A slow switch will drastically decrease your internet speed

[snowdog]

I have 120 mb internet since a couple of weeks, perhaps a month or 2, I was annoyed and blaming my provider for not providing the speed I expected, I knew my setup limited me somewhat:

Modem - CAT5 100mbps - Linksys switch - CAT5 100mbps - my pc

I have the switch in between because we have many cabled devices in the network, and the 4 ports on the modem are NOT enough.

I was getting only 40 mb at best, me annoyed of course, windows said the network connection bandwith wasn't ever above 50% so I expected at least 70-80 mbits of download tbh.


I just plugged in my pc directly to a port on the modem, 1gbps connection.

And poof :

A stupid Linksys WRT54G can't cope with more than about 50 mbps from 1 switch port to the other, stupid piece of ''beep''.

Here's me being mad at my ISP that they are providing me insufficient speed, lesson learned, plug in my pc directly to a modem using a gigabit connection, my parents pc's and devices like printers can be plugged in to the slower switch hehe .

So remember kids, plug in your pc directly to a modem with an as fast as possible connection to reach maximum internet speed, a 100mbps switch CAN limit your speed badly.


Before, I got speeds like this :

Which is more than 3x as slow...

MY own fault for being stubborn.

 

[alex24]

I use a D-link gigabit switch in a similar arrangement and it's fine. Though I don't quite have as much bandwidth available as you.

 

[snowdog]

Yeah I'm just surprised, I expected AT LEAST 50 megabits through the linksys switch, I found it hard to believe it was the switch's fault and blamed my ISP with a couple of mails . Was actually close to stepping down from 120mb to 40 mb...

A gigabit switch, if I buy one to replace the linksys one, would be okay ?

I mean, I have 2 cables going upstairs now... While I can leave this like it is ( and simply tidy up the 2nd cable which is going across the floor/house now) I'd rather not have the hassle of laying another cable upstairs...Would any gigabit switch in between the modem and my pc be fine to provide me with my full internet bandwith ?

 

[Dave85]

reminds me of when I first got 50mb and wouldnt get above 25mb download blaming virgin big time assumed my draytek router that cost over £140 would have not been the issue. Went direct to modem and bam 50mb. router wan to lan only had 30mb bandwidth tops

 

[bremen1874]

Yeah I'm just surprised, I expected AT LEAST 50 megabits through the linksys switch, I found it hard to believe it was the switch's fault and blamed my ISP with a couple of mails . Was actually close to stepping down from 120mb to 40 mb...

A gigabit switch, if I buy one to replace the linksys one, would be okay ?

I mean, I have 2 cables going upstairs now... While I can leave this like it is ( and simply tidy up the 2nd cable which is going across the floor/house now) I'd rather not have the hassle of laying another cable upstairs...Would any gigabit switch in between the modem and my pc be fine to provide me with my full internet bandwith ?

If you’re just using the LAN side of the WRT54G as a switch then you should be able to replace it with any Gigabit switch.

If you’re actually using the WRT54G as a router, then you’re going to need to replace it with a router. Have a look at the throughput chart over at smallnetbuilder.com http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/router-charts/view to find something capable of handling 120Mbit/sec WAN to LAN.

 

[snowdog]

Using it as just a switch, its to slow at even doing just that...
The cisco modem is a router too, 4 port switch and wlan, the linksys is used for upstairs and the cisco one downstairs...

Have more than 2 devices cabled both down and upstairs, also using both as a wlan access point as obv. one has better reception upstairs and one downstairs.... In total I have 5 devices (pcs, laptops, etc) cabled in the network, and 4 wireless...

 

[RimBlock]

I have 120 mb internet since a couple of weeks, perhaps a month or 2, I was annoyed and blaming my provider for not providing the speed I expected, I knew my setup limited me somewhat:

Modem - CAT5 100mbps - Linksys switch - CAT5 100mbps - my pc

Cat5 or cat5e ?. Cat5e is fine for Gbit but Cat5 may have issues. What are the max cable lengths you are running and are they solid or multi-strand cable ?.

I was getting only 40 mb at best, me annoyed of course, windows said the network connection bandwith wasn't ever above 50% so I expected at least 70-80 mbits of download tbh.

Ok, so at the switch you would be limited to 100mbit (12.5MB/s Max) divided by what ever is flowing through the switch at the same time if all cabling is up to spec. Your suggested expectation of 70-80Mbit/s certainly seems a reasonable expectation.

I just plugged in my pc directly to a port on the modem, 1gbps connection.

You unplugged the cable between the Cisco and the WRT at the WRT end and then plugged that same cable directly in to your computer or used a different cable of the same length or took your PC to the Cisco router and then connected with a different shorter cable ?.

A stupid Linksys WRT54G can't cope with more than about 50 mbps from 1 switch port to the other, stupid piece of ''beep''.

Which one do you have ?. They currently have many different versions and hardware revisions.

