Slow ping on 32 bit browsers, fast on 64 bit and phone

[Toddimus]

Hi,

First post here. I've been closely following RMerlin's firmware releases and I really like the 220.17 version! Haven't updated to the 220.18b version yet, but plan to soon.

Ok, now my issue...
Not sure this is really a router issue, but I thought you smart folks around here may be able to help. I'm thinking it could be a browser or maybe driver issue, but I just can't find anything when searching Google. Nobody seems to have this problem. A note is that this started before I switched from the "stock" ASUS firmware to RMerlin's firmware. I don't think the firmware is to blame.

The problem system:
I have an HP laptop running Win 7 Pro 64bit, with the Intel Ultimate N-6300 AGN wireless card. I'm within 20 feet of my router and connecting via a dedicated 5GHz wireless N connection with 40MHz width. Nobody else in the neighborhood has a 5GHz device, which is what makes it "dedicated".
Router is ASUS RT-N66U - RMerlin 3.0.0.4.220.17 firmware
ATT UVerse DSL 12Mbit down / 1Mbit up - does have some CRC errors on download, with 7.1dB SN Noise Margin

Recently (within the last month or so) only this laptop has suddenly had a huge increase in ping times when using 32 bit browsers. Browsing is noticeably more sluggish with Chrome and Firefox. I just happened to try IE9 64bit on the same laptop and it is still fast like the others used to be. Other computers and our iPhones are still just fine as well. I've tried the 2.4GHz band on the HP laptop, but the results are very similar.

Here's some data:

Speedtest.net results
HP laptop 5GHz (IE9 64bit) 35ms ping, 11.34Mbit down/0.95 Mbit up
HP laptop 5GHz (chrome 32bit) 101ms, 11.83/0.93 - noticeably more "bumpy" download speed
HP laptop 5GHz (firefox 32bit) 104ms, 11.34/0.92
2.4GHz Vista laptop (firefox 32bit) 39ms, 11.28/0.90
iPhone 4S (speedtest app) 33ms, 11.01/0.93

Pingtest.net results
HP laptop 5GHz (IE9 64bit) 23ms ping with 1ms jitter.
HP laptop 5GHz (chrome 32bit) 23ms ping with 1ms jitter.
HP laptop 5GHz (firefox 32bit) 23ms ping with 1ms jitter.

What really gets me is the fast ping measurements using the same laptop with the otherwise "slow" 32bit browsers.

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!!

 

[gewi]

Hi,

First post here. I've been closely following RMerlin's firmware releases and I really like the 220.17 version! Haven't updated to the 220.18b version yet, but plan to soon.

Ok, now my issue...
Not sure this is really a router issue, but I thought you smart folks around here may be able to help. I'm thinking it could be a browser or maybe driver issue, but I just can't find anything when searching Google. Nobody seems to have this problem. A note is that this started before I switched from the "stock" ASUS firmware to RMerlin's firmware. I don't think the firmware is to blame.

The problem system:
I have an HP laptop running Win 7 Pro 64bit, with the Intel Ultimate N-6300 AGN wireless card. I'm within 20 feet of my router and connecting via a dedicated 5GHz wireless N connection with 40MHz width. Nobody else in the neighborhood has a 5GHz device, which is what makes it "dedicated".
Router is ASUS RT-N66U - RMerlin 3.0.0.4.220.17 firmware
ATT UVerse DSL 12Mbit down / 1Mbit up - does have some CRC errors on download, with 7.1dB SN Noise Margin

Recently (within the last month or so) only this laptop has suddenly had a huge increase in ping times when using 32 bit browsers. Browsing is noticeably more sluggish with Chrome and Firefox. I just happened to try IE9 64bit on the same laptop and it is still fast like the others used to be. Other computers and our iPhones are still just fine as well. I've tried the 2.4GHz band on the HP laptop, but the results are very similar.

