OK, What am I doing wrong with my new Virgin connection then?

[Scania]

To cut a long story short, I have recently changed from BT's middle package to Virgins similar package - 10Meg Wireless broadband.

Previously, on the - admittedly excellent - BT service, I could connect my 4 PC's via my router and have me and upto 3 mates playing Battlefield 2 on the same server quite happily.

Due to nothing more than price, I elected to change to Virgin from BT as soon as my contract expired due to the near £60 per month I was paying BT - Virgin want half for the same!

Alas, I cannot, it appears, connect more than 2 PC's to the same server, if I connect a 3rd, the 3rd PC is very "stuttery" and soon crashes to desktop.

It seems to be doing this regardless of the game I'm playing - BF2, BF1942 both have the same issue.

I have also noticed when I set up a LAN game (again in BF2) when I try to connect to my local server, I get a ping of approx 300 - surely via LAN it should be zero?

I never had any previous issues dividing my BT connection to my 4 machines & gaming with them, so why now with Virgin?

I spent an hour on to their tech support the other night and they assure me "my connection is fine" and indeed, I am getting great (compared to my old BT setup) download speeds.

I assume something is setup wrong - I am currently using my 4 pc's connected via ethernet to my router (Netgear MGR614 that came with the Virgin package) and the wireless works great with my laptop.

if only I could game with more than 2 PC's!!!

Any pointers appreciated......

Ta.

 

[jaybee]

Well clearly it's the router? Connection is fine, and that's the only thing that has changed? Why don't you borrow someone elses router or a hub/switch from somewhere just to test its the router? It could be the way you have configured it or it could just be dodgey?

 

[Ace Modder]

use a WRT54GL router, they are great on Virgin

 

[pennywise]

Well clearly it's the router? Connection is fine, and that's the only thing that has changed? Why don't you borrow someone elses router or a hub/switch from somewhere just to test its the router? It could be the way you have configured it or it could just be dodgey?

^This

If you're even getting bad pings over a LAN then there has to be something wrong with the router, but since Virgin supplied it surely they should be obliged to replace it if it's faulty? Or do they play the old "one PC connected via ethernet cable = connection fine" trick to fob you off?

 

[Scania]

use a WRT54GL router, they are great on Virgin

Hmm, I assume you mean this? - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...54GL 54Mbps Open Source Wireless Cable Router

I'm more than a bit reluctant to fork out another £41 when my package supposedly comes with a router already.

I'll give my previous Netgear RP614v2 a go (which is the router that worked great with BT) sadly it has no wireless.....

I'll report back.

^This

If you're even getting bad pings over a LAN then there has to be something wrong with the router, but since Virgin supplied it surely they should be obliged to replace it if it's faulty? Or do they play the old "one PC connected via ethernet cable = connection fine" trick to fob you off?

Thus far it seems to be one PC working - no problem as far as Virgin seem to be concerned.

BT's tech support was a lot better (for twice the price, you'd hope so tbh!)

 

[PhillyDee]

You could plug the other router in and configure it as a wireless access point (If it allows you to do so anyway)

 

[MeatLoaf]

Did you go with the Cable virgin or ADSL virgin?

 

[jas07]

Im afraid it does indeed sound like your router, and from my exp routers that come free with Broadband providers are good to be used as a spare to check things and nothing more really. Esp if you have a lot of traffic either locally or on the net.

I know what you mean in that if they give you one it should work but i think your gonna have a real hard time getting them to change it!

 

[whitecrook]

I'd agree. Afte numerous cheap ass routers I finally got myself a WRT 54GL and flashed it with DDWRT. Bloody excellent - never had a prob with it in (2?) years now. Games, torrents,downloads,browsing. It has traffic shaping as well which is sweet.

 

[Scania]

Well, shock horror! - My trusty Netgear RP614v2 works just fine! (as it did with BT) so, surely, a newer model, namely the WGR614 that came with the Virgin package should work the same? - I'll have a look at the Netgear website later too see if I can find any pointers - I can't be bothered atm, its been along night @ work for me.

You could plug the other router in and configure it as a wireless access point (If it allows you to do so anyway)

How would I do this then? - I'm not too familiar with this wireless thing....

Did you go with the Cable virgin or ADSL virgin?

Cable.

I'd agree. Afte numerous cheap ass routers I finally got myself a WRT 54GL and flashed it with DDWRT. Bloody excellent - never had a prob with it in (2?) years now. Games, torrents,downloads,browsing. It has traffic shaping as well which is sweet.

Sounds interesting although, tbh, I don't understand what DDWRT nor traffic shaping is!

Thanks for the feedback chaps, much appreciated.

 

[Dist]

Sounds interesting although, tbh, I don't understand what DDWRT nor traffic shaping is!

Basicaly, the WRT54GL router is special in that its possible to put 3rd party firmware on it, DDWRT is a popular firmware, personaly i use Tomato firmware on my WRT54GL. The 3rd party firmware provides many new features and functions that the standard linksys firmware does not, meaning you have much more controll over the router.

One nice feature of using custom firmware is some of the great Quality of Service (QoS) things you can do, for example setting it so the ports used by games have a higher priority over downloads (this is a very simplistic way of explaining QoS, you can do some quite complex QoS rules on some firmware), this means that when downloads are running they will use as much bandwidth as they can but if someone starts gaming then the game will get priority and so should not be slowed down by the download.

 

[whitecrook]

Yeah. ^^^^ well said. If I was doing it today I'd probably use Tomato, after checking it out, because everytime I say I use DDWRT, No one ever says me too.. they always say they use Tomato I'm just too lazy now to change something that works so well.