Should I upgrade to 6.0Mbps?

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I agree completely. Now we just need a tiny push for everyone to scream out "enough".

To play devil's advocate, some people prefer planes to cars on land because of speed. I can sure get to California by a plane quicker than my car.

~Ibrahim~
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Perhaps. But I wonder what the current land record is for automobiles...
The thing is, they barely researched faster trains...trains were simply to slow-haul freight and people from point A to B. Not much research was put into it because flying was "cool" and new. In crowded cities, they installed subways...spent billions on them, digging tunnels, researching etc. Why can't we do that with a cross-country super highway? Instead of just paving the old Oregon trail and then having to bottleneck it with road construction every summer?
 
As for playing Devil's Advocate....play away. Just don't try to get me involved and call it "kinky." 🙂 A good debater is always welcome in my circle. I just don't care for drama. I prefer to leave that to the relationships I attempt with women, before thanking them for the bang and ushering them to the door. :twisted:
 
The hospital I work at has a 3mb up-and-down connection... we have a direct fiber link to our ISP that is throttled to 3mb... however, in the past we had an older firewall/router that was DEFINITELY acting as a bottleneck. Even under light load we would only report around 600 kb/s of available bandwidth. Same connection with a newer firewall/router... showing 2 mb/s available.

I have a 5 mb/s plan from my ISP (that's all the offered at the time I got it) and now they're really pushing a 10 mb/s plan... just not something I'm interested in.
 
Hi, I've had a wireless network for about a year now. Now we have three total computers and the internet seems slower, on all three computers, even the one that is wired straight to the router. Right now I have 3Mbps/384k. If I upgraded to 6Mbps/512k, would that make it faster?

~Ibrahim~
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It would be faster, but at the same time will you notice a difference?

A lot of people will pay out the ass for 15Mbps or fiber to the house. Though this is fine and dandy I find it to be a waste because you're limited. Your download from most any server is capped. And they do this for a reason, millions upon millions downloading from a server at uncapped speeds would bring it to a tremendously slow pace. Your download is limited by the server limit on upload.

I don't see your router having much to do with slowing down your "internet" (your connection to the internet or outside world will vary but your ethernet cable to the router is 100Mbps pretty much all the time.) If you're downloading large files, bit torrenting, p2p file sharing, I can see why you might want to upgrade. There you may see a difference in speed.

I've noticed from personal experience that I don't see a difference in gaming performance from 3Mb/s, 5Mb/s, or 7Mb/s.
 
No one is saying the 100 mb connection most desktops have to routers is the bottleneck. The router's ability to receive, process and route packets is the limiting factor... this is especially true when the device asked to manage other duties such as antivirus enforcement, spyware detection and intrusion detection. Yes, the desktop's link is 100 mb/s to the router and yes the router's link to the internet may be 5/10/15 mb/s... but if the router's processor is being overworked, the user could be limited to a much lower number than any of these.
 
I doubt you would see a situation in which a router is overworked in a home situation.
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yes you would very easily, if you used torrents. they bring MOST home routers to their knees (unless you use a 3rd party firmware).

two laptops on wireless alone would slow eachother down if used at the same time, because wireless bandwidth is slower normally, add a second one using the same limited wireless frequency channel and they're quite slow, regardless of your ISP speed capability.

that does not explain the wired workstation though. If he is not using torrents, and has tried disabling his virus scanning etc, then I'd say the router is likely bogged down. Especially if the two laptops are using wireless security, with some random interference from neighbours, electronics, etc.

I have never tried to actively use two laptops wirelessly using security, but I would imagine that could slow down a basic home router.
 
thats why you buy 2 routers and network them together.

one router to handle wireless traffic on channel 7, the other wireless and wired traffic on channel 3. Make sure they are both gigabit!

Heck...

use this setup.


Modem -> Server firewall -> swtich -> router 1/router 2
 
I doubt you would see a situation in which a router is overworked in a home situation.
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yes you would very easily, if you used torrents. they bring MOST home routers to their knees (unless you use a 3rd party firmware).

two laptops on wireless alone would slow eachother down if used at the same time, because wireless bandwidth is slower normally, add a second one using the same limited wireless frequency channel and they're quite slow, regardless of your ISP speed capability.

that does not explain the wired workstation though. If he is not using torrents, and has tried disabling his virus scanning etc, then I'd say the router is likely bogged down. Especially if the two laptops are using wireless security, with some random interference from neighbours, electronics, etc.

