What could be slowing down my DSL?

ClutchClutch North Carolina New
edited April 2004 in Science & Tech
Okay so here is the situation. I have a D-Link 4 port router. I just got it about 5 months ago. I replaced my old SMC router because I thought it was slowing down my internet. Well I'm having the same problem with this router now. I mean the first port has already went dead on me so it is a 3 port router.

I have the family computer, my main comptuer, and IC13 on the network. I tested my line speed on my ISP's website and I got 150kb/s which is low to me.

I could get DSl from the ISP that I work for, but I'm tied up into a 1 yr contract :rolleyes:

Could it be my router that is slowing down my connection again? This is getting to the best of me because I can't play any games because I ping to high.

If it is my router, what is a good solid router that I can buy? I have went through a SMC router and now this D-link.

Comments

  • EgoShowcaseEgoShowcase North Carolina
    edited April 2004
    Your isp. It sucks. ANd also old phone lines. But ive told you that already
  • TBonZTBonZ Ottawa, ON Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    How often do you reset your DSL modem, sometimes you can improve performance just by turning it off. Give it 30 secs. and cycle it back on.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited April 2004
    EgoShowcase wrote:
    Your isp. It sucks. ANd also old phone lines. But ive told you that already


    ;D You aren't even supposed to be home, go out and do something, get out of my thread bud, haha

    *BTW* he is my best friend guys, so we can talk shiznit to each other.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited April 2004
    BUMP:

    I have reset the modem, still no luck. I tested my speed with the speed test for my ISP and got 140kbs which DSL they have listed as starting at 200kbs.

    Anyone have a router they prefer over other brands?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited April 2004
    Clutch wrote:
    ...Anyone have a router they prefer over other brands?
    I have had great luck with several Linksys BEFSR41 routers. My dad has a GigaFast which is OK, but often needs everything reset if it loses power. Day in and day out it works quite well.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited April 2004
    I'm thinking either netgear or linksys is my choice to go with. Anyone with any netgear products on the forums?
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited April 2004
    If you are experiencing the same problem using two different routers, I'd wager that the problem is not with the router. Routers don't really "slow down", they either work or fail, there is not a lot of middle ground.

    I'd say your problem could be line related. I'd suggest you call the ISP and get them to do load tests on your lines and see if they can pinpoint the problem.

    Dexter...
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    They need to do a new "whoosh" test on your phone line to confirm you have a clean run to the DSLAM in your local exchange. Then if that comes back clean, they will probably investigate the line card.

    Does your ISP support routing equipment on the customer end? Chances are they don't. so grab a PCI/USB DSL modem that you can attach to your primary machine for when they visit you. (you can also do your own tests at the same time to confirm it's not the router slowing you down).

    Do you use PPPoA or PPPoE (Im assuming PPPoE as you are US)?

    You will probably find yourself going back and forth to the phone company and then the ISP. I don't think it's phone line problem or a router problem. This sounds more like a contention issue.

    Remember, DSL is supposed to have a contention of 50/1, if it wasn't slow before.. Id wager that your ISP has signed a few more customers on.. and that contention has risen above that reputed 50/1.. and they have a few bandwidth hogs (24/7 P2P users) connected to the same circuit at the exchange.
  • pcscustompcscustom Oklahoma
    edited April 2004
    Heh, i had this same problem with sbc.. My modem was killing my ethernet adapters. In one month i went threw 3. They sent me out a new speedstream and worked fine after that.. May be worth checkin out

    Trev
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    Clutch wrote:
    BUMP:

    I have reset the modem, still no luck. I tested my speed with the speed test for my ISP and got 140kbs which DSL they have listed as starting at 200kbs.

    Anyone have a router they prefer over other brands?

    Ok, there are some speed difference things and some router balancing things that can effect this some. If you have an old or a couple older computers hooked up to a small router, and SPI is on, the router allocates bandwidth to computer by port connected equally. The computers that are slower can get an excess allocation. For my router, turning off SPI is now default, as some boxes are rarely online.

    Second issue-- if you have a couple computers that are using 10 Mbit NICs and one that is using a 100 MBit NIC and SPI is on, the links if the router uses SPI by average of available in over active connected ports to do SPI, will get equal incoming allocations.

    Test with just one box connected to router, the fastest box with fastest NIC. See what your throughput looks like now. If still way low, go to the line provider and tell them this. IF, on the other hand, throughput dramatically increases, the problem could be SPI and NICs in some boxes being slow, or a bad network connection on one or more boxes.

    Substitute in each computer one at a time, see how much throughput varies. The one (or ones, if any) with real slow throughput might have a bad cable or a NIC that is no longer functioning to peak capacity or has a very slow peak rate it can do at NIC in computer. Troubleshoot at home also, please, or if this is at work, troubleshoot in-house first.