Here's some data:

Speedtest.net results
HP laptop 5GHz (IE9 64bit) 35ms ping, 11.34Mbit down/0.95 Mbit up
HP laptop 5GHz (chrome 32bit) 101ms, 11.83/0.93 - noticeably more "bumpy" download speed
HP laptop 5GHz (firefox 32bit) 104ms, 11.34/0.92
2.4GHz Vista laptop (firefox 32bit) 39ms, 11.28/0.90
iPhone 4S (speedtest app) 33ms, 11.01/0.93

Pingtest.net results
HP laptop 5GHz (IE9 64bit) 23ms ping with 1ms jitter.
HP laptop 5GHz (chrome 32bit) 23ms ping with 1ms jitter.
HP laptop 5GHz (firefox 32bit) 23ms ping with 1ms jitter.

What really gets me is the fast ping measurements using the same laptop with the otherwise "slow" 32bit browsers.

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!!

Hi Toddimus,

I have a performance/delay problem especially with IE9 on a Win7 prof. 32bit Fujitsu P7935 machines (4 pcs)- since those IE- security patches in the last two weeks.

With Opera12 everything's fine - but for some reasons we have to use IE.

The real weird thing is that on other machines Fujitsu E7935, HP, Acer etc. Win7 prof. 64bit or 32bit IE9 runs fine!?!

Maybe there's something coming around that corner...driver related..i will have a look.

Best regards

Gerd

 

[RMerlin]

If it only happens with the 32-bit browser, then there's a good chance it's related to an add-in or a toolbar (since they are separate from the 64-bit install of the browser). Go to IE's Addon Manager, try disabling them, and restart your browser.

 

[Toddimus]

RMerlin,
Thanks for the ideas. I did track it down... it turned out to be one of the startup programs for Windows 7. Once I disabled "visicom_antiphishing.exe", the ping went back to 25-35ms on all browsers after I had also disabled the Norton toolbar, which was adding an additional ~10-15ms to the browser's response time.

I looked up visicom_antiphishing.exe on google and it seems that it could be legitimate, but it can also be a virus. Supposedly, it's from Panda Antivirus company, but I have a Norton suite taking care of the "internet security". I never downloaded the visicom application so I bet it is a virus.

So... case closed! Thanks for your help! I'm happy and relatively fast again.
Cheers

p.s. I did update to the 220.18b firmware last night and I like it! Thanks RMerlin.

 

[tamalero]

id honestly recommend you to get rid of Norton..
along McAfee, its the worst piece of "security" out there.

 

[Pierino]

I agree, I uninstall norton on all of my friends new pc setup and install AVG. norton is a resource hog.

 

[RMerlin]

Norton products have actually improved a lot since they redesigned it from scratch a few years ago. We started selling Norton Antivirus again to our home customers (while going with NOD32 for corporate customers). Just make sure you only get the antivirus, and not one of their suites like Internet Security or 360.

Over the past few years I evaluated quite a few competitive products when looking for a product to sell to our customers, and to be honest, the competition mostly blows. Panda's uninstaller failed to uninstall itself 20 mins after I had installed it on a test machine. Kasperski found no less than two false positive within the first 10 mins of use while using it on its default settings (including the totally harmless password manager I had been using for years). AVG is slowly turning to bloat (AVG is a bigger resource hog than NAV these days). McAfee has been unreliable since the WinXP days. Bitdefender was a system hog for the two customers of mine who had installed it in recent years. And after selling Trendmicro products for years (I was even a member of their PUG betatesting group for a few years), we dropped them as their detection rate and software reliability has been dropping.

Anyway, sorry for the sidetrack.

 

[Gitsum]

Merlin, did you ever try the free Microsoft anti-virus?

 

[RMerlin]

Merlin, did you ever try the free Microsoft anti-virus?

Yes, I install it on customer's systems when they don't want to spend 30$ on a commercial antivirus. It's a very basic protection, I recommend people spend a bit on a commercial solution instead if they want adequate protection.

A few days ago I was reading an independent analysis, and Microsoft Security Essentials was at the bottom of their chart in terms of detection or resilience to tampering:

http://dennistechnologylabs.com/reports/s/a-m/2012/

Would have been interesting to see how it compared to Avast or Avira tho, two other popular free solutions. MSSE was the only free product evaluated by this review.

The biggest problem with MSSE is it relies heavily on signatures. Modern malware can very easily work around signatures. A reliable security solution needs to rely heavily on heuristic and cloud-based reputation analysis.