I have a QOS switch - my xbox360 still lags out...

[pap]

Bought a GS108T a year or so ago to try to solve the problem of lagging out when other people using other computers in the house. I have two xboxes and a number of other computers. What I =WANT= to do is make sure the xbox traffic (each wired on it's own port) gets full access to the internet and that packets going in and out are prioritized and done before anything else on the net.

It doesn't seem to be working. I've got them set to access priority 0 and others at 5 and above, but still I go to 1 bar when my daughter is watching streaming video or my computer starts running mozy, etc.

My questions are these:

1) Is there any way to do what I want?
2) Can I do it with the hardware I have (i.e. user setup error), and if now, what do I need to buy?
3) Several times in the last couple days we've just had sudden horrible drop in speed. I can't seem to find any way of actually tracking down WHAT is hogging the bandwidth at that point. It would seem a common question - is there a way to easily see what computers / processes are hogging the bandwidth on a local network?

Appreciate any responses, thank you very much.

 

[pap]

no reply thus far - one thing I've considered, I know switches are only managing traffic across it's own ports - my Airport Extreme is the actual router, which then goes to the cable modem.

Is it possible that the switch is not at all overwhelmed with LAN traffic but sending all upload requests through to the AE which then hangs on upload limits? If so, then do I need a router that supports QOS instead of the switch?

Very confusing stuff, still hoping for help - please!

 

[stevech]

Is it possible that the "drop in speed" is due to the Internet Service Provider OR the hosts on the Internet that you frequent?

As to prioritizing your XBox traffic over that of other LAN users:
Is your ISP speed good enough? (DSL versus cable modem)
You are not doing gaming via WiFi, right?

Then you need a router not a switch that supports QoS. The easiest is a router that uses port based or MAC address based prioritization, where the port or MAC is that of your gaming device.

Still, huge latency increases are probably not a QoS LAN prioritization issue.

 

[pap]

I'm on Time Warner / Road runner cable modem. Running ping/latency and bandwidth tests are routinely good and I never have any problems unless something else is being run on our network.

I just discovered the recent problem was a book editing software my wife was using which uploads large amounts of graphics in the background so whenever that process started, it would just destroy my upload speed which causes huge lag on the xbox. As soon as I exited the program, it was instantly back to normal. Same thing with Mozy - have to shut it off. What I want is for those things to work, but ONLY when extra upload bandwidth is available after my xbox is fed as it's very latency sensitive, and those other processes don't really care.

Since I'm on a cable modem, our upload speed is quite limited vs. download and vs. internal lan speed.

So a QOS switch like I have doesn't realize that the uploads are being held up "upstream" (at the router)?

Guess I might have to consider getting rid of my airport extreme, which I've been reluctant to do as I"m an all Mac household and it does integrate and work well since I've got several routers extending wireless network in my house (all apple products).

 

[pap]

I ordered a new router: Cisco/Linksys E4200 which has port and MAC based QOS. Hopefully this will solve my problem: will report back once I get it and get it installed. Sure wish Apple would put out a router with QOS as otherwise I've been very happy with their products.

 

[pap]

Well so far I have had resounding success with this solution. I was able to install the e4200 router easily (had to hook ethernet directly from my mac pro to the router rather than going through a switch to get it recognized, but otherwise very smooth), and they actually had mac supported software instead of dlink's pathetic PC only.

And even better - I was able to stream video and so far by setting the MAC of my xbox as high priority and enable QOS I've had an excellent connection despite everything else on the network.

In short, looks like I've solved my problem and I hope this may be useful to someone else.

In addition. I called time warner and getting upgraded to wideband 50/5 on monday, so that's 10x more upload speed which should help tremendously with our bottlenecks.

 

[stevech]

In addition. I called time warner and getting upgraded to wideband 50/5 on monday, so that's 10x more upload speed which should help tremendously with our bottlenecks.

I'm a TWC customer too- but you must be getting DOCSIS 3 (speeds); we don't have that yet. May I ask, what are they charging for this speed? My DOCSIS 2 is 20/1 per speedtest.net.

I think TWC uses burst speeds and speedtest.net needs to run the test for more seconds to see when TWC drops the burst speed to half. This is important only for big transfers; burst really helps get big fat web pages quickly.

 

[pap]

I'm on a package with cable modem/cable tv/and phone. I'm paying ~ 145/month now and it's going up to around 180 with taxes so it's about $35/month more to get the speed (I have turbo roadrunner now which I get about 15d/0.7 up)

 

[stevech]

How long have you had TWC's digital phone? How's the service been?
I've been through three VoIP (Internet based) companies and all were unsatisfactory though cheap. CableTV digital phone is rarely routed on the Internet (vs. say TWC's private IP network) and thus is more expensive but better. And they do truck rolls to fix it.

 

[pap]

maybe 2-3 years. We've only had maybe 2 episodes of loss of service, though we do have a generator and of course UPS for power outages. Overall I've noted no difference at all compared with "normal" phone - I certainly can't tell the difference in call quality.