Question Router Upgrade Question

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Kaitaborgsf

Kaitaborgsf

Apr 7, 2020
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Hello forums!

I have just bought and will be soon building a second gaming PC for my significant other and when my ISP was over troubleshooting some line issues he pointed out that the router I was using was bottle-necking my system based on the speeds I was paying for.

The router is this Asus RT-AC1200GE (which was bought when we were super low on funds)

Currently we have a 200mbs package from our ISP and we have already purchased another cat5e for the new tower but we are a little lost on whether this router needs upgrading or not and if it does precisely what aspects of the router we should focus on.

The MOBO's we have support gigabit LAN and these are an Asus P6X58D-P and the Asus Prime x570-P and the router we have also supports this but if anyone could offer up any advice or links to guides that would be super appreciated!

Note; We did look up guides to inform our purchases but found this area was rather lackadaisical compared to more popular guides on CPU/GPU's and felt that the forums was a good place to go.

Thank you all in advance!
 
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There is not much in a router that could cause it to run at those speeds. If you got say 80mbps or 107mbps but the mid 90 range almost always is a ethernet problem. It could be a bad wan port but there is no way to fix that.

You could plug you pc into the WAN port on the router. It would not actually do much but you could see if it connects a gbit speeds. Still it might run at gbit connected to the pc but not the modem. If you work at it you can hook a pc on the wan side and a pc on the lan side and then use programs like IPERF to see the maximum throughput. This is kinda how router testing sites test this. Almost all routers can run very close to gigabit speeds.

At some point I guess you just replace the router.....get a asus that can run merlin so you can see things like this :)
 
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Well, I tested the configuration of several cables between the PC-Modem, the PC-Router, and they all behaved as expected. The port under adapter settings also changed as expected (1000 mbps when connected to modem and 100 when connected to router). Unfortunately I can't seem to test the ethernet ports in telnet with this router -- neither ethctl (i think this is merlin only) nor robocfg work to try and force the connection open at 1000FD.

I'm kind of at a loss atm.
 
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You should never actually need to force the speed. It would make things worse. You must set both ends to make this work. If one end is set to auto and the other to some fixed value the end on auto never gets the expected signalling for it to select the correct port settings. It many times gets it wrong. Used to be it would drop to 100 half duplex by default.
 
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bill001g said:
You should never actually need to force the speed. It would make things worse. You must set both ends to make this work. If one end is set to auto and the other to some fixed value the end on auto never gets the expected signalling for it to select the correct port settings. It many times gets it wrong. Used to be it would drop to 100 half duplex by default.
Click to expand...

I was going to set both ends to 1000FD if I could to test it but I can't seem to get that working on the router side.
 
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I really don't know why they even allow duplex on gigabit. It always runs full duplex, it transmits and receives on all 4 pair at the same time.
I have not looked at wan port but years ago when I messed with writing my own mods to third party firmware I found the switch chip used on the lan ports of many routers did not even support a option to set it. It would let you do vlan etc but had no command to set speed/duplex the chip would accept.

Since you have tried multiple cables and connected it to different devices that only have trouble when connected to the router it almost has to be the wan port. I guess you could look to see if a pin was bent in the jack but it is more likely something else in the electronics itself.
 
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Brian_180 said:
I'm currently a cybersecurity student and very much still learning so take my advice for what it is. :)

Since you're connecting the gaming tower via the RJ45, I don't know what your ISP tech was talking about. As Jimmy said above, your router has gigabit transfer ports so with your 200mbps plan with your ISP, there's no way your router would bottleneck... you can't even hit the top capacity. Unless of course he somehow noticed your router was malfunctioning (an issue I just recently ran into) but I imagine he'd have specifically said that.

While the AC1200GE is certainly not a top of the line router, it seems sufficient for your needs. If your ISP ever offers fiber in your area you'd have to upgrade, but you're sitting pretty right now.

Also as a funny aside, on the router page you linked to, it demonstrates setting up a usage clock and instead of "bedtime" it says "badtime". This made me spit out my drink.
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First question you should ask (I am retired after 30 years in cyber sec) is is this DSL (unlikely) or Cable/DOCSIS. He could be on an old revision of DOCSIS which would MOST DEFINITELY gimp his internet speeds, regardless of the speed of the Hub built into the router.

So Question 1 should be - is this Cable/DOCSIS
Question 2 - is the Router in question also a Cable/DOCSIS modem?
Question 3 -if it has integrated Cable/DOCSIS, what version is it?
Question 4- What version DOCSIS is the provider using?

So The Tech was correct - he saw the router and maybe knows that the DOCSIS is lacking and there fore would gimp speeds.

And again the RJ45 and Gbe have absolutely nothing to do with internet speeds.
 
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bill001g said:
That is the problem just because it works on one device does not mean it works on another. I really wish cables would just not work at all when they go bad.

The key indicator it is a cable is that you are getting about say 94 on your speed test. That is the number you see all the time when have a port at 100mbps. There is some variation using speedtest but generally you would see some cases where you get say 110mbps which means the port must be in gigabit mode.

I can't think of a easy way to really tell the speed of the cable between the modem and router if neither device will tell you and there are no lights.
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Not a patch cable thing - the tech was probably referring to the cable modem in the router being an older revision of DOCSIS that cannot support the higher speeds...

The patch cables HAVE NOTHING TO TO WITH THE CONNECTION TO THE PROVIDER.

Maybe he should repaint his car - has as much to to with the connection to the provider as the patch cables do.
 
