Major data allocation issue

[muss101gr]

Hi all. We have a major data allocation issue in our flat: Although the connection is really good, one of our laptops seems to hog all of it as soon as it's connected. The rest of the connections become highly unstable, ranging from nothing to maybe 1Mbps. A straight ethernet connention solves the issue but it's unworkable.

Our router is the Ubee EVW3226 (cable modem router). Speedtesting clocks the connection at ~70Mbps. There is a maximum of three laptops and three phones connected wirelesly.

I am currently experimenting with the TP-LINK TL-WA730RE WiFi extender and the ZYXEL PLA4201 and seem to have secured a stable connection at a meager ~2Mbps. I've looked into bying a QOS router but I see many counter-arguments.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Sounds like a maxed-out upstream. What is your upload bandwidth?

Running any torrenting/p2p software? Anything like Dropbox or Google Drive syncing?

EDIT: Wait, WiFi only? That's interesting. Very interesting. Have to think about that more.

 

[emdea22]

Best bang for buck router i've tested -> Asus rt n18u

The thing with Chinese routers is they benchmark fast but after a couple of months they become unstable as hell. I don't recommend TP-link as all routers i've tested did the exact same thing after a few months.

Right now i have 1PC,1 laptop, i smart tv, two tablets and 3 smartphones connected to the ASUS plus two PCs with a 1Gbps direct line. Even if i download with 20MB/s on one of the PCs -> the other devices connected still work flawlessly even at 1080p youtube.

 

[bill001g]

If a ethernet connection solves this it means it is totally a wireless issue. QoS is only really used on WAN connection to the ISP. The so called QoS for wireless is used to control transmission of data from the router not control which end client can use it. It tends to not have much if any impact.

Wireless extender/repeaters will likely make your problem worse. You are now introducing another interfering wireless signal.

One of the common causes used to be devices that were running old wireless protocols like 802.11b. This used to cause a router to in effect slow everyone down. It is not a common issue since almost everyone has 802.11n but it might be. Try to disable the support for 802.11b/g in the router if it has that option.

The main problem with wireless is whoever can yell the loudest wins. The machine closest to the router will almost always be able to use more than others and there is not a lot you can do about it.

Since it is a dual band router can you have some of your machine use the other band there should be no conflict between the bands.

If you must say use 2.4g you could add a second device not as a extender but as a AP. This would allow you to use a different radio channel. You would assign different SSID and then make sure that one laptop was not on the same SSID as everyone else.

 

[emdea22]

BTW is the laptop "using up" all the internet a Samsung by any chance? I've had a similar experience with a samsung laptop, as soon as you connected it everything on the network slowed to a crawl but that was on a TPlink router.

 

[muss101gr]

The TP-Link is currently used as an access point in conjunction wtih the Zyxel powerline, but it doesn't deliver much, but the powerline at any configuration doesn't deliver much.

I'm pretty sure the dual bands can't be used concurrently?