Need Help Speeding Up Network Or Changing Network Configuration (DNS Issues?)

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
TheSelverFang

TheSelverFang

Honorable
Nov 30, 2013
49
0
10,540
Hi all,

Modem: Arris Surfboard SB8200
Router: LINKSYS EA7500 AC1900
PC: Windows 7 x64, P9X79 LE Mobo, No wifi adapter
Internet speeds up to 1Gbps down, 35Mbps up

I'm not very experienced with networking, so I was hoping someone could give me some advice on my networking situation. For quite a while I've been running my PC directly connected to my modem. Never had any speed or connection issues.

I recently bought the router listed above to reduce the data consumption of my mobile phone when playing games or browsing the internet. I connected the router to the modem and the PC to the router, as expected. Since then I've experienced longer than usual website load times and longer message send/receive times in Discord (several seconds for an image to load sometimes). I've also been dropped from game servers that I have otherwise had no issues maintaining a stable connection to.

I'm currently using my ISP's DNS servers, but I've also tried using Google's DNS servers. I've tried giving priority to my PC in the router's administration interface, and I've tried reserving a DHCP address. I've tried updating the firmware. I've also tried connecting the router to the modem, and the PC directly to the modem, but whichever device connects second receives no internet connection. My motherboard only has a single ethernet port, so internet sharing isnt an option either.

Any advice, solutions, suggestions that can be provided would be helpful. Im enjoying having household wifi, but my ethernet performance is my priority and an unreliable ethernet connection isn't really worth it to me.

Thank you!
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
TheSelverFang

TheSelverFang

Honorable
Nov 30, 2013
49
0
10,540


Yep! Fixed!

    ■ I currently pay my ISP for Gigabit cable. My speeds range from 200 Mbps down on a bad day to around 850 Mbps down on a good one. I blame it on living in a large condo community, but it could be the ISP.
    ■ Cable
    ■ My PC is a wired connection (the connection I'm concerned about). The router is providing wireless to my mobile phone.
    ■ The loading times on the webpages/Discord messages havent been collected by a tool, they're just observations from visiting certain webpages frequently and using Discord a lot. If you have a tool you can suggest, I'd be glad to gather some data for you.



Thanks!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Mar 16, 2013
171,442
17,908
184,590
Paying for a gigabit connection, seeing performance between 200 and 850mbps.

Yeah, that might be due to living in the condo. If you're seeing 850mbps sometimes, that means its 'working' sometimes. There is not a lot you can do to "fix" that.

Talk to your ISP first and foremost. They can monitor the signal from their end.
Especially call them when you see the specific "200mbps".

850mbps is kinda sorta close enough. 200mbps is not.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
TheSelverFang

TheSelverFang

Honorable
Nov 30, 2013
49
0
10,540


Would that still explain the slow ethernet load times when connected to the router? I feel like its a router specific thing, but again, I have no actual data to back that up.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Mar 16, 2013
171,442
17,908
184,590


What do you get if connected directly to the modem?
Does that ever slow down?

Keep a log of exactly when this happens and for how long.
Are you using speedtest.net as your testing source? Be consistent in your methodology.

Your ISP will be far more receptive if you have actual data to back this up. Date. time, documented performance.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
TheSelverFang

TheSelverFang

Honorable
Nov 30, 2013
49
0
10,540


For speed times, Im consistently using legacy.speedtest.net, followed by my ISPs speed test tool (which is still powered by speedtest, but they insist on using it for 'accurate results'). I screenshot the current date and time and the speed test result.

As for the slow load times when connected to the router, its inconsistent, which is why I guessed it might be DNS related, but again, Im no expert. I tried the simple thing and did cmd ping tests against some websites that have had more loading time issues than others while connected to the router, but the ping requests timed out both when connected and not connected, however the load times were noticeably different when connected vs when not connected to the router.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Mar 16, 2013
171,442
17,908
184,590
ping is not really a great tool to test your connection.
Once the signal goes outboard of your router, there is nothing you can do to influence that.

Try tracert instead of ping.
That gives the theoretical time between each hop, between you and wherever.
The first hop is to your router, the second is either to your modem or the ISP.
Or possibly some other thing in the condo area, outside of your personal control.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
TheSelverFang

TheSelverFang

Honorable
Nov 30, 2013
49
0
10,540


Okay, sorry for the wait. Here are tracert calls while connected to the router to:

tomshardware.com
2cb73cf031.png

google.com
d7d7ca2aa5.png

And here are calls while connected to the modem:

tomshardware.com
0d396d017b.png

google.com
2c490909ea.png

I see an extra jump on the google one, and some extra latency overall on the router tracert calls
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Mar 16, 2013
171,442
17,908
184,590
In there, you only have influence over the first two or three.
Up to xxx.192, which looks typically OK. After that, its all on your ISP.

For your traffic to google, thats using IPv6 instead of IPv4.
That second hop between the router and the modem looks troublesome at 57ms.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
TheSelverFang

TheSelverFang

Honorable
Nov 30, 2013
49
0
10,540


What can I do to solve or identify the problem, if anything?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Mar 16, 2013
171,442
17,908
184,590


Document over time, and work with your ISP.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
B

bill001g

Titan
Aug 9, 2012
28,318
2,754
125,640
Unless you really need IPv6 for some reason try to disable it. IPv6 is not as well supported on the internet by some ISP and at times takes longer paths.

Also reset your router and configure as little as possible. Some features....like "giving your pc priority"...cause the router to run slower. New routers use a special hardware NAT accelerator that moves the function off the main router cpu. When you use many features on the router it goes back to using the CPU. Only people with internet connection faster than 200-300mbps will see this issue. This should not cause slowness on web browser or games. Games use less than 1mbps. You would see it on downloading.

If you are seeing dns errors it generally means you are getting traffic loss. DNS is a extremely small transaction and the lookup is only done once per site, the results are kept in a cache for a period of time. Set the DNS to google 8.8.8.8 or level3 4.2.2.2 in your PC not the router. Routers act as proxy and there has been a history of bugs with this feature.

Normally I would say leave a ping run to your ISP router which is hop2. Problem is these are not public ip addresses they are carrier nat ip. This means you are likely sharing a public ip with other users.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom