Router setup at home, is this ok?

yop

Hi,
Just want to get those in the know to review this and see if its "ok"!

I have a router in the house. The internet comes to the router and is plugged into the internet port on the router.
Wireless works fine in the house.

Then out in the garage I have an office. For this I have a cat6 cable going from LAN port 1 in the home router to another router in the office. This is plugged into the internet port on the office router.

I have my work laptop running off this. We have noticed that if I have my work laptop on and my wife is running her tablet in the house and the kids are using a tablet then the connections are slow.

Any better setup that you can suggest, I have noticed that the home router seems to be dropping the connection a fair bit in the last few weeks, I have needed to reboot it at least once per week, might be something or nothing.

I have a 4MB connection coming into the house.

Any improvements appreciated.

srsly78

If you have 4mbit down speed, what up speed to you have? Probably something pathetic like 0.5Mbit. This is your bottleneck and will get quickly saturated by a single user. Upload is very important, even when you are downloading! This is the nature of TCP/IP. If upload is saturated all users will experience a degradation in performance. Similarly with download speed of course.

The only real solution is to get better internet, but this is not an option for many people. Thus the only way to alleviate the contention is to setup QoS on the main router (quality of service). This way you can make sure a single user doesn't hog the line, instead it should divide the bandwidth evenly between the users.

Maybe your router does not have this feature, in which case you would have to buy a proper one. I use a Draytek Vigor 2830 dsl router.

Your problem likely has nothing to do with "wireless" so this is the wrong forum

yop

srsly78 wrote: »

If you have 4mbit down speed, what up speed to you have? Probably something pathetic like 0.5Mbit. This is your bottleneck and will get quickly saturated by a single user. Upload is very important, even when you are downloading! This is the nature of TCP/IP. If upload is saturated all users will experience a degradation in performance. Similarly with download speed of course.

The only real solution is to get better internet, but this is not an option for many people. Thus the only way to alleviate the contention is to setup QoS on the main router (quality of service). This way you can make sure a single user doesn't hog the line, instead it should divide the bandwidth evenly between the users.

Maybe your router does not have this feature, in which case you would have to buy a proper one. I use a Draytek Vigor 2830 dsl router.

Your problem likely has nothing to do with "wireless" so this is the wrong forum

Hi, thanks for the reply. Sorry ya I might be in the wrong forum!!!!

I have a pretty consistent 3.5 mb down and 1.2 up.
Whats funny is that the office router has QoS on it, the home one doesn't!

Maybe I need to switch them around!

Only BB I can get I'm afraid, I live 1000 kms from any houses.. (I'm kidding, I live 4 miles from the country town!)

thanks

srsly78

Yeah switch routers around if possible. QoS only works when it is setup on the "internet connected router".

It's pretty easy to setup, and you will not believe the difference it makes! Note that it will not make your internet "faster", but it will stop packets dropping from contention - meaning no more "connection timed out" errors etc.

same ol sh1te

1.2mbit up means you don't have Dsl, this is a decent upload speed, wireless provider? What make router do you use at home? (Please don't say Belkin) Get a better one that does decent QOS.

yop

same ol sh1te wrote: »

1.2mbit up means you don't have Dsl, this is a decent upload speed, wireless provider? What make router do you use at home? (Please don't say Belkin) Get a better one that does decent QOS.

Its line of sight wireless!

Yes they are both Belkins! One here in office is the N600, I find them grand, but maybe they aren't!

seaniefr

yop wrote: »

Its line of sight wireless!

Yes they are both Belkins! One here in office is the N600, I find them grand, but maybe they aren't!

Is that N600 the DSL one or the Cable version? It really needs to be the cable version for this to work ok. And if it's Belkin you should have the facility to turn it into an 'access point' so that your original router that is connected to the supply from your fixed wireless antenna is doing all the routine and switching.
One thing I forgot to ask: the fixed wireless antenna is in itself also a router so you if have 3 devices in the same line doing NAT and routing/firewall functions it is going to slow things down.
Is this antenna/router also in bridge mode?

yop

seaniefr wrote: »

Is that N600 the DSL one or the Cable version? It really needs to be the cable version for this to work ok. And if it's Belkin you should have the facility to turn it into an 'access point' so that your original router that is connected to the supply from your fixed wireless antenna is doing all the routine and switching.
One thing I forgot to ask: the fixed wireless antenna is in itself also a router so you if have 3 devices in the same line doing NAT and routing/firewall functions it is going to slow things down.
Is this antenna/router also in bridge mode?

Not sure how I check if its DSL or cable, this is the one here;
http://www.pixmania.ie/wifi-modem-router/belkin-n600-play-dual-band-wireless-router-4-port-switch/11551230-a.html

Ok, the home router isn't setup as an AP, if I do this will it cause any issues with the devices connected to it?

The AP where the internet comes in from the mast on the roof has only a port in, port out and power button.

