get it to perform well or reliably.

I agree with you here. This device hasn't really been as reliable as i wanted it to be. Coincidentally i actually started experiencing a lot of my issues when i started using this device. I say coincidentally since completely unplugging it and removing it from my network didn't appear to help. I really have no reason to keep it however and i will look at getting another device to replace it. You suggested getting the RT-N66U, which is a 802.11n device. For compatibility sake, should i be looking at getting another ac device instead or is there no real reason to do that?

Then you need to experiment and observe. Do the problems occur at certain times of day or with particular devices in use? 20 - 30 devices in a single AP is a lot. Do the problems occur when more devices are connected to one of the APs than the other?

There are times when the issue seems to be most persistant than others, but i can't find any pattern to it. It seems to be random. However, pretty much universally, the router and network is really quick and responsive after a router reboot. As for the number of devices connecting to each device, i can't really say. I have tried to get devices forced to use one or the other to measure that, however it didn't seem to make a very noticeable difference that i could see.

Are all devices using WPA2/AES encryption?

Yes. WPA2.

G devices connect at 54Mbps maximum. If you have enough if them, set up a separate network for them.

You should also be using 20MHz bandwidth mode in 2.4 GHz.

Thanks, i'll do this ASAP.

 

[thiggins]

Any unmanaged Gigabit switch will do. There are no significant performance differences. Buy on price and warranty.

Next time things get unstable, try shutting off wireless devices instead of rebooting. This could tell you whether the problem is related to wireless overload of the router.

Again, you have a LOT of wireless devices, many of which are placing constant loads (streaming) on the wireless. I would get another decent access point going and see if it helps. An N600 class router converted to an AP should be fine.

 

[remixedcat]

Is it a hub or a switch? hubs are older, slower, physical layer only devices where packets get shot everywhere and you're never gonna see rated speeds.

Best to get a managed switch, Use QoS on the routers, Use 20Mhz B/W if you're in a congested area, Use good security settings, turn uPNP off, Use higher powered adapters, etc... Also make sure the wireless device isn't close to a lot of metal objects and antennas are optimally positioned.

If possible use 5Ghz for as many devices as you can.

If possible use VLANs as well.

 

[riccochet]

It was a 16 port netgear prosafe "switch". Which is not actually a switch... just a hub with one or 2 more features. Although the feature list really doesn't seem to indicate there were more features than a hub.
I replaced it with a DLink EasySmart 24 port gigabit switch. Its not exactly a cisco 2960 but it is definitely better than any hub or dumb switch. Basic VLAN options and QoS abilities.
I'm still switching all my devices over to it however so i don't have a full report on whether my issues have been alleviated.
I replaced my EA-N66 with a RT-AC56U. I put the 2.4GHz band on 20MHz, and the 5.4 GHz band on 40MHz. Separate SSIDs for the 2.4 and 5 radios. I also restricted the 5GHz band to N and AC devices only. I think the only devices have that aren't at LEAST 11n are the sonos devices so that works out fine. Wireless seems to be much more stable if not exactly as fast as i would like. Seems to take some time to connect once i launch an app, but i don't seem to be getting the same instability i was getting.
I also noticed the number of clients connected to the routers decreased by about 10 so far. I'm assuming that this might be because the EA-N66 was running a separate SSID from the RT-AC66U, and was therefor registering a lot of clients twice, although i never saw duplicate mac addresses. Either way, so far this is a good start for me. Once the new switch has completely taken over from the hub, hopefully i can do more testing.