Virgin 20mb being restriced to 7mb through router???

cokebottles · 30 Sep 2007 at 20:05

Hi guys.

I'm such a networking noob, and this forum has enlightened me many times before, so I'm back here for some good ol' OcUK help.

Basicaly..... We've had cable 2mb and 4mb in the past working through our Belkin Cable/DSL 4-Port wired router in the past, serving me and my dad's pcs without a problem. Works fine.

This week we upgraded to 20mb, and at most could get about 700kBps download (7.5mb) and 75kBps upload. Basicaly; upload working find, but downstream only runnin at around 40% of what is actualy coming in. Tried a direct connection from our modem to my pc (no router) and it worked fine, at 2000+kBps (20mb).

I can only assume then, that it is the router which is slowing us down. I've tried turning DHCP on and off, and enabling/disabling UPnP both not having any effect. I think the Belkin part number for the router is F5D5231-4 "4-Port Cable/DSL Gateway Router". Anyone have any ideas.... I've heard old routers like this, have slow processing speeds, and that can cause a bottleneck in bandwith....

I need any help you guys can offer, CHEERS!

Beenom · 30 Sep 2007 at 20:28

Have you tried connected the cable modem directly to a pc via ethernet cable?

Also I think if you upgraded from 2mb to 4mb to 20mb without a modem upgrade, your modem might not be capable of receiving 20mb. Which modem is it?

Vicar · 30 Sep 2007 at 20:35

What type of Modem do you have with Virgin, older modems dont cope with higher speeds, such as Motorola SB3100. I dont think its to do with your Router.

dandan556 · 30 Sep 2007 at 20:45

Beenom said:
Have you tried connected the cable modem directly to a pc via ethernet cable?

cokebottles said:
Tried a direct connection from our modem to my pc (no router) and it worked fine, at 2000+kBps (20mb).

Werewolf · 30 Sep 2007 at 20:53

Chances are the router with has just a 10mbit WAN port, or only has a very weak/slow chip for actually routing the incoming data to the LAN side of things (or it could just be that it's a Belkin router

).

So basically from what you've said/tried it's definately the router slowing things down, which unfortunately means you will almost certainly need a new one to overcome the problem.
There are a number of threads on the forums with regards to which router to use for 20mb cable.

dbmzk1 · 30 Sep 2007 at 20:58

Guys, read his post. He has already tried connecting the modem to the PC directly and it worked fine at 20mb.

The router might only have a 10mb WAN port, or is only connecting with the modem at 10mb. I did a search to find out more info on the router, but didn't come up with much.

Put simply, buy a decent router, eg not a Belkin one

EDIT: Meh, that will teach me for using Google while posting!

cokebottles · 30 Sep 2007 at 21:45

Hey guys,

Thank for the help. Will need to buy a new router by the looks of it then, will take a look. I tried another router too, just now; a Belkin Wifi example (very small, had 4 ethernet ports on it too) and that was even worse, only giving me 400kBps (4mb) bandwidth on the downstream.

It is evident then, that a higher quality brand of router is necessary. Just need to make sure we make the correct purchase. Not interested in wifi at all, just something wired and reliable, possibly with an 'uplink' feature too, because I want to run my connection from the router into a switch in the near future.

Thanks for all your help guys. OcUK came through again!

dbmzk1 · 30 Sep 2007 at 23:32

I'd get one of these http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-052-LS myself. Ignore the fact it has wireless, just know it's there if you ever do need it in the future. It's one of the best routers around for the price, boosted by the fact you can use custom firmware. I've had one for years and its not failed me yet!

C64 · 30 Sep 2007 at 23:40

When i had VM they restricted it to 2meg peak times from 20 meg soon ditched them and went back to bt for the free giganews with 200 day retention.

cokebottles · 30 Sep 2007 at 23:47

dbmzk1 said:
I'd get one of these http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-052-LS myself. Ignore the fact it has wireless, just know it's there if you ever do need it in the future. It's one of the best routers around for the price, boosted by the fact you can use custom firmware. I've had one for years and its not failed me yet!

Okay. This sounds feasible. I wont do any custom-firmwares, so can you comment as to weather or not, this can throughput 20mb successfully WAN to LAN, without modification??

dbmzk1 · 1 Oct 2007 at 00:04

C64 said:
When i had VM they restricted it to 2meg peak times from 20 meg soon ditched them and went back to bt for the free giganews with 200 day retention.

They will cap your speed to 5mb for 4 hours if you download more than 3gb between 4pm and midnight. Still faster than most BT connections I've come across!

BTs Giganews access is limited to 1.4mbit/s with 3 bots. Too slow for me.

dbmzk1 · 1 Oct 2007 at 00:06

cokebottles said:
Okay. This sounds feasible. I wont do any custom-firmwares, so can you comment as to weather or not, this can throughput 20mb successfully WAN to LAN, without modification??

Yes, it will. It is defiantly worth sticking a custom firmware on there though. It's really easy.

tom_e · 1 Oct 2007 at 00:22

dbmzk1 said:
Yes, it will. It is defiantly worth sticking a custom firmware on there though. It's really easy.

definately I got one of these the other day for my virgin 20mb connection and stuck the tomato fw on its so much better than stock