R7000 Tomato Random sluggishness

[hyelton]

So I have a brand new R7000, loaded with lastest tomato etc. Pages most of the time load quickly but sometimes it takes it an extra second or few to load than normal. Same goes with streaming videos like Youtube or twitch, yes a few seconds are not much, but on my R6250 running DD-WRT or stock those streams load instantly as with the R7000 it does not, Wired & Wireless. I just hate having to pull down the network to test stock firmware and I would had went with DD-WRT but I've never got wireless to work correctly on DD-WRT.

My ISP is not the best but ping/Latency has always been low and amazing and still is, but for whatever reason pages load like ping is 200ms+ while the average ping on most sites on my connection is under 50ms and sometimes 10-15ms like Google and Youtube.

 

[L&LD]

Turn off all your network infrastructure (modem, router and switches if any).

Leave them off for at least an hour.

Plug in the modem and wait 5 minutes.

Plug in the router and wait 5 minutes.

Plug in the switches and turn on your (wired) devices.

Is the issue resolved?

 

[hyelton]

Turn off all your network infrastructure (modem, router and switches if any).

Leave them off for at least an hour.

Plug in the modem and wait 5 minutes.

Plug in the router and wait 5 minutes.

Plug in the switches and turn on your (wired) devices.

Is the issue resolved?

Wait what? LOL. Im not that of a network noob. Issue is ONLY with this router, no problems streaming and pages load instantly 100% of the time on the R6250

 

[RMerlin]

Check your DNS settings - those are the most common cause for delayed content loading.

 

[hyelton]

Check your DNS settings - those are the most common cause for delayed content loading.

Good idea! But using the same ole google DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 Ping to those IP's with my ISP have always been under 15ms on avg. Its very strange and annoying. Pages do seem fine mostly, its just more of a concern with YouTube loading/buffering. Any Tomato settings to check? I do have QoS enabled but only changed upload settings as I do not need download QoS

 

[RMerlin]

Good idea! But using the same ole google DNS 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 Ping to those IP's with my ISP have always been under 15ms on avg. Its very strange and annoying. Pages do seem fine mostly, its just more of a concern with YouTube loading/buffering. Any Tomato settings to check? I do have QoS enabled but only changed upload settings as I do not need download QoS

Don't use the Google DNS unless you have a very good reason to. Using your ISP's means that you will be directed to a closer Youtube server for instance than the generic one provided by 8.8.8.8.

Ping time to a DNS is meaningless as you only send one single query, and it gets cached. What matters is that the DNS points you to the best server for your specific location.

 

[hyelton]

Don't use the Google DNS unless you have a very good reason to. Using your ISP's means that you will be directed to a closer Youtube server for instance than the generic one provided by 8.8.8.8.

Ping time to a DNS is meaningless as you only send one single query, and it gets cached. What matters is that the DNS points you to the best server for your specific location.

Actually my ISP's default DNS is also Google's as well. I just always manually set them. Should I try openDNS? I used to use them

 

[RMerlin]

Actually my ISP's default DNS is also Google's as well. I just always manually set them. Should I try openDNS? I used to use them

If your ISP doesn't offer their own DNS servers, then Google's DNS should be good enough. I doubt OpenDNS would make any real difference there, might be worth a shot just in case.

 

[Nullity]

Don't use the Google DNS unless you have a very good reason to. Using your ISP's means that you will be directed to a closer Youtube server for instance than the generic one provided by 8.8.8.8.

Ping time to a DNS is meaningless as you only send one single query, and it gets cached. What matters is that the DNS points you to the best server for your specific location.

Is it so simple?

Google has DNS servers in many dozens of locales. For me, my ISP's DNS is ~600 miles away vs Google's at less than 100 miles (as the crow flies). Latency is ~2x better and DNS responses are better than 2x, especially with requests that are not cached, when Google is used.

 

[RMerlin]

Is it so simple?

