VPN Slow?!?

[Rainmaker]

Thanks and thanks for the offer. I signed up for a month on Proton Plus package for now, will try that out. Its certainly quicker than fastestvpn so far but not maxing the speed. Looks better anyway.

Will try Mullvad next month.

I had a fault with my VM service when I tried them (Proton), but I still got 500Mbps over IPSEC. As always, your local hardware and network setup will be a determining factor. Make sure you are connecting to a quiet 'P' server not a busy and/or free one for maximum speeds, and avoid OpenVPN if you can as IPSEC will generally be faster.

 

[chroniclard]

Unsure how to connect over IPSEC, I was using OpenVPN client, trying their client now. Getting roughly 260Mbps, standard speedtest is 650Mbps.

There is a guide using Windows VPN and IKEv2.

260 seems fine for now, faster than FastestVPN.

 

[Big Frank]

If you can see that your powerline adapters are limited to 100Mbit, and you have already proven you can get faster VPN results using sub optimal devices (phones generally suck at OpenVPN encryption and wireless is not ideal at the best of times), then why would you be reluctant to replace the powerline adapters? Ideally run a cable, but even non crappy powerline adapters (read ones that don’t market 600Mbit and cripple them with 100Mbit ports) are capable of greater than 200Mbit in the real world, actual cable is likely to be cheaper and potentially capable of 10Gb.

I know my powerline adapter is limited to 100mbps the issue is I don't want to invest in upgrading to a better solution until I know I can achieve close to line speed via a VPN, I have spoken to other people who have nordVPN and they say 50mbps is the max they get, I have unfortunately signed up to NordVPN but plan on cancelling within the 30 days to get my money back because the speed is unacceptable.

Privacy is important to me, so much that I'd be willing to sacrifice speed for the assurance that I am safe but everything mentioned here regarding Mullvad, OVPN and AzireVPN looks positive so I am going to give them a go, I guess wireguard is something you config separately or is it built in?

 

[Rainmaker]

I know my powerline adapter is limited to 100mbps the issue is I don't want to invest in upgrading to a better solution until I know I can achieve close to line speed via a VPN, I have spoken to other people who have nordVPN and they say 50mbps is the max they get, I have unfortunately signed up to NordVPN but plan on cancelling within the 30 days to get my money back because the speed is unacceptable.

Privacy is important to me, so much that I'd be willing to sacrifice speed for the assurance that I am safe but everything mentioned here regarding Mullvad, OVPN and AzireVPN looks positive so I am going to give them a go, I guess wireguard is something you config separately or is it built in?

A max of 50Mbps sounds like crap hardware or other problems in the setup for those people you spoke to. For example, testing over WiFi, testing from a phone/mobile device, using 100Mbps powerline adapters... The speed test I posted in post #3 above (902 Mbps) was on NordVPN using NordLynx (their WireGuard implementation).

You're in a bit of a circular argument at the moment. You won't upgrade your powerline adapters until you know you'll get better speeds, but you'll never get better speeds until you update yoru adapters! As I hope I've demonstrated in this thread, with the appropriately powerful hardware and a decent connection (i.e. a decent desktop PC with a strong CPU, cat5e cable or above and WireGuard) you'll easily get many multiples of the speeds you're currently capped at.

If privacy and security is important to you, though, any of the big no-log providers will likely be OK. Nord has its problems and limitations as I said (nothing to do with speed), but with the current cashback offers provided you go in eyes-open worrying about logs isn't one of them. As with anything, it's a balancing act.

WireGuard is a protocol, a way of connecting two networks together. In other words it's a type of VPN. Other types/protocols are OpenVPN, IPSEC/IKEv2, L2TP etc. If you wish to travel from London to Manchester, you might take a car, a bus or a train. They do the same thing but they're different. Similarly, the various VPN protocols do a similar thing, just in a different way. WireGuard in particular is very fast, light and secure and will generally provide the fastest speeds available. Some VPN apps have WireGuard built in at the moment (eg Mullvad, AzireVPN, OVPN, NordVPN, PIA). In many cases, you can download the official generic WireGuard app direct from wireguard.com and import the config files your VPN provider gave you. Some providers like NordVPN and PIA won't give you the actual files, they rely on their apps to connect. Others, like (again) Mullvad, OVPN and Azire, will let you generate and manage your own configs and you can connect to them how you wish (their app, WireGuard's own app, Linux kernel CLI tools etc).