    But SPI is off if you have different LAN speed boxes, typically, on a LAN, for internet gating. Otherwise, the averaging per port will waste bandwidth the closer boxes might not be able to use and the faster box will not have bandwidth avilable to satisfy it. That happened here until I got into the web interface on the Netgear and turned SPI off. Mom's box was getting one-third of bandwidth of router even when off. With SPI off router dynamically allocates I\O feed based on feed demand it sees from ports.

    John D.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited April 2004
    I use PPPoe Dan. I will call the telephone company tommorow. My telephone company is my ISP. And since I work at a different ISP in town, I do know some of the head techs that might can help me out some. It could be the phone lines in my house seeing as they are over 20 years old, I will check. Thanks for the replys guys, I will come back with hopefully a good update.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    Clutch wrote:
    I use PPPoe Dan. I will call the telephone company tommorow. My telephone company is my ISP. And since I work at a different ISP in town, I do know some of the head techs that might can help me out some. It could be the phone lines in my house seeing as they are over 20 years old, I will check. Thanks for the replys guys, I will come back with hopefully a good update.
    Make them to a line test (whoosh test) and verify you don't have a ton of noise on the line (not that that would slow down the line speed unless it was really bad). Then get them to check out the contention :)
  • rykoryko new york
    edited April 2004
    A good friend of mine sells enterprise level SBC internet access (t-1s, t-3s, etc...) and according to him, with DSl, your speed depends on how close your are to the nearest relay/base station. In big cities, it's not that much of an issue. Large cities have more of a over-crowded nodes problem than line distance issues. But in suburbs or rural areas, there are usually only one or two relay stations for an entire area and lines can be stretched to the physical limit.

    What speed is your DSL suppose to be? 256k down, 128k up? You can always buy more bandwidth ---something like 768k down, 256k up. Plus i would test your speed with a 3rd party app instead of the one provided by your ISP. Cnet has a good one.

    Also, your speed depends on your surfing/p2p habits. If you have one or more of your machines using some p2p app, then i can gaurantee it is sucking up tons of your bandwidth and slowing everything else down.

    So ask your ISP where the closest relay station is to your house, check your speed with another internet speedometer app, and cut back on the file-sharing if you are using p2p apps. I will get back to you shortly on the maximum physical distance of a DSL line. If your distance is close to the max, then i would suggest another ISP.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited April 2004
    I live 2 minutes down the road from the sub-station. The way it works, you have to be 5 cable miles from one to get DSL in our area. There are no p2p programs or anything running on any computers. The speed was good about 4 months ago, but since then I ping really high in games, and loading pages is a trouble sometimes.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    For standard ADSL, the distance is around 3.5km from the telephone exchange. So called "extended reach" is around 5km :)
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited April 2004
    Oh, I gotcha. Got to love those little details that they kindly hide from you eh? I had to work in our other office today, so I didn't get around to getting that service call placed. There is always tommorow.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited April 2004
    ****, I remember when recommended distance for DSL topped out at 15,000 feet from the DSLAM/CO.
  • gtghmgtghm New
    edited April 2004
    I don't know what system you are on but I do know that the company that I work for is placing DSLAMs all over the place to try and bring DSL to the masses. They are offering 1.5 down and 896 up problem is that the DSLAM seems to work like cable does. The more people that are on the system the slower it goes. Which makes sence since an average DSLAM can provide approximately 300 DSL lines and is only working on 4 T1's... max is 6 I beleive...

    It might be that you're speed is dwinling because of a situation like this...

    We are using HDSL2 and HDSL4 for inital design for DSL orders... Provided the CRTs are up to date, the loops can be a lot longer than they uesd to be. However, Be aware that not only is distance an issue but the gauge size of the cable from the CO to you is important too.
    The larger the guage the less the loss is and the further you can go...
    You can see a mixture of 22,24, and 26 gauge depending on the age of the cables in your loop area.

    Hope that helps,
    "g"
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited April 2004
    your router was working fine previously?

    did you try resetting to fact. defaults and reconfiging it. Also make sure that the logs for the router are cleared.

    Gobbles
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited April 2004
    gtghm: That could be the problem, only if we could get those speeds you were talking about. I live in a very small town, I mean we just got DSL a year ago, that shows you how far behind we are in the tech field. Gobbles, I will try resetting the router after I eat, got to find my username and password to my account though, haha And yes my router was working fine, but then the first port kind of went dead so now it's a 3 port router.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited April 2004
    Just as a small update. I got the phone company to come out and check my DSL. Got a message when I got home to call the tech if I was having any problems. Well I do a speed test and got 126kbs which is almost ISDN speeds. So I am switching over my DSL to the ISP that I work for, since I know the network and we just got a new T1 which I will be on pretty much by myself, hehe. Got to love working inside the company.
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