Will upgrading my router result in meaningfully better handling of high thread networking?

[ghost02]

Hi everyone,

I've been using an AC88U but I've noticed that the CPU suffers when I do anything that requires a lot of simultaneous threads.

I noticed this when I was downloading Linux distros using the Transmission torrent client. The default number of connections is 200. When downloading at the default it would download at half my line speed (I have a gigabit line) and the internet would become unusable for any other device on the network.

I lowered the maximum number of connections to 80 and the CPU usage was still pinned for one of the 2 cores on the CPU but the download speed actually went up to as close as I would expect to my line speed (over 100MB/s).

My question is, if I upgrade to something like the GT-AX6000 would I be able to get closer to 200 concurrent threads? I see it has a quad core instead of a dual core and is clocked quite a bit higher.

I did turn off QoS and traffic monitor to try save on CPU usage. My NAT is set to auto (CTF (Cut Through Forwarding) is enabled.)

 

[Tech Junky]

Don't use your ROUTER to be a torrent server. It's not meant to do that even though the idiots put the option in the firmware.

 

[ghost02]

Don't use your ROUTER to be a torrent server. It's not meant to do that even though the idiots put the option in the firmware.

Sorry, I should have clarified. The torrent client is running on my Ubuntu server connected to my router via Ethernet. I’m not running torrent clients or vpn clients on my router.

The CPU usage on the router goes up when the torrent client on my server creates all those connections.

 

[ColinTaylor]

I did turn off QoS and traffic monitor to try save on CPU usage. My NAT is set to auto (CTF (Cut Through Forwarding) is enabled.)

CTF doesn't work for UDP traffic. If your BitTorrent client is using μTP the router's CPU will be restricting the throughput. I used to turn off μTP on my BitTorrent client and it improved things.

The HND class routers don't suffer from this problem because they don't use CTF.

 

[Tech Junky]

The torrent client is running on my Ubuntu server

That's proper as is mine. Maybe it's the client you're using. I use qbitorrent in a headless fashion since my server is my router. Then again it could just be the Asus that's limiting things assuming the VPN speed is decent form their server.

 

[ghost02]

CTF doesn't work for UDP traffic. If your BitTorrent client is using μTP the router's CPU will be restricting the throughput. I used to turn off μTP on my BitTorrent client and it improved things.

The HND class routers don't suffer from this problem because they don't use CTF.

Thank you, I’ve just double checked and uTP is definitely turned off.

Do HND routers do hardware NAT differently to pre HND routers?

 

[ghost02]

That's proper as is mine. Maybe it's the client you're using. I use qbitorrent in a headless fashion since my server is my router. Then again it could just be the Asus that's limiting things assuming the VPN speed is decent form their server.

Speeds isn’t as much of an issue as it is the connections pinning one of the cores.

The screenshot is what happens if I let the torrent client hit 200 max connections.

I could always just run with less connections but it’s making me feel that the compute power on my AC88U isn’t quite up to scratch for a gigabit line and the rest of my home traffic flowing through it.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Do HND routers do hardware NAT differently to pre HND routers?

Yes they use a completely different technology called Flow Cache.

SSH into the router and run top to see which process is consuming the most CPU. (If it's purely network IO it probably won't show up as a process)

 

[Tech Junky]

Speeds isn’t as much of an issue as it is the connections pinning one of the cores.

That's the problem with consumer gear. They're fine until you actually try to push them to do what they're supposed to do.

I got sick of this trickery years ago and made my own with a PC / Linux instead.

The number of flows shouldn't be impacting the CPU like that from remote devices though. It's basic traffic as far as most routers are concerned and should work w/o issue but, Asus tends to have issues. I had an Asus long ago and hooked it up to a 1GE connection and it fell on its face and only could hit 300mbps. Switched to a Netgear and that was able to use all of the BW w/o n issue. But, as time went on I got sick of the constant FW updates being pushed and breaking things.

Moving up to a SMB router should fix most of this if you want a prepackaged router vs building your own. Getting a simple wired router even should have more resources than this stuff and then just throw an AP onto it for better wifi coverage. Right now the best solution can get you up to 1.5gbps over wifi and with BE coming soon that doubles as one tester got up to 3.8gbps using a Deco + OP11 for iperf testing. The problem right now is there's no client cards for BE for PC / laptop upgrades.

 

[sfx2000]

I noticed this when I was downloading Linux distros using the Transmission torrent client. The default number of connections is 200. When downloading at the default it would download at half my line speed (I have a gigabit line) and the internet would become unusable for any other device on the network.

I lowered the maximum number of connections to 80 and the CPU usage was still pinned for one of the 2 cores on the CPU but the download speed actually went up to as close as I would expect to my line speed (over 100MB/s).

Take a close look at your torrent settings - even with something like the Ubuntu torrent - there's basically a handful of peers that are actually contributing good bandwidth...

It's also about throttling the download, as torrent should really be background traffic, not primary...

Everyone will be different, but it's really down to making the most of the available resources, and this is mostly client driven, not based on the router.

 

[drinkingbird]

Hi everyone,

I've been using an AC88U but I've noticed that the CPU suffers when I do anything that requires a lot of simultaneous threads.