Here's me being mad at my ISP that they are providing me insufficient speed, lesson learned, plug in my pc directly to a modem using a gigabit connection, my parents pc's and devices like printers can be plugged in to the slower switch hehe .

So remember kids, plug in your pc directly to a modem with an as fast as possible connection to reach maximum internet speed, a 100mbps switch CAN limit your speed badly.

Absolutely. Bad cables are another place to look for problems with link speeds (connectors damaged/stressed, cable kinked/bent at sharp angles or even being adhoc joined can all be detrimental to throughput).

One think to look out for on the router specs is max throughput rather than just max link speed. More expensive routers and switches tend to have better backend bandwidth available to service all ports simultaneously at top speed whilst cheaper units may not.

Results from a WRT54G V3.1 (taken from dd-wrt speed test here).

Ethernet switch alone:
> 70 Mbit/s

NAT:
30 Mbit/s (GL), 21 Mbit/s (G v3.1)

PPPoE + NAT:
23Mbit/s (GL)

RP-PPPoE + NAT:
≈ 6 Mbit/s (GL)

WLAN (WPA2) :
24 Mbit/s

PPPoE + NAT + WLAN (WPA2):
16Mbit/s at least (GL, see below)

RP-PPPoE + NAT + WLAN (WPA):
4.6 Mbit/s (GL)

Unfortunately cannot find total throughput figures for the switch.

If you want to get good then look at the HP Procurve range. Not so expensive, very well built and come with a lifetime guarantee. I use a 1810-24G web managed switch at home and it is great. You should be able to get something like a 1410-8G unmanaged switch fairly cheaply (it is around 50quid here). Keep the Linksys if you want wireless connectivity and just plug it in to one of the Procurve ports. Netgear also get good reviews although, honestly, our server racks are generally filled with HP/Cisco (proper Cisco not home Cisco ) switches and routers at work.

RB

 

[sidethink]

Ok, so at the switch you would be limited to 100mbit (12.5MB/s Max) divided by what ever is flowing through the switch at the same time if all cabling is up to spec. Your suggested expectation of 70-80Mbit/s certainly seems a reasonable expectation.

This is not how switches work.

The switch backplane should have capacity far in excess of the speed of any one port to enable most if not all ports to run at wirespeed. Entry level switches might have backplanes that only have enough overhead for one or two ports running at full speed. Enterprise switches will have enough overhead for every port to run at full speed and some left over for uplinks and stacking. you get what you pay for.

Its also not unusual for entry level switches to have ports that can only throughput 40-60Mbit/s even though the connector is 100BaseT. This misleads a lot of people but again, you get what you pay for. You do mention an excellent entry level choice though, the HP Procurve switches offer both decent port throughput and excellent backplane bandwidth and are great switches at a great price (even the litle 1410-8g has a 16Gbit backplane).

 

[RimBlock]

This is not how switches work.

I suspect you have miss understood what I have written.

If the switch is linked to the router via a single network cable then the bandwidth down that link is limited to the 'theoretical' max of the connection which in the given example was 100Mbit/s. If you have 4 devices all connected to the Linksys switch (well router but regardless) and all devices are trying to get to the internet than the single link bandwidth will be shared between the devices in either first come first served or with newer routers, preferably via various QoS configurations. The point being that the switch only has a single port which allows a route to the destination device client devices connected to the switch wish to reach. The client devices are therefore limited to the bandwidth accessible through that one port regardless of what throughput the switch can manage in totality over one or more ports combined, which is what you are talking about.

I suspect you also missed

One think to look out for on the router specs is max throughput rather than just max link speed. More expensive routers and switches tend to have better backend bandwidth available to service all ports simultaneously at top speed whilst cheaper units may not.

and

If you want to get good then look at the HP Procurve range. Not so expensive, very well built and come with a lifetime guarantee. I use a 1810-24G web managed switch at home and it is great. You should be able to get something like a 1410-8G unmanaged switch fairly cheaply (it is around 50quid here). Keep the Linksys if you want wireless connectivity and just plug it in to one of the Procurve ports. Netgear also get good reviews although, honestly, our server racks are generally filled with HP/Cisco (proper Cisco not home Cisco ) switches and routers at work.

from my original post as you have just more or less repeated the same things.

RB

 

[snowdog]

Cat5 or cat5e ?. Cat5e is fine for Gbit but Cat5 may have issues. What are the max cable lengths you are running and are they solid or multi-strand cable ?.

The cables I used before were both 5e, incidentally the one I'm using now directly is a long cat5.

Ok, so at the switch you would be limited to 100mbit (12.5MB/s Max) divided by what ever is flowing through the switch at the same time if all cabling is up to spec. Your suggested expectation of 70-80Mbit/s certainly seems a reasonable expectation.

You unplugged the cable between the Cisco and the WRT at the WRT end and then plugged that same cable directly in to your computer or used a different cable of the same length or took your PC to the Cisco router and then connected with a different shorter cable ?.

That's what I thought, but apparently not!

