Neverside

Issues with Router

My brother is home from school for a few weeks. Which means I have to set up the network in order for us both to access teh interweb. I used to have an old piece of crap Belkin router. This worked fabulously over the summer. However, when I tried to set that up last week, it crapped out on me. So we figured it was time for a new router. We got the Linksys RT41-BU, which is so new it isnt even on the website yet. However, Ive been having some horrid slow down and time out issues. I'll explain everything that occurs:

-First of all, my brother's internet access works great. He is running a 20 inch Mac G5
-My internet slows down horribly. Im running an Intel P4 2.4GHz, 512MB RAM, using the NIC that came with the computer.
-I've tried simply cycling the power on both the modem and the router, that will result in my internet working fine for a few minutes and then gradually getting worse.
-The same thing happens when I switch around the cables (ie: trying a cable that I know works, like the one that my brother was using).
-I did a quick google search and found out that someone who had a similar problem changed the MTU from 1500 to 1432. I tried this and it worked for about 5 minutes.
-When I reconnect the modem directly to the computer it works fine again.

So I've ruled out the router as the problem and Ive ruled out the cables as a problem. All it can be is either my computer (my NIC) or the settings.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

What I'd do is, grab a internet optimizer. Run it, it will toy with all your settings, maybe something you forgot about is messing you up. What connection protocol are you using? DHCP? PPPoE?

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Temp Devlog

I believe it is DHCP. I will try the optimizer though, thanks for the suggestion.

If that doesn't work, is it possible that it is the NIC?

An interesting development:

I ran the internet optimization program I found, did a few of the preset strategies. I noticed an increase in speed.

I watched some football and my brother went to bed. Tonight he actually shut off his computer. Now my internet is running perfect. Is it possible that the other computer being on making mine run slow?

He could be eating up all of your bandwidth. Make sure there is no file sharing software/streaming things/crazy downloading going on on his machine. Remember with your router your sharing your available bandwidth between the two machines. If one is abusing that bandwidth, the other will suffer.

That's what I figured, so if he is using, say bittorent to download a massive file then it would result in a slower internet for me? This is interesting because when we did this setup last summer there was no slow down of this sort. And I don't believe he is doing much different. I'll look into it though.

Edit
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LMAO! I tink I found the problem. I went over and checked bittorrent on his computer.
Over 5 gigs of crap is currently being downloaded.
It's a wonder his machine is still running.

Last edited by Batman, December 27th, 2005 08:38 PM (Edited 1 times)

It would be more if he has a more active torrent that is moving a lot of traffic. Or if he is saturating the upstream of your connection by uploading a lot at once. Both would kill your connection.