 

[Big Frank]

A max of 50Mbps sounds like crap hardware or other problems in the setup for those people you spoke to. For example, testing over WiFi, testing from a phone/mobile device, using 100Mbps powerline adapters... The speed test I posted in post #3 above (902 Mbps) was on NordVPN using NordLynx (their WireGuard implementation).

You're in a bit of a circular argument at the moment. You won't upgrade your powerline adapters until you know you'll get better speeds, but you'll never get better speeds until you update yoru adapters! As I hope I've demonstrated in this thread, with the appropriately powerful hardware and a decent connection (i.e. a decent desktop PC with a strong CPU, cat5e cable or above and WireGuard) you'll easily get many multiples of the speeds you're currently capped at.

If privacy and security is important to you, though, any of the big no-log providers will likely be OK. Nord has its problems and limitations as I said (nothing to do with speed), but with the current cashback offers provided you go in eyes-open worrying about logs isn't one of them. As with anything, it's a balancing act.

WireGuard is a protocol, a way of connecting two networks together. In other words it's a type of VPN. Other types/protocols are OpenVPN, IPSEC/IKEv2, L2TP etc. If you wish to travel from London to Manchester, you might take a car, a bus or a train. They do the same thing but they're different. Similarly, the various VPN protocols do a similar thing, just in a different way. WireGuard in particular is very fast, light and secure and will generally provide the fastest speeds available. Some VPN apps have WireGuard built in at the moment (eg Mullvad, AzireVPN, OVPN, NordVPN, PIA). In many cases, you can download the official generic WireGuard app direct from wireguard.com and import the config files your VPN provider gave you. Some providers like NordVPN and PIA won't give you the actual files, they rely on their apps to connect. Others, like (again) Mullvad, OVPN and Azire, will let you generate and manage your own configs and you can connect to them how you wish (their app, WireGuard's own app, Linux kernel CLI tools etc).

So I have decided to end the speculation by lugging my desktop downstairs and connecting it directly to the router, my desktop's CPU is an Intel i5 8500 (hex-core 3.0GHz). I got 143.08 Down and 12.54 up with a 25 ping connected to NordVPN.

My router is an old Virgin Media Super Hub AC2, do you think it would be worthwhile asking Virgin for an upgraded router?

I suppose apart from the cabled connection and router is there anything else you think I could do to get as close to line speed as possible?

 

[Avalon]

So now we know the power line adapters are holding you back, and whoever you took advice from shouldn't be giving it. SH2 is not the problem, for a variety of reasons, stick with what you have. With Nord and many other providers, you will generally find they have a lot of servers and vary according to what the people using them are doing at any point, so speeds fluctuate. Looking at my speedtest history I managed 476/34.1 on VM M500 via Nord last time I bothered to test, not an amazing result (it manages 541/36.2 unencrypted), but adequate given that's TCP rather than UDP and someone was likely streaming TV at the time. Did you try the Nord Wireguard option? Generally it'll be quicker as will using UDP rather than TCP on OpenVPN

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Vpn hits cpu limit for me on my haswell based xeon e3-1225 v3 does around 350mbit speed.

 

[Big Frank]

So now we know the power line adapters are holding you back, and whoever you took advice from shouldn't be giving it. SH2 is not the problem, for a variety of reasons, stick with what you have. With Nord and many other providers, you will generally find they have a lot of servers and vary according to what the people using them are doing at any point, so speeds fluctuate. Looking at my speedtest history I managed 476/34.1 on VM M500 via Nord last time I bothered to test, not an amazing result (it manages 541/36.2 unencrypted), but adequate given that's TCP rather than UDP and someone was likely streaming TV at the time. Did you try the Nord Wireguard option? Generally it'll be quicker as will using UDP rather than TCP on OpenVPN

Yeah it's on NordLynx by default. OpenVPN TCP was like using TOR, painfully slow.

I just need to figure out how to cable this now, gonna have a wire travelling from one corner of the living room all the way round up the stairs and into a room, probably need a 15/20m cat6 cable.

I'll need to see if I can find some nice small trunking I can use.

 

[Rainmaker]

Vpn hits cpu limit for me on my haswell based xeon e3-1225 v3 does around 350mbit speed.

