Not sure what to do!?!?

[kevlarkevlar]

Hello all,
I started having issues after Christmas with my network. Here is what I have connected to my network:
5 roku's, 4 bluerays, 6 laptops, 2 desktops, 3 ipads, 1 ipod, 3 android tablets, 4 cells phones, x-box 360, and playstation 3.
30 totals devices, 9 of which are streaming mostly at the same time(either music or video). I have a Netgear WNDR4500v2 and have Comcast 50 Mbps with a Cisco Docsis 3 modem. I have assigned each of the devices there own IP through the router so I don't have any IP conflict issues. I feel as though the firehose throughput I had is now trickled down to cocktail straw. Any advice on how to get the fast throughput back on our devices? -- Kevlar

 

[thiggins]

When did the trickle start? HD Netflix / VUDU streams take a good 5 Mbps each. X9 is 45 Mbps. So you are pretty close to saturating your downlink bandwidth.

 

[kevlarkevlar]

It stated just after Christmas when we added 3 cell phones, 3 tablets, a laptop and 2 blue rays. Would an upgraded router help? BTW...what did you mean by "x9 is 45Mbps"?

 

[sinshiva]

he means a netflix stream is typically 5mbit x9 = 45mbit

also, i think netflix scales up as far as 10mbit for 1080p. you may need to work on getting QoS setup.

i've had the greatest success with my QoS setup like thus;

qos ports
qos priorities

obviously this wont let you run 100 1080p netflix streams, but this keeps my network snappy no matter what's going on

 

[thiggins]

You are most likely trying to suck too much bandwidth out of your Internet pipe. Nothing is going to help with that aside from a larger pipe.

I meant 5Mbps/stream x 9 streams = 45 Mbps.

There is also a chance you are running out of wireless bandwidth. A quick way to test that is to add an inexpensive N600 class router, set it up as an access point on a different channel than the main router using 1,6,11 and
move some devices to the second AP.

 

[thiggins]

For a large number of the same streaming application with no buffering, QoS isn't going to help. It can't create bandwidth, only manage / prioritize it.

 

[sinshiva]

lol, he's not even using an asus router, whoops. as far as qos goes, i was only trying to help him prevent everything else from crawling while streaming, wasn't implying magical gains in bandwidth specifically, what i meant was that i found dns hanging to be a major contributing factor to network slowness while streaming. by prioritizing dns highest, i went from waiting quite a few seconds for pages to load while netflix was blowing up my connection, to no waiting at all.

[edit/] also, i found that i got better torrent performance by not adding it to the qos list. i assumed that by default all traffic runs at the equivalent of a medium priority, or something like medium when undefined. when i tried to add torrents to QoS, it just slaughtered my latency for everything else. now i get virtually the same latencies in games while torrenting at my full down bandwidth as if it wasn't even there

 

[thiggins]

Now that's what I like. Clear simple description of what helped. Those are two great tips, especially the DNS prioritization.

 

[sinshiva]

haha, too true. sorry, i spend a lot of my days running on fumes, but i try

 

[kevlarkevlar]

Sorry in advance but I am a wireless network newb. I come from the wired age. What is the difference between a RE and a AP? I have a couple netgear 2000 RE's. I have not used them. Also, I have always used Netgear but grew up with Asus when building computers and I have 2 Asus laptops. I have been looking at the Asus RT-AC68R but I'm having a hard time justifying the price as I do not have anything that would hook up to AC...Just N. But maybe as an N router it is worth the upgrade. Thoughts? Also, on my existing router, how do I use the 5Ghtz? Does my current laptops and the capabilities of using that freq?

Sinshiva suggested the Qos and I logged into my router but it seems quite limited on functionality or I just don't know what I am doing....my guess is it is more of the later being true.

I used NetSurveyor and I changed from channel 6 to channel 3



I have opened up netstress but have no idea how to use it or if it would be at all helpful.

 

[RogerSC]

Sorry in advance but I am a wireless network newb. I come from the wired age. What is the difference between a RE and a AP? I have a couple netgear 2000 RE's. I have not used them. Also, I have always used Netgear but grew up with Asus when building computers and I have 2 Asus laptops. I have been looking at the Asus RT-AC68R but I'm having a hard time justifying the price as I do not have anything that would hook up to AC...Just N. But maybe as an N router it is worth the upgrade. Thoughts? Also, on my existing router, how do I use the 5Ghtz? Does my current laptops and the capabilities of using that freq?

Sinshiva suggested the Qos and I logged into my router but it seems quite limited on functionality or I just don't know what I am doing....my guess is it is more of the later being true.

I used NetSurveyor and I changed from channel 6 to channel 3

View attachment 1790

I have opened up netstress but have no idea how to use it or if it would be at all helpful.