I noticed this when I was downloading Linux distros using the Transmission torrent client. The default number of connections is 200. When downloading at the default it would download at half my line speed (I have a gigabit line) and the internet would become unusable for any other device on the network.

I lowered the maximum number of connections to 80 and the CPU usage was still pinned for one of the 2 cores on the CPU but the download speed actually went up to as close as I would expect to my line speed (over 100MB/s).

My question is, if I upgrade to something like the GT-AX6000 would I be able to get closer to 200 concurrent threads? I see it has a quad core instead of a dual core and is clocked quite a bit higher.

I did turn off QoS and traffic monitor to try save on CPU usage. My NAT is set to auto (CTF (Cut Through Forwarding) is enabled.)

Have you disabled all AiProtection (withdraw your consent), ensure traffic statistics are disabled, etc? Basically all addons will severely impact you when your connection count is high.

 

[ghost02]

That's the problem with consumer gear. They're fine until you actually try to push them to do what they're supposed to do.

I got sick of this trickery years ago and made my own with a PC / Linux instead.

The number of flows shouldn't be impacting the CPU like that from remote devices though. It's basic traffic as far as most routers are concerned and should work w/o issue but, Asus tends to have issues. I had an Asus long ago and hooked it up to a 1GE connection and it fell on its face and only could hit 300mbps. Switched to a Netgear and that was able to use all of the BW w/o n issue. But, as time went on I got sick of the constant FW updates being pushed and breaking things.

Moving up to a SMB router should fix most of this if you want a prepackaged router vs building your own. Getting a simple wired router even should have more resources than this stuff and then just throw an AP onto it for better wifi coverage. Right now the best solution can get you up to 1.5gbps over wifi and with BE coming soon that doubles as one tester got up to 3.8gbps using a Deco + OP11 for iperf testing. The problem right now is there's no client cards for BE for PC / laptop upgrades.

I was hoping I could get another ASUS router to do the work and use my current one for AImesh. I also like their really simple DDNS.

Take a close look at your torrent settings - even with something like the Ubuntu torrent - there's basically a handful of peers that are actually contributing good bandwidth...


View attachment 50330

It's also about throttling the download, as torrent should really be background traffic, not primary...

Everyone will be different, but it's really down to making the most of the available resources, and this is mostly client driven, not based on the router.

Tweaking the settings in the torrent client did help. I just expected the router to be able to handle the defaults and was curious if a newer and more powerful router would do better.

Have you disabled all AiProtection (withdraw your consent), ensure traffic statistics are disabled, etc? Basically all addons will severely impact you when your connection count is high.

Everything is disabled including AI protection in the GUI but I haven’t withdrawn consent, I’ll try that and see how that impacts overheads.

Yes they use a completely different technology called Flow Cache.

SSH into the router and run top to see which process is consuming the most CPU. (If it's purely network IO it probably won't show up as a process)

Thanks, I’ll start up some downloads with many threads and run top.

 

[degrub]

you will need to reboot after withdrawing consent, possibly factory reset and manual configure based on other threads here.

 

[ghost02]

you will need to reboot after withdrawing consent, possibly factory reset and manual configure based on other threads here.

Thanks, I will still do that.

In the meantime installed the latest Merlin firmware on the router and it looks like I get hit the default number of threads easily now. Maybe somewhere between the new firmware and hard reset a service either stopped eating the CPU or the hardware NAT started working correctly.

As I understand it hardware NAT acceleration turns off a bunch of features such as network monitoring and QoS. I'm fine with those disabled at the moment.

Would the GT-AX6000 also require me to turn off most of it's features to make full use of a Gigabit line? There is a decent special on one at a local store and having WIFI 6 would be nice and I would like to be able to put my AC88U as an AI mesh node to control some smart devices I have in my garage which currently has spotty coverage.

 

[sfx2000]

I was hoping I could get another ASUS router to do the work and use my current one for AImesh. I also like their really simple DDNS.

Still can, but it likely won't change the torrent situation...

The additional WiFi coverage is a good enough reason to add a node in...

 

[sfx2000]

Tweaking the settings in the torrent client did help. I just expected the router to be able to handle the defaults and was curious if a newer and more powerful router would do better.

Maybe - but at the same time, even an older AC68U can handle 20 connections over torrent...

 

[drinkingbird]

Thanks, I will still do that.

In the meantime installed the latest Merlin firmware on the router and it looks like I get hit the default number of threads easily now. Maybe somewhere between the new firmware and hard reset a service either stopped eating the CPU or the hardware NAT started working correctly.

As I understand it hardware NAT acceleration turns off a bunch of features such as network monitoring and QoS. I'm fine with those disabled at the moment.

Would the GT-AX6000 also require me to turn off most of it's features to make full use of a Gigabit line? There is a decent special on one at a local store and having WIFI 6 would be nice and I would like to be able to put my AC88U as an AI mesh node to control some smart devices I have in my garage which currently has spotty coverage.

Unfortunately there is no cut and dry answer, as you enable features, you lose throughput, and it will vary with simultaneous sessions, new connections per second, packet size, etc. A more powerful router should get you better performance but it may not be a massive difference as all these routers tend to use one CPU core for routing so the speed of the core becomes more important than the number of cores.