Do Routers Affect Internet Connection Speeds? [RESOLVED]

Hi,

I have recently setup a wireless network at home. At the moment, this just consists of one PC and the following:
- Cable broadband (1Mbit)
- Netgear WG311 wireless card
- Netgear WGR614v5 router

All went fine and connection was established and I can access the internet. However, it seemed slow. To eliminate wireless issues, I disabled the wireless card, and reverted to a "Wired" setup:
- Cable modem connected to router over ethernet
- PC connected to router over ethernet

But I am still getting the slow speed.
Running the test at http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp, I get download speeds which vary from 30-80 KB/sec, where I would expect the full 125 KB/sec. If I bypass the router, and go straight from PC to modem over ethernet, I get that 125 KB/sec.

Am I being harsh here? Surely with a wired connection, the router should not degrade my connection speed like that? :confused:

I've upgraded the router to the latest firmware, and tried restoring factory settings etc...still no joy.

Any thoughts/comments gratefully received.

Thanks...

Over my wireless, it says that I'm getting 118 down / 33 Up

This is

Quote:

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951 / 1027 Downstream
270 / 291 Upstream

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I think that's about par. What does it show for yours?

how old is your router? that could play a role in the problem.

do you have a firewall built into the router? it shouldnt make too much of a difference, but may

make sure you have "turned off your router, let set for a few mins, and then turn back on." i have found that makes a huge differnce some times.

(and please specify what type of router you have and the modle)

It sounds to me more like an issue with the ISP. If you have a spare modem or know someone with a modem which works then it may be worth testing to eliminate the modem as a problem.

However, your best course of action would be to call the ISP. Is it NTL? - They can usually do tests on the line to identify any problems. Here are a few other things you could try.

• Try a different telephone socket and ensure that there are no obvious defects with the main cable coming into your house.
• Try a different microfilter and ensure that all other telphone sockets with devices connected also have a mircofilter.
• Try changing the cable connecting the moedm to the telephone socket.

Hi guys, thanks for the replies.

dglienna: I'm not at home now so can't run another test but will do when I get home.
ALL: The router is brand new. It's a Netgear WGR614v5. And yes, I've done many reboots !
visualAd: The ISP is Telewest. I did call them and they couldn't see a problem, but apparently they can't troubleshoot when I am connected to a router!?

Anyway, I'd say the key points here are:
- When I connect directly from the Modem to the PC over Ethernet, I get around 120 KB/sec download.
- When I put the router in the middle....
Modem ---ethernet----Router----ethernet----PC
...I get 80 KB/sec at the most.

Doesn't this mean it must be the router??

Yes it does, sorry I must have missed that bit. How is the local side of the LAN setup, are you assigning IP adresses manually? If, so you also need to put in the IP addresses of the DNS servers too.

What is the ping between your router and your PC? You can test this by going to the command prompt and typeing ping 192.168.0.1 where 192.168.0.1 is replace with the IP address of your router. Is it similar to this:

Code:

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Pinging 10.10.0.1 with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 10.10.0.1: bytes=32 time=1ms TTL=255
Reply from 10.10.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255
Reply from 10.10.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255
Reply from 10.10.0.1: bytes=32 time<10ms TTL=255

Ping statistics for 10.10.0.1:
    Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 0ms, Maximum =  1ms, Average =  0ms

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Hiya,
the IP addresses were all set up automatically, but I can't remember any details off the top of my head. I will have a look, and also do your suggested ping test when I get home. I'll let you know!

Cheers...

Right, after I made my original post, I disconnected the router and went back to Modem->PC so that the computer could be used during the day.

I get home tonight, reconnect the router, and prepare for an evening of fiddling and frustration (oo-er), but.....I get perfect speeds!!

So I then re-enable the wireless card, and remove the ethernet link from PC to router....and still perfect speed! So I relocate the router and modem across the other side of the house where I want them....and still perfect!

Well, I can only guess that it was the "turning off and on" of the router that fixed the problem, as ALL suggested. When I said that I'd done reboots and had no joy, I was thinking of the auto reboot when the firmware was upgraded, but thinking back now, I don't think I did actually turning the pesky thing off...sorry ALL, I should have been more thorough there.

So in short, it looks like I am sorted at the moment. Thanks to all you guys for your help - I have verified that I'm getting short response times when pinging the router too, so thanks for that VisualAd.


For the record, I just did another test and got this:

Code:

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Direction        Actual Speed              True Speed (estimated)
 
Downstream      923 Kbps (115.4 KB/sec)  996 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream        109 Kbps (13.6 KB/sec)    117 Kbps (inc. overheads)

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Cheers :D

good to hear ;)