An "RE" (Range Expander, I assume) usually operates like a repeater, and is wirelessly connected to the main router. As a result, you get 1/2 the wireless speed that's coming into it available to clients; e.g. if it is wirelessly connected to a 50Mbps source, then the wireless clients of the RE will have a maximum of 25Mbps available to them. If you're planning on using the bandwidth for streaming, a 50% cut is not going to help you.

An Access Point (AP) is connected to the main router via an ethernet cable (or powerline networking or MoCA *smile), and its wireless clients have the full bandwidth of the ethernet coming into the AP; e.g. if you've got an AP connected to a 50Mbps ethernet source, then the wireless clients of the AP will have the full 50Mbps available to them.

So, from a bandwidth utilization/throughput point of view, an AP is twice as good as an RE, and is the way that I would go, personally.

As far as routers go, if you're happy with wireless-n, I'd go with an Asus RT-N66U if you need a new router, which has excellent wireless coverage and full 450Mbps per band max wireless-n speed capability. Moving up to wireless-ac is a much more expensive proposition, and will give you very little more (if any) wireless-n coverage at your house. I have an RT-N66U that I'm very happy with, best wireless coverage I've had here.

 

[sinshiva]

hey, you probably don't need to upgrade your router unless you plan to go all in for AC. can you post a screenshot of the qos page? it may be that you need to install dd-wrt firmware on it to get more functionality, but we shall see.

it sounds like your 'RE' devices are wireless repeaters, which are used to rebroadcast your main router's wireless

[edit/] ah, guess i was late to the party

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
Must have a pretty big family. Empty nester like us will never get into those situations,
LOL!

 

[kevlarkevlar]

Yes it is. 10 people in the house...all tech'ed up.

 

[kevlarkevlar]

hey, you probably don't need to upgrade your router unless you plan to go all in for AC. can you post a screenshot of the qos page? it may be that you need to install dd-wrt firmware on it to get more functionality, but we shall see.

it sounds like your 'RE' devices are wireless repeaters, which are used to rebroadcast your main router's wireless

[edit/] ah, guess i was late to the party

Here are screenshots...thank you!!!

 

[stevech]

Yes it is. 10 people in the house...all tech'ed up.

Pool money.
Tax kids.
Buy more bandwidth from ISP, or buy a router with bandwidth policy per user (MAC) or by connection type. This is not "QoS". SOHO class routers have (usually) "traffic shaping" capability, e.g., all the Cradlepoints, some of the SOHO class from Cisco, etc.

 

[sinshiva]

that many people on a personal/private network probably needs 50-100% more bandwidth than what you're getting from your provider lol. i really need around twice what i got (10mbit) for the 3 under my roof, too (including myself)

high res displays that are only getting higher have pretty much guaranteed that most peoples' connections are on the way to being marginalized into the modern equivalent of 56k. the only reason i'm doing ok with 10mbit is that i only use the computer for light browsing and gaming, leaving everyone else to soak up the bandwidth for netflix and whatnot. surprisingly enough, i've spent the majority of my free time over the last year absorbing ebooks lol. most of my posts made on this forum are via my trusty old samsung epic 4g because my back isn't in very good shape causing me to have trouble sitting at a desk for very long; sucks.

[edit/] just noticed your screens, i'll take a look at em in a few, gotta run an errand, sorry

 

[sinshiva]

sorry, i crashed hard when i got home, had been a wake for a couple days.

delete all your QoS rules

add these ports individually;

53 - highest
3074 - highest
3478 - highest
3479 - highest
3480 - highest
3658 - highest
3659 - highest
80 - high
443 - high

see where that gets you.

[edit/]

check 'turn qos internet service on' after

 

[kevlarkevlar]

sorry, i crashed hard when i got home, had been a wake for a couple days.

delete all your QoS rules

add these ports individually;

53 - highest
3074 - highest
3478 - highest
3479 - highest
3480 - highest
3658 - highest
3659 - highest
80 - high
443 - high

see where that gets you.

[edit/]

check 'turn qos internet service on' after

I'll try this tonight...I'll let you know!

Thank you!!

 

[kevlarkevlar]

That seemed to work good. I can tell more on my laptop. The big test will be next weekend when everyone is here at once.

I think I will also add an AP. I could use opinions on these:

For the AP:

Ubiquiti PicoStation M2HP 2.4GHz 802.11g/n High Power Access Point vs. Ubiquiti UniFi AP Enterprise WiFi System Long Range

For the router:

TP-LINK TL-R860 Advanced 8-Port Cable/DSL Router, 1 WAN Port, 8 LAN Ports

For powerline:

TP-LINK TL-PA4010KIT AV500 Nano Powerline Adapter Starter Kit, up to 500Mbps

Any thoughts?

Thank you!!