I have never tried to actively use two laptops wirelessly using security, but I would imagine that could slow down a basic home router.

I've never had a "slowdown" due to a router. 9 times out of 10 it's because there are not enough seeders when using bit torrent, or only 1-3 sources per download in a p2p program. Again, other person's upload being your limit.

You're absolutely correct in multiple system of any kind will slow anykind of network because bandwidth is being used. Now if you can develop a network in which this didn't happen to any degree, my friend, you would be a billionaire.

They may slow each other down if one uses B while the other uses G as most routers can't broadcast both so it must default to the slower.

If you doubt what I say, grab a simple hub.... not router... hub.. and use it and see what you get.
 
If you doubt what I say, grab a simple hub.... not router... hub.. and use it and see what you get.
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no not a hub (they really dont sell those any more). What you mean is a switch which will improve bandwidth usage were a hub would not.


you hear about the initiative: One laptop per child?
well soon after they will be doing: One router per child.
 
If you doubt what I say, grab a simple hub.... not router... hub.. and use it and see what you get.
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no not a hub (they really dont sell those any more). What you mean is a switch which will improve bandwidth usage were a hub would not.


you hear about the initiative: One laptop per child?
well soon after they will be doing: One router per child.

No actually what I meant was a hub. The reason why I say hub, there is not task managing, there is no "processing" there is no deceision making. All information goes to all systems attached. Then when you notice you get the same mysterious lag you will know it's not the router being overburdened.

EDIT:

For general home use a router = switch.
 
If it were me, I'd have a single device going to the router and run an internet speed test. If I'm not achieving at least 75% of the advertised speed, I'd consider swapping the router (just to test the router-bottleneck theory) and if that yields the same result then I'd be in touch with my ISP as they're not delivering on their promise. I'd much rather spend $60-$80 once on a new router than sign up for a service that will cost me $10-$20 per month extra.
 
If it were me, I'd have a single device going to the router and run an internet speed test. If I'm not achieving at least 75% of the advertised speed, I'd consider swapping the router (just to test the router-bottleneck theory) and if that yields the same result then I'd be in touch with my ISP as they're not delivering on their promise. I'd much rather spend $60-$80 once on a new router than sign up for a service that will cost me $10-$20 per month extra.
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I did exactly that and that's what led me to my switch from Cable to DSL. That and my cable ISP throttled my connection after I downloaded over a CD's worth (600MB) of information a month
 
I WOULDNT TOUCH DLINK WITH A 10 Foot Cattle PROD!!

THEY HAVE THE WORST CUSTOMER SUPPORT of any pc prod co on the planet!!
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My personal experiences with DLink tells me to avoid them... I know several people with DLink routers that have had issues in the past. My Linksys has served me well and I'm not replacing in the foreseeable future... however, I have had one particularly nasty run-in with a current Linksys product that definitely left a bad taste in my mouth. In fact, I looked it up...

Avoid THIS product like the plague... http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1126536803676&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper
 
wow that's an insane download limit (600mb), were you on their "basic" or "lite" product? I've never heard of such a low limit. Rediculous.

responding to the other person, why would you need dlink customer service? were you RMAing your defective hardware? If you purchase a router and expect to be able to set it up yourself, RMA should be your only reason for calling in my opinion (assuming you're past the 30 day warranty from whatever store you bought it from, and within the 1 year hardware warranty I presume they have).

I rarely have any issues with customer service anywhere, because I can explain to them what is wrong and prove it to them without them walking me through any troubleshooting. Only time that's a problem is when they keep trying to go through their set sequence of questions when I've already walked them past them all.

edit: btw, I own a dlink gaming router (can't remember the model number) and it's fantastic. uptime is months.
 
wow that's an insane download limit (600mb), were you on their "basic" or "lite" product? I've never heard of such a low limit. Rediculous.
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I agree, however I was not on any "lite" product. It's a part of Cableone's Digital Service Agreement. I may have lied, it may be 700MB, either way it's incredibly low + it's cable and the layout of cable broadband alone is enough to switch.
 
lol 600megs and they freak.
I downloaded 80gigs last month (no not illegal content).