With which protocol? While your 1225 is older, slightly, it's still a quad core with decent frequency. My Core i7 3770 (4 cores, HT disabled) and newer Pentium G4560 (2c4t) will all do gigabit over WireGuard. Maybe try under Linux for the lulz if you haven't already.

Yeah it's on NordLynx by default. OpenVPN TCP was like using TOR, painfully slow.

I just need to figure out how to cable this now, gonna have a wire travelling from one corner of the living room all the way round up the stairs and into a room, probably need a 15/20m cat6 cable.

I'll need to see if I can find some nice small trunking I can use.

As usual, Avalon has steered you correctly. I would still expect better speeds than this, but it's a good start considering your available WAN speed.

Stick to cat5e cable, it's cheaper and much more flexible. It's also much thinner and easier to route than cat6. Just make sure you get full copper rather than copper coated aluminium (CCA). Depending on your housing situation, you're probably better going external. In your position, I just bought a cheap 24" SRS drill bit (£8?) and punched out of the rear living room wall (through the cavity and the second layer of brick) to the garden.

I did the same from outside back in upstairs, to the bedroom. Both holes were drilled such that the resultant wall mounted boxes would be adjoining matching power sockets, so it looked smarter. Just a single cable run from my core switch to the wall box, which itself is cabled (exterior grade cat 5e) to the box upstairs. I then have a switch plugged into the box upstairs, to which all other devices connect. It took me less than an hour all in, including drilling, threading the cable and terminating both ends (keystone/punchdown tool) and sorting it all out. Total cost was around £30 including cable, two boxes and tools. Permanent, reliable and much more convenient than trailing cables around the interior.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

I use windows server 2008 RRAS to setup the vpn then i connect to it. L2tp ipsec. Its single thread so with 4 cores and 4 users yes it will max gigabit.
Also setup a https file server which seems to max out at around 55megabytes per second but does full gigabit speed if its just http and not https.

 

[Rainmaker]

I use windows server 2008 RRAS to setup the vpn then i connect to it. L2tp ipsec. Its single thread so with 4 cores and 4 users yes it will max gigabit.
Also setup a https file server which seems to max out at around 55megabytes per second but does full gigabit speed if its just http and not https.

Euw, Windows. Whatever works for you, in al seriousness. With your hardware I'd fully expect to see gigabit throughput over both VPN and file shares using Linux or BSD though (WireGuard for VPN, and samba, (s)ftp, nfs or other for shares).

 

[Big Frank]

I use windows server 2008 RRAS to setup the vpn then i connect to it. L2tp ipsec. Its single thread so with 4 cores and 4 users yes it will max gigabit.
Also setup a https file server which seems to max out at around 55megabytes per second but does full gigabit speed if its just http and not https.

I know this is off topic but thought it was worth a mention since you have a fairly decent setup, commercial? but as you probably know Windows server 2008 reached EOL last year, vulnerable internet facing machines are easily identified so might be worthwhile upgrading asap. Just thought it was worth a mention.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

I know this is off topic but thought it was worth a mention since you have a fairly decent setup, commercial? but as you probably know Windows server 2008 reached EOL last year, vulnerable internet facing machines are easily identified so might be worthwhile upgrading asap. Just thought it was worth a mention.

not commercial, its just a nas and torrent box mainly. used vpn to access the shares when im out and about and was testing out http file serving. its a xeon e3-1225 v3 with 16gb ram 19tb storage. its got server 2008 r2 which i know went eol but odd thing is mines still receiving updates.

 

[Rainmaker]

not commercial, its just a nas and torrent box mainly. used vpn to access the shares when im out and about and was testing out http file serving. its a xeon e3-1225 v3 with 16gb ram 19tb storage. its got server 2008 r2 which i know went eol but odd thing is mines still receiving updates.

Unraid? TrueNAS?

 

[Cyber-Mav]

Unraid? TrueNAS?

Windows is better for me. Server does other jobs too like video encoding and windows is just better for my needs.

 

[Cyber-Mav]

With which protocol? While your 1225 is older, slightly, it's still a quad core with decent frequency. My Core i7 3770 (4 cores, HT disabled) and newer Pentium G4560 (2c4t) will all do gigabit over WireGuard. Maybe try under Linux for the lulz if you haven't already..

forgot to add the test i done was a single user and vpn seems to just use single core on the cpu. multi user vpn should get considerably better aggregate speed.