I can't see anywhere that its in bridge mode. I have a netgear bridge here in the house, but its not been used.

seaniefr

yop wrote: »

Not sure how I check if its DSL or cable, this is the one here;
http://www.pixmania.ie/wifi-modem-router/belkin-n600-play-dual-band-wireless-router-4-port-switch/11551230-a.html

Ok, the home router isn't setup as an AP, if I do this will it cause any issues with the devices connected to it?

The AP where the internet comes in from the mast on the roof has only a port in, port out and power button.

I can't see anywhere that its in bridge mode. I have a netgear bridge here in the house, but its not been used.

The AP is probably a POE(power over Ethernet) adapter it's how the router/antenna gets it's power.
I would honestly guess that you could put both routers in bridge mode unless you are using port forwarding or any special functions that require you to have control of the first router. Once you have the wireless SSID and password in the rest is done from the antenna. What distance is between the 1st router and the office?

same ol sh1te

yop wrote: »

Not sure how I check if its DSL or cable, this is the one here;
http://www.pixmania.ie/wifi-modem-router/belkin-n600-play-dual-band-wireless-router-4-port-switch/11551230-a.html

Ok, the home router isn't setup as an AP, if I do this will it cause any issues with the devices connected to it?

The AP where the internet comes in from the mast on the roof has only a port in, port out and power button.

I can't see anywhere that its in bridge mode. I have a netgear bridge here in the house, but its not been used.

Did your provider give you a pppoe username and password? Do you get internet when you plug the cable coming into house directly into your pc instead of going to wan of the Belkin.

Belkin used make some terrible POS routers, hopefully this will change now they have bought Linksys off Cisco

yop

seaniefr wrote: »

The AP is probably a POE(power over Ethernet) adapter it's how the router/antenna gets it's power.
I would honestly guess that you could put both routers in bridge mode unless you are using port forwarding or any special functions that require you to have control of the first router. Once you have the wireless SSID and password in the rest is done from the antenna. What distance is between the 1st router and the office?

No special functions required by either router. I can't see anyway to put either in bridge mode

That would make sense with their AP.

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Did your provider give you a pppoe username and password? Do you get internet when you plug the cable coming into house directly into your pc instead of going to wan of the Belkin.

Belkin used make some terrible POS routers, hopefully this will change now they have bought Linksys off Cisco

No UN or PWD, I can plug straight into their AP and it works grand.

Routers are both around 3 years old.

same ol sh1te

yop wrote: »

No special functions required by either router. I can't see anyway to put either in bridge mode

That would make sense with their AP.





No UN or PWD, I can plug straight into their AP and it works grand.

Routers are both around 3 years old.

Then I would suggest you change to Ap mode , their equipment is already routing, you would be better without routing twice (and having 2 firewalls which would cause problems for consoles). If their equipment is Mikrotik it would be miles faster than Belkin, might even fix your issues as the QOS on Mikrotik works out of the box

seaniefr

same ol sh1te wrote: »

Then I would suggest you change to Ap mode , their equipment is already routing, you would be better without routing twice (and having 2 firewalls which would cause problems for consoles). If their equipment is Mikrotik it would be miles faster than Belkin, might even fix your issues as the QOS on Mikrotik works out of the box

Also, when you change a Belkin modem/router into an access point it keeps wireless and the Ethernet ports alive on so it basically acts as an Ethernet switch but with wireless capability. I have an N600 ADSL from my crappy Eir*om internet connection and can have a look for you as I also have another Belkin router out in the garage which is acting as a booster for the internet as I have a CCTV DVR in the garage and it's a long run +55m fed by a cat 5 cable. The other possibility with this issue is that while all these things that we are suggesting will help- they won't fix a crap internet connection-so maybe when you have don something with the routers you could look At the wireless provider as far as I know those guys can boost those antenna thingys unless you are unlucky with something being in the line of sight of the transmitter

yop

Thanks guys, I will try that tonight.

same ol sh1te

yop wrote: »

Thanks guys, I will try that tonight.

When you change to ap mode, all your devices will need to get a new ip from the new DHCP server on the ISPs router, easiest thing to do is reboot them.

cluelez

yop wrote: »

Hi,
Just want to get those in the know to review this and see if its "ok"!

I have a router in the house. The internet comes to the router and is plugged into the internet port on the router.
Wireless works fine in the house.

Then out in the garage I have an office. For this I have a cat6 cable going from LAN port 1 in the home router to another router in the office. This is plugged into the internet port on the office router.

I have my work laptop running off this. We have noticed that if I have my work laptop on and my wife is running her tablet in the house and the kids are using a tablet then the connections are slow.

Any better setup that you can suggest, I have noticed that the home router seems to be dropping the connection a fair bit in the last few weeks, I have needed to reboot it at least once per week, might be something or nothing.

I have a 4MB connection coming into the house.

Any improvements appreciated.

which online forum moderator you are?

What I'm typing....