Unplugged nothing, I plugged a 2nd cable in a free port from the cisco to another free gigabit port on my pc. I'm actually double connected right now (though obviously the ''old'' connection is unneeded for my pc)...
The ''new'' cable is longer than the 2 old ones combined...

Which one do you have ?. They currently have many different versions and hardware revisions.

Absolutely. Bad cables are another place to look for problems with link speeds (connectors damaged/stressed, cable kinked/bent at sharp angles or even being adhoc joined can all be detrimental to throughput).

One think to look out for on the router specs is max throughput rather than just max link speed. More expensive routers and switches tend to have better backend bandwidth available to service all ports simultaneously at top speed whilst cheaper units may not.

Results from a WRT54G V3.1 (taken from dd-wrt speed test here).
Unfortunately cannot find total throughput figures for the switch.

If you want to get good then look at the HP Procurve range. Not so expensive, very well built and come with a lifetime guarantee. I use a 1810-24G web managed switch at home and it is great. You should be able to get something like a 1410-8G unmanaged switch fairly cheaply (it is around 50quid here). Keep the Linksys if you want wireless connectivity and just plug it in to one of the Procurve ports. Netgear also get good reviews although, honestly, our server racks are generally filled with HP/Cisco (proper Cisco not home Cisco ) switches and routers at work.

RB

I'm not exactly sure what version I have except that it's the WRT54G model, not the GL, or any other faster version. I can't seem to connect to it right now, I'll look later, got to run to work now...

 

[sidethink]

Ok, so at the switch you would be limited to 100mbit (12.5MB/s Max) divided by what ever is flowing through the switch at the same time if all cabling is up to spec.

Didn't miss anything really - the statement in bold is ambiguous at best. The switch is not limited to 100Mbit and 'whatever is flowing through the switch' shouldn't have any impact on the throughput of a single port; if the backplane is up to scratch.

 

[KIA]

WRT54G routing bottleneck rather than a switch limitation. WRT54G is old.

 

[RimBlock]

Didn't miss anything really - the statement in bold is ambiguous at best. The switch is not limited to 100Mbit and 'whatever is flowing through the switch' shouldn't have any impact on the throughput of a single port; if the backplane is up to scratch.

Clearly you did as I stated "at the switch" and did not say that 'the switch' as an entire unit was limiting to 100MBits. Combine the statement with the fact that the text that Snowdog posted which I was referencing clearly showed that he is connecting to the switch via a single port should have made it fairly clear. I could have made 'whatever is flowing through the switch' a bit clearer as what I meant was 'whatever is flowing through the that port on the switch'.

The fact that you feel the need to repeat fact that a good backplane should allow all ports to function at their rated speed which I had already stated in my initial post, you then stated in response, I then quoted where I stated in the initial post and you now feel the need to state again whilst saying you didn't miss it the first time is really most perplexing.

Anyway, moving on, the bandwidth of a single port link in the original wiring example between the internet router and DLink is underspec'd for the available bandwidth of the internet connection without even considering any other network activity that may require a connection between devices using that particular port.

RB

 

[RimBlock]

The cables I used before were both 5e, incidentally the one I'm using now directly is a long cat5.

Ok, understood. The long Cat5 seems to be doing the job for you and will go fine on 100MBit but Cat5 is underspec'd for 1GBit. That is not to say it will not work but it is more likely to introduce issues than a Cat5e or Cat6 spec'd cable.

Unplugged nothing, I plugged a 2nd cable in a free port from the cisco to another free gigabit port on my pc. I'm actually double connected right now (though obviously the ''old'' connection is unneeded for my pc)...
The ''new'' cable is longer than the 2 old ones combined...

Ok but what you have now done is taken 3 items out of the equation rather than just the Linksys . You have the cable between the Linksys and the Internet modem, the Linksys itself and the cable between the Linksys and the PC.

Whilst I am not saying the Linksys is not the problem, it may be a cable is also contributing to the issue.

How about putting the new cable between the modem and Linksys and using the original cable between the Linksys and the PC and retesting. Then try the original cable between the modem and Linksys and the new cable between the Linksys and the PC. One final test of replacing both the cables either side of the Linksys and testing again. At worst you can verify your cables are still ok so if you change the Linksys for another GBit switch then you should be good to go.

The alternative may be just getting some Cat6 solid core UTP and putting in perm cables. I recently ran around 400mtrs of cabling in my place and now don't really need to worry about network cables trailing everywhere and linking between floors etc. Cable I used was 3M and came to around 50p/mtr (302mtr roll). Can put some up on members market if any interest. Not sure of the shipping cost from here to you or the UK but can find out.

I'm not exactly sure what version I have except that it's the WRT54G model, not the GL, or any other faster version. I can't seem to connect to it right now, I'll look later, got to run to work now...

Sure, just out of interest really. There is quite a lot of info on the internet about speed of the WRT54G but with so many models on offer it is hard to pin anything down which may be specific to you.

RB