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bill001g said:
I agree with the above you will not get a bottleneck using ethernet. You should be able to test the internet with your current pc. Even very inexpensive routers can run at gigabit speeds wan to lan now days. It should have no issues running only 200mbps.
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Think about this, Mr Titan ... WHY would the tech from the ISP make a comment about something OUTSIDE his sphere - he was saying that the modem - was an issue - like not supporting the later revision of DOCSIS they are probably using. Patch Cables and the GbE hub or NIC have NOTHING at all to do with this.

ISP Tech comments on the Router.... that's the clue
 
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Deicidium369 said:
Think about this, Mr Titan ... WHY would the tech from the ISP make a comment about something OUTSIDE his sphere - he was saying that the modem - was an issue - like not supporting the later revision of DOCSIS they are probably using. Patch Cables and the GbE hub or NIC have NOTHING at all to do with this.

ISP Tech comments on the Router.... that's the clue
Click to expand...

Dude, I appreciate the comments but, and I may be reading into this too much, keep it civil. Please, if you haven't, go back and take a look at the links to the modem and router because your first posts questions 1-4 are already answered.

Just an FYI, the DOCSIS isn't lacking which is confirmed when connecting the PC to the modem directly and seeing proper speeds.
 
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Deicidium369 said:
First question you should ask (I am retired after 30 years in cyber sec) is is this DSL (unlikely) or Cable/DOCSIS. He could be on an old revision of DOCSIS which would MOST DEFINITELY gimp his internet speeds, regardless of the speed of the Hub built into the router.

So Question 1 should be - is this Cable/DOCSIS
Question 2 - is the Router in question also a Cable/DOCSIS modem?
Question 3 -if it has integrated Cable/DOCSIS, what version is it?
Question 4- What version DOCSIS is the provider using?

So The Tech was correct - he saw the router and maybe knows that the DOCSIS is lacking and there fore would gimp speeds.

And again the RJ45 and Gbe have absolutely nothing to do with internet speeds.
Click to expand...
The router was stated as an Asus RT-AC1200GE in the beginning of the thread. All you have to do is Google the router to find out that it is nothing more than a WiFi router, not a combo device. We were told earlier as well that the modem is a DOCSIS 3.0 modem with support for 343Mbps. Comcast recommends using that with connections up to 150Mbps, which is very conservative on their part. I personally run a DOSCIS 3.0 Motorolla SB6141 from 2013 on my 200Mbps connection at home. It would be too slow for the 400Mbps connection since it is only a 16x8 device, but it is plenty for 200Mbps. Also I never have speed issues using the older DOCSIS 3.0 modem.

Based off of everything we know, there is either a cable issue or some port issue on the router. When directly connected to the modem he is getting GbE as verified by Windows, but when connected to the router he is only getting Fast Ethernet. Typically that means that there is an issue with the cables.

@Kaitaborgsf Have you tried using the known good cable from directly connecting to the modem as the cable from your router to the PC? If you try that and you are only getting 100Mbps then there has to be a setting somewhere in the router tha/t is having your Ethernet connections only run at 100Mbps or Fast Ethernet. Also have you tried other ports on the router to see if you get gigabit connection? Could be that just that one port is bad.
 
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jeremyj_83 said:
The router was stated as an Asus RT-AC1200GE in the beginning of the thread. All you have to do is Google the router to find out that it is nothing more than a WiFi router, not a combo device. We were told earlier as well that the modem is a DOCSIS 3.0 modem with support for 343Mbps. Comcast recommends using that with connections up to 150Mbps, which is very conservative on their part. I personally run a DOSCIS 3.0 Motorolla SB6141 from 2013 on my 200Mbps connection at home. It would be too slow for the 400Mbps connection since it is only a 16x8 device, but it is plenty for 200Mbps. Also I never have speed issues using the older DOCSIS 3.0 modem.

Based off of everything we know, there is either a cable issue or some port issue on the router. When directly connected to the modem he is getting GbE as verified by Windows, but when connected to the router he is only getting Fast Ethernet. Typically that means that there is an issue with the cables.

@Kaitaborgsf Have you tried using the known good cable from directly connecting to the modem as the cable from your router to the PC? If you try that and you are only getting 100Mbps then there has to be a setting somewhere in the router tha/t is having your Ethernet connections only run at 100Mbps or Fast Ethernet. Also have you tried other ports on the router to see if you get gigabit connection? Could be that just that one port is bad.
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Yeah, I tried connecting the known good cables (in fact, all cables) from the modem to the router and I am still getting only the fast ethernet speeds.

Likewise, I have tested all 4 ports with no change.

If I could get the telnet command line working I'd open up the ports to 1000FD on both ends (computer and router) but robocfg and ethctl don't work. I am unable to locate any settings within the router UI that would indicate any port-speed settings.
 
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Kaitaborgsf said:
Yeah, I tried connecting the known good cables (in fact, all cables) from the modem to the router and I am still getting only the fast ethernet speeds.

Likewise, I have tested all 4 ports with no change.

If I could get the telnet command line working I'd open up the ports to 1000FD on both ends (computer and router) but robocfg and ethctl don't work. I am unable to locate any settings within the router UI that would indicate any port-speed settings.
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Somewhere in the GUI you should be able to change the setting to GbE on the ports. That is the only explanation to your issue.
 
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Kaitaborgsf said:
The new router fixed the issue; felt like maybe the router I had, had false advertising.
Click to expand...

More likely it had some issues or was just too old. Companies don't typically get away with false advertising much and I have been using Asus routers for quite a long time with no issues in their performance, as I said my RT-AC88U covers my entire home easily and easily maxes out my 300Mbps connection wired (or wireless on the 5GHz band).
 
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