Google has DNS servers in many dozens of locales. For me, my ISP's DNS is ~600 miles away vs Google's at less than 100 miles (as the crow flies). Latency is ~2x better and DNS responses are better than 2x, especially with requests that are not cached, when Google is used.

Unless you are prepared to do a whole bunch of lookups to compare the CDN endpoints of multiple providers and see how they differ between your ISP's DNS and a public one, sticking with your ISP remains the safest bet. It won't be the best 100% of the time, but the vast majority of time it will be.

A lot of ISPs have content caches located directly on their networks for Youtube and Netflix, for starters. This can make a major difference in streaming performance.

BTW, it's not about physical location, but about network location. That DNS server downstreet might be going through an IX located three states away before coming back to you. It's all about peering.

 

[RMerlin]

Those people creating those useless "DNS benchmark tools" should consider making them compare the results of looking up various large CDNs instead of meaningless ping times to the nameservers and time-to-resolve... And then traceroute those CDN endpoints. That would be actually useful for a change... As I always say, you only do one single lookup (which then gets cached locally), but the video you will stream afterward will run for many minutes, if not hours. The 10 ms you save on that one lookup is meaningless compared to a video stream that starts buffering every 5 minutes.

 

[Nullity]

Unless you are prepared to do a whole bunch of lookups to compare the CDN endpoints of multiple providers and see how they differ between your ISP's DNS and a public one, sticking with your ISP remains the safest bet. It won't be the best 100% of the time, but the vast majority of time it will be.

A lot of ISPs have content caches located directly on their networks for Youtube and Netflix, for starters. This can make a major difference in streaming performance.

BTW, it's not about physical location, but about network location. That DNS server downstreet might be going through an IX located three states away before coming back to you. It's all about peering.

Streaming performance is mostly a bandwidth problem, rather than a latency problem. Right?

How vital is latency for streaming? Not-so-much, from my perspective. Netflix ranks by bandwidth, not latency.

(IX = internet exchange?)

 

[hyelton]

Unless you are prepared to do a whole bunch of lookups to compare the CDN endpoints of multiple providers and see how they differ between your ISP's DNS and a public one, sticking with your ISP remains the safest bet. It won't be the best 100% of the time, but the vast majority of time it will be.

A lot of ISPs have content caches located directly on their networks for Youtube and Netflix, for starters. This can make a major difference in streaming performance.

BTW, it's not about physical location, but about network location. That DNS server downstreet might be going through an IX located three states away before coming back to you. It's all about peering.

Not my ISP lol, Unless Charter does and gives it to us? My ISP is not charter but the tracert shows it hits my local office (Private IP) then the next hop is always Charter which is where the internet comes from. But Google DNS is passed on by default.

 

[RMerlin]

Streaming performance is mostly a bandwidth problem, rather than a latency problem. Right?

How vital is latency for streaming? Not-so-much, from my perspective. Netflix ranks by bandwidth, not latency.

If you stream from across the planet, there's no telling as to what bottleneck you will get routed through.

(IX = internet exchange?)

Correct.

 

[Nullity]

If you stream from across the planet, there's no telling as to what bottleneck you will get routed through.

Considering Google's DNS locations, is the threat of "across the planet" streaming a legitimate concern? I am genuinely interested, because I understand approximately 7% of the global DNS infrastructure.

No offense intended, but when Google advocates a certain tech (rather than a product), I listen with embarassingly biased ears...

 

[RMerlin]

Considering Google's DNS locations, is the threat of "across the planet" streaming a legitimate concern? I am genuinely interested, because I understand approximately 7% of the global DNS infrastructure.

No offense intended, but when Google advocates a certain tech (rather than a product), I listen with embarassingly biased ears...

Someone did the actual legwork and tested it:

http://www.cdnplanet.com/blog/real-world-cdn-performance-googledns-opendns-users/

I haven't had the time to read all three articles yet, but it looks very interesting.