No actually what I meant was a hub. The reason why I say hub, there is not task managing, there is no "processing" there is no deceision making. All information goes to all systems attached. Then when you notice you get the same mysterious lag you will know it's not the router being overburdened.
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ah, i thought u meant use the hub as a fix for any network slowness.


Anayway, I have been battling Comcast with their slow speeds. I only get about 100kb up and 3mb down. Advertised is 756up and 7-8mb down. Vidoes from compfused/milkandcookies.... lag everything im doing, like gaming or w/e.


Anyone know of a great home router that is a bit more robust? I am thinking of going sysco but that may be a bit much.
 
that depends on where you live. I have very reliable 5 and 6mbit cable in my area, and I hit full download speed whenever I find a server that can support it. The 6mbit is a lot more expensive for marginal download but a significant upload difference, which I really do not need.

I have 2 pc's frequently using the internet and a voip gateway on my dlink gaming router, and I have literally downloaded at 500kb/sec+ at the same time as a voip call with a very good torrent. Talk about stability!

When I first discovered torrents, I literally downloaded almost 100gb in one month (no exaggeration). The next month was a whole lot lower, but I never got a warning letter, nothing. I routinely download probably 10-20gb a month easily.

EDIT: comptia_rep, please consider the D-Link DGL-4300 GamerLounge Wireless 108G Gaming Router. Myself and 3 other people I attend lan parties with have this router, and we all swear by it. Fantastic for everything we have thrown at it, excellent security and settings, and believe it or not the packet prioritization called "gamefuel" (I know, sounds like marketing) actually helps!
 
lol 600megs and they freak.
I downloaded 80gigs last month (no not illegal content).




No actually what I meant was a hub. The reason why I say hub, there is not task managing, there is no "processing" there is no deceision making. All information goes to all systems attached. Then when you notice you get the same mysterious lag you will know it's not the router being overburdened.
Click to expand...

ah, i thought u meant use the hub as a fix for any network slowness.


Anayway, I have been battling Comcast with their slow speeds. I only get about 100kb up and 3mb down. Advertised is 756up and 7-8mb down. Vidoes from compfused/milkandcookies.... lag everything im doing, like gaming or w/e.


Anyone know of a great home router that is a bit more robust? I am thinking of going sysco but that may be a bit much.

If you go Linksys you would be going Cisco. Linksys is a subsidiary of Cisco. Cisco is for enterprise level gear.

I would be throwing a fit if I were you too. I go to speakeasy.net and do a speed test. I use Qwest DSL and I hit my marks when hitting a Seattle server.

I usually only went with Dlink, but I was recently sold on a Netgear router which I use at home, and I also purchased another Belkin router.

This is what I use at home

EDIT: I believe the whole limiting thing is only if you go with Cableone's "Digital Package" which is Cable TV + Broadband... which I had. Either way, it was crap. Throughput went down the drain during peak hours so I said screw it and switched to Qwest, no limit, no "peak times" on Qwest's network. (Well there is, but we're not on a shared fiber node like cable so I don't experience lag when the kiddies get home from school and hop on WoW)
 
don't forget to check the Tom's Hardware router charts if you have not already. it does'nt have every model, but a useful resource nonetheless. It also strongly demonstrates how badly some models do for multiple connections.

my previous Linksys WRT54G (version 2 I think it was, there are something like 6 versions) would crash on me all the time with torrents. I got a 3rd party firmware for it and that only allowed me to marginally increase my maximum number of simultaneous torrent connections. I have my maximum connections set to 150 now, which I almost never get close to, and never causes an issue.
 
Hey guys, I'd post a new topic for this question, but since many of you are already here....

I got a 9064 on 3DMark05 with my ATI X1900 AIW card, and swapped it out for my X1950 GT. My score dropped 2000 pts to 7001. Any idea why this is?
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16833120011

I am waiting for the gigabit version of this. I really liked the product when I worked with it.
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Wow lol a bit overkill I would think for home networking. I'm from oldschool command line cisco routers so this would be an awesome improvement over the routers and switches I used to mess with in my school.
 
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