Router ping higher than built pc serving NAT and DHCP

accolite

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May 20, 2009
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I am asking this question from my previous post.

Here it s:


"In the past I have noticed if I have one of my rigs running NAT and DHCP that my ping response times are lower compared to my router DGL-4300, when playing games. Is this due to the PC hardware being superior or is it a software/firmware thing?

Or is there a router out there that will perform better ping response time wise/ lag than my DGL-4300?"

Is this due to hardware or is it software/firmware?
My NAT and DHCP box was a windows server 2003 configured with just those roles and my pings were in the 20-30 and I could host/join games no problem and no lag, but when I play through the Dlink DGL-4300 my pings would be 70-90 and some games I had lag issues and host/ join issues, sometimes it would work sometimes not.
 
Solution
PFSense and Monowall are great products, but any linux / BSD can do this with minimal effort. Mine is a P4 1.5ghz with 256mb ram. I have the CPU throttled to 300mhz and it never goes above 2% use. There are two PCI $12 network cards from the local computer store (not bestbuy, but an actual dude who builds and sells computer parts) they're based on a realtec chip. My current uptime is 4 months, and that was from a power outage, it was 9 months before that.

Don't build a PC to be your router/firewall, beg/borrow/acquire a computer from friends, family, enemies, the bum on the corner...? Throw a second NIC in and load up a linux / BSD os and enjoy.
I found this info on NEWEGG

I have two of these. Both started strong and got worse over time. They have been maddeningly flaky for the past couple years. Main issue was that the wireless was intermittent and the routers would occasionally loose their settings entirely. A few weeks I downgraded both to v1.4 of the firmware and they have been rock solid! I don't know why dlink would ruin a product with bad software. Thankfully the damage isn't permanent if you can live with the old feature set.
 

accolite

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I'll try it and see if it is the firmware, but I think the first time I did this was when I had 1.4, this router is almost 5 years old.

Maybe it's time for a new one, I'll let you know if it helps by going back to 1.4 I have 1.8 right now, I think.
 

someone19

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Several years ago I switched out a burned out linksys blue box router for a PC running linux with two network cards. For the same service with the same modem my throughput and ping times all improved.

I'd wager it has to do with the size of the bus that connects the different network controllers to the processor.
 

someone19

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PFSense and Monowall are great products, but any linux / BSD can do this with minimal effort. Mine is a P4 1.5ghz with 256mb ram. I have the CPU throttled to 300mhz and it never goes above 2% use. There are two PCI $12 network cards from the local computer store (not bestbuy, but an actual dude who builds and sells computer parts) they're based on a realtec chip. My current uptime is 4 months, and that was from a power outage, it was 9 months before that.

Don't build a PC to be your router/firewall, beg/borrow/acquire a computer from friends, family, enemies, the bum on the corner...? Throw a second NIC in and load up a linux / BSD os and enjoy.
 
Solution

accolite

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Well I found out that my router is not good for my needs mainly because of the amount of file sharing I do, found a lot of peeps that said my router degenerates an dies over time because of this.

So I will be building my own software router.

I have a couple P4's and a couple network cards lying around so I might go this route except one thing?

How can I throttle my P4?

I tried searching it and found nothing also tried changing the multiplier but then the system would crash.

How did you do it someone19? Or anyone?

Appreciate all your help guys maybe I should start another thread about throttling P4 down?

EDIT:

Creating new thread about throttling.
 

someone19

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I didn't under-clock or under-volt the processor, I use tools built into linux to set speedstep governor built into the processor. The package is called CPUFREQ and it needs options built into the kernel as well as compatible hardware.

I learned a long time ago when motherboards had jumpers to set clockspeed and multiplier not to mess with these settings.