Internet Speeds Capped with Router

[Cares]

Router: Linksys E2500
Modem: Motorola SB6183
ISP: TWC 200/20 Mbps

When I am running my internet through my modem to router to computer I am capped around 90 Mbps on Speedtest. When I go directly from modem to computer I can achieve 200 Mbps. Any ideas why my router is causing a slow down?

1) Already upgraded to latest stock firmware on router
2) Factory reset to default settings
3) Disabled QoS
4) Tried different Ethernet cables

 

[azazel1024]

Router: Linksys E2500
Modem: Motorola SB6183
ISP: TWC 200/20 Mbps

When I am running my internet through my modem to router to computer I am capped around 90 Mbps on Speedtest. When I go directly from modem to computer I can achieve 200 Mbps. Any ideas why my router is causing a slow down?

1) Already upgraded to latest stock firmware on router
2) Factory reset to default settings
3) Disabled QoS
4) Tried different Ethernet cables

Yeah, it only has fast ethernet (10/100) ports. Get a router with gigabit ports.

 

[Cares]

Ahh I overlooked the most obvious. Would something like the EA3500 be "okay" or is that a bad router? It's only $35 refurbished on Amazon.

 

[azazel1024]

Ahh I overlooked the most obvious. Would something like the EA3500 be "okay" or is that a bad router? It's only $35 refurbished on Amazon.

I generally stay away from Linksys stuff, but it should be okay.

Personally I'd go with a TP-Link WDR3600 (I have 2). I found both of mine new in box and used for $35 and 40 respectively through eBay.

About the best wireless performance you can get for an N600 router and it should also keep up with a 200/20 WAN connection.

 

[Cares]

Actually being that the E2500 is a N600 router, shouldn't I be able to get up to 300 Mbps through wireless connections? I am also capped around the same 90 Mbps through WiFi.

 

[Pandasaurus]

Are you connected to your modem via WiFi? Your speed can only go as fast as the slowest link. You could have a theoretical 20 Gigabit WiFi, but if your WiFi router is connected to your modem with 10/100, you're still only going to get 100Mb to the internet.

 

[azazel1024]

Are you connected to your modem via WiFi? Your speed can only go as fast as the slowest link. You could have a theoretical 20 Gigabit WiFi, but if your WiFi router is connected to your modem with 10/100, you're still only going to get 100Mb to the internet.

Correct.

Also, no, you can't get 300Mbps. That is the modulation rate you lose performance due to error correction overhead, wifi environment, etc. Optimistically the best you can get is roughly 76% net yield and in most cases it is worse.

But, anyway, you are connecting your router to your modem through a wired port, which is limited to 100Mbps. So that is the maximum performance you are going to get.

Get a gigabit N600 router and probably with a good client (that is also 300Mbps capable) and no interference you can probably get around 200Mbps. With my TP-Link WDR3600 close to my router I can get about 196Mbps on 2.4GHz and 206Mbps on 5GHz (both 40Mhz channel width, so 300Mbps modulation rate). My router, a TP-Link Archer C8 performs a bit better on 2.4GHz 300Mbps and I can get 226Mbps, which is basically the theoretical max you can get. Of course both of those have gigabit ports to connect them to my network and also the internet (though sadly I only have a 75/75 internet connection, but no such limitation on my local network or to my server).

Of course if I mosey on over a room or two that drops quite a bit.

 

[Cares]

Are you connected to your modem via WiFi? Your speed can only go as fast as the slowest link. You could have a theoretical 20 Gigabit WiFi, but if your WiFi router is connected to your modem with 10/100, you're still only going to get 100Mb to the internet.

No I cannot connect to my modem via WiFi as it has only an Ethernet port. I am connecting through my router.

I guess I am just indirectly asking if an N600 router (300/300) should in theory be faster than a 10/100 Ethernet port. And if yes it should be, shouldn't I achieve faster speeds via WiFi than a wired port?

 

[JackMDS]

If you use Internally two Wireless computers with cards that are compatible with 600 they should work as it should.

Your Internet comes through the WAN Port which is 10/100 port.

 

[dawza]

Imagine two 1" diameter pipes connected by a 0.5" diameter pipe. The narrower interconnect is your router WAN NIC. It joins your WAN (internet) pipe to your LAN (local, including the N600 WLAN) pipe. Traffic between WAN and LAN will be bottlenecked by this narrower interconnect.

 

[azazel1024]

If you use Internally two Wireless computers with cards that are compatible with 600 they should work as it should.

Your Internet comes through the WAN Port which is 10/100 port.

This. As a nice example, I have an AC750 bridge, but with a 10/100 port on it (sadly no AP mode, but the 10/100 port would be really limiting if I tried that).

I can get ~22MB/sec through it when it is set in high speed bridge mode. That is connecting to my router on 5GHz, 433Mbps and to my client on 2.4GHz 300Mbps. If I were to try to do that through the wired port, 100Mbps max cap.

Same thing with your router, if you connected two devices together through wireless and one was on 2.4GHz and one on 5GHz, unless there was a CPU cap or some other interlink internal to the router that was slowing things down, then yeah, you should be able to transfer files between the clients at 300Mbps modulation rate.

Keep in mind, modulation rate does not equal data rate. Wireless has overhead (forward error correction, eats up close to 25% of your bandwidth) on top of susceptibility to noise and it is also a shared medium. Absolute best on 11n is about 76% yield with a good router, a good client and a great wifi environment.

Things are often less than ideal.

Now if you connected two clients together wirelessly on the SAME band and tried to transfer things between them, it would be slower than this ideal, because you have to SHARE the wireless bandwidth between them. Wireless is half-duplex, that means talk and receive time are shared. You might have, call it, 200Mbps of ideal wireless bandwidth, but that is only to one client. Try to connect between the two of them and it goes through the router and one has to talk, router receives, talks to the receving client, back to the original client that then talks to the router again, pauses, router talks to the 2nd client, rinse and repeat.

So that 200Mbps ideal becomes 100Mbps when two clients are wirelessly connecting to each other through the router. Now you can increase that or remove the penalty by having each client on a seperate band (one on 2.4GHz and one on 5GHz).

In terms of "out to the internet" or wirelessly connecting to any wired clients connected to the router, that is done throug those pesky 10/100 ports, which limits things to 100Mbps max (there is also wired overhead from portocols and stuff, which limits realistic max throughput of a 100Mbps port to 90-98Mbps depending on what you are doing through that port).

 

[Cares]

Thanks for the responses...still evaluating and looking for the best "budget" gigabit router.

 

[azazel1024]

There is no such thing as the best budget. You typically get what you pay for. That said, as per my original suggestion, if your budget is fairly low, the TP-Link WDR3600 has some of the best 802.11n wifi range, speed and routing performance for around $50 new. It is a bit feature bare (USB print server and file server as pretty much it's only features), but the performance is about the best you can get for an N600 router and the cost is lower than most.

 

[Cares]

I actually ended up buying that router yesterday per your suggestion. Seems to do everything I need a router to do. Don't need lots of features and it supports DD-WRT.

 

[azazel1024]

I actually ended up buying that router yesterday per your suggestion. Seems to do everything I need a router to do. Don't need lots of features and it supports DD-WRT.

Also OpenWRT

 

[Cares]

So I loaded up this router and my wired speeds are getting max speeds at 200/20. But my wireless speeds appear capped at 20/20. Any ideas? Using DD-WRT.

 

[JackMDS]

So I loaded up this router and my wired speeds are getting max speeds at 200/20. But my wireless speeds appear capped at 20/20. Any ideas? Using DD-WRT.

This has nothing to do with Internet and capped.

The above means that your LAN Wireless is capable to do only what you call 20/20.

Can Not say much more cause it hard to solve technical problem with words as though its Poetry.

 

[Cares]

With my old router Linksys E2500 I was able to get roughly 90 Mbps wired and wireless. With this new router TP-Link WDR3600 I am able to get 200 Mbps wired and only 20 Mbps wireless.

Edit: I guess it must have been some setting in DD-WRT that I could not figure out. Tried QoS and some other things. I reverted back to stock firmware and I'm getting roughly 100 Mbps speeds on wireless now.

 

[JackMDS]

As a Frame of reference.

Networked i7 computer with Giga wire NIC connected to a Giga Wireless Router. Router is a Dual N-900 (not AC).

Laptop i7 too with Dual Band Wireless card (not AC).

Wireless Router sits High on a shelf totally exposed to its environment with nothing blocking its line of Sight. Laptop is about 10 feet from the Router in the same room.

Right clicking on the Wireless Card Connection and clicking on Status indicates a connection of 450Mb/sec. This number usually means that the card uses the 450Mb/sec. of the Drivers table it is an actual tested measure of the Speed.

Using LAN Speed App ( Using the LAN Speed Test (Lite) v1.3.1 Free version here, http://www.totusoft.com/downloads.html ).

The Speed between the Laptop and the wired Desktop is (the following is a copy of LAN Speed's Printout):

------Writing------ _________------Reading------
Packet length : 50,000,000 _____50,000,000
Time to Complete : 2.3417131 ___2.4008662
Bytes per second : 21,351, ______20,825,817
Bits per second : 170,815,120 ___166,606,536
------------------- -------------------
Mbps: 170.8151200_______ 166.6065360

So N-900 connected at 450Mb/sec. provides a real Transfer of 170Mb/sec. This is really as a Good as its Get.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What do my results mean?

When assessing the performance of your network, keep in mind that there is always a difference between theoretical speed ratings, and 'real-world' throughput. If your
network is set up well, then this difference is relatively small but still significant.
Otherwise, the difference can be extremely large.
The reasons for the difference between what a network is supposed to be able to do and what it can actually do are many.
First, there is normal network overhead. This is the data that is used to package and address the data, deal with data collisions, etc. There is even more network overhead on
wireless networks.
Second, there are external performance limiters. These are your hardware devices on your network (network cards, hubs, switches, other users on the network, server hard drives, etc.)
Third, is the network configuration problems. This is anything from a bad cable, bad hardware device, etc.
LAN Speed test is an excellent tool to use when troubleshooting or optimizing your network by making it easy to test your 'Real World' network speeds. A good rule of thumb I follow is 'real-world' speed of 50% - 70% of your rated speed. On larger networks with more users, your speed can drop considerably, so you should be doing your tests when network traffic is low.

i.e. Network connected at... (-> typical real-world speed)
100Mbps -> 50-70 Mbps
1000 Mps (gigabit) -> 400-600 Mbps
802.11b (11 Mbps wireless) -> 2-4 Mbps
802.11g (54 Mbps wireless) -> 20-30 Mbps

i.e. Network connected at... (-> typical testing with LST Server instead of network folder)
100Mbps -> 60-80 Mbps
1000 Mps (gigabit) -> 600-800 Mbps
802.11b (11 Mbps wireless) -> 3-6 Mbps
802.11g (54 Mbps wireless) -> 30-50 Mbps