Actiontec router slows my home network down.
Arthurlw
Contributor - Level 1

Just an FYI for folks out there who have a home network set up behind their Actiontec router.

I found that when I network two computers through the Actiontec their network speeds never go over 100 Mbps, even though both of their network specs read: 10/100/1000.  For the longest time when I would bring up Task Manager it would show me a network speed of 100 Mbps only.

I have more devices that need internet or network connection than the router has ports, and so I had to add a switch (in this case Linksys' EG008W).  This particular switch supports 10/100/1000 but I never got this sort of performance with my main 'puter connected to my network through the router.  However when I connected all my devices including my main computer to the switch my computer's networking speed in Task Manager jumped to 1Gbps!  Smiley Surprised

In other words, when the only connection the router has going to its ports is the switch, then only the devices that need to go out on the Internet have to depend on the router's limited speeds (which are OK for surfing, but not so OK for huge file transfers between client computers).

In short, the Actiontec may be an OK gateway to the 'net, but it's a lousy switch for local networking.

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Re: Actiontec router slows my home network down.
Arthurlw
Contributor - Level 1

@viafax999 wrote:

Because the Actiontech is a 10/100mb and 54g wireless router you typically will get less than 20mb wireless connectivity which may be limiting if you have a 20mb+ fios connection - the 100mb wired connection will give you around 30 or 40mb connectivity.

Adding a 10/100/1000mb wireless N router inside will change you connectivity for all your internal machines to run at gigabit speed (somewhere around 300 or 400mb) between themselves.  The wireless N connection will give your wirelss connection somwehere above 100mb connectivity so they will be able to utilize the full bandwidth available to them on the fios connection.  If you need more wired ports you just have to add a switch the the router, lan port to lan port, whhich will extend the segment.


I didn't pick up on the wireless part in your first post, so I can see where one would want a better router downstream if you have any wireless connections about.  Especially since mine is Rev. D, which is known to have a teensy NAT table anyway.  I'm involved in another thread where the OP was having trouble with his game and him being connected to a router downstream from the Actiontec, and just from past experience if I wanted better wireless performance I would hook up a wireless router to the Actiontec and set it up as a switch only, and so avoid any possible conflicts with port forwarding, firewalls, etc.  For anybody interested there is/are thread(s) in this forum on how to do that.


@viafax999 wrote:

In your case when you connected the gigabit switch to the actiontech router you will see that the connection port shows yellow not green, or whatever colour scheme they used, since the port has connected at 100mb.  Depending on the switch type reducing one port to 100mb may reduce all the ports to 100mb.  You may also want to check whther you are connecting half duplex or full duplex.  Typically a setting of auto on the nic will default to full duplex but it's worth checking.  By definition full duplex is capable of moving twice as much data as half as the nic runs in simultaneous up and down operation.


Nope.  Everything's green.  This thing's a honey.  I haven't had it a year yet, so not sure how long it lasts beyond the warranty period, but since I installed it it's been PnP all the way.  Not even sure it has a Reset button on back. LOL

Pure duplex, auto switching, not dumbing-downable, if that;s a word.  Here's the info on it for those who have interest:

http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/EG008W


@viafax999 wrote:

The bottom line is that a 11n wireless connection will probably help your wireless machines in using the fios internet connection and having a totally gigabit internal network will help you local to local machine access.


Too true.  The Actiontec may be an Ok way to the 'net, but it makes a lousy switch.  Hooking everything to a (decent) switch (whether wired or wireless) and then hooking only the switch to the Actiontec for Internet access of all one's devices that need to get out gets you the best of both worlds, given the equipment at hand. 

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Re: Actiontec router slows my home network down.
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@Arthurlw wrote:

I found that when I network two computers through the Actiontec their network speeds never go over 100 Mbps, even though both of their network specs read: 10/100/1000.  For the longest time when I would bring up Task Manager it would show me a network speed of 100 Mbps only.


Expected operation as the switch in the Actiontec router is only a 10/100mb device.

If you want to run your internal network at gig speeds you will need to connect a gigabit router to the Actiontec router and then connect all your internal devices to the gigabit router.  Connect a lan port of the Actiontech to the wan port of the gigabit router ensuring that the dhcp range on the gigabit device is different to the one on the Actiontec which is 192.168.1.x by default.  I would suggest that you make the gigabit router a static address on the Actiontec subnet as to get port forwarding to work for your internal network you are going to have to forward all ports that you need on the internal network to the gigabit router where you will define port forwarding rules for specific app to specific devices.

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Re: Actiontec router slows my home network down.
Arthurlw
Contributor - Level 1

Not sure why you would want to go to all that trouble, but if you have one lying around, I guess it could be turned into a switch.  Not sure what the point was, but yes, that is an alternative way to go about taking the Actiontec out of the switch business, which was the original purpose of the tip.

Of course, if your second router has only the same four ports as the Actiontec, you gain only four ports, whereas the switch I mentioned has eight.  If your router turned switch needs you to use one of the Ethernet ports instead of the WAN for the input feed then you are left with only three additional ports to network with.  Depends if you want the second router to do its own DHCP hosting, or leave it up to the Actiontec.  The switch on the other hand gives you a net of seven after you use one of the ports to connect to the Actiontec.

Re: Actiontec router slows my home network down.
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@Arthurlw wrote:

Not sure why you would want to go to all that trouble, but if you have one lying around, I guess it could be turned into a switch.  Not sure what the point was, but yes, that is an alternative way to go about taking the Actiontec out of the switch business, which was the original purpose of the tip.

Of course, if your second router has only the same four ports as the Actiontec, you gain only four ports, whereas the switch I mentioned has eight.  If your router turned switch needs you to use one of the Ethernet ports instead of the WAN for the input feed then you are left with only three additional ports to network with.  Depends if you want the second router to do its own DHCP hosting, or leave it up to the Actiontec.  The switch on the other hand gives you a net of seven after you use one of the ports to connect to the Actiontec.


Because the Actiontech is a 10/100mb and 54g wireless router you typically will get less than 20mb wireless connectivity which may be limiting if you have a 20mb+ fios connection - the 100mb wired connection will give you around 30 or 40mb connectivity.

Adding a 10/100/1000mb wireless N router inside will change you connectivity for all your internal machines to run at gigabit speed (somewhere around 300 or 400mb) between themselves.  The wireless N connection will give your wirelss connection somwehere above 100mb connectivity so they will be able to utilize the full bandwidth available to them on the fios connection.  If you need more wired ports you just have to add a switch the the router, lan port to lan port, whhich will extend the segment.

In your case when you connected the gigabit switch to the actiontech router you will see that the connection port shows yellow not green, or whatever colour scheme they used, since the port has connected at 100mb.  Depending on the switch type reducing one port to 100mb may reduce all the ports to 100mb.  You may also want to check whther you are connecting half duplex or full duplex.  Typically a setting of auto on the nic will default to full duplex but it's worth checking.  By definition full duplex is capable of moving twice as much data as half as the nic runs in simultaneous up and down operation.

The bottom line is that a 11n wireless connection will probably help your wireless machines in using the fios internet connection and having a totally gigabit internal network will help you local to local machine access.

Re: Actiontec router slows my home network down.
Arthurlw
Contributor - Level 1

@viafax999 wrote:

Because the Actiontech is a 10/100mb and 54g wireless router you typically will get less than 20mb wireless connectivity which may be limiting if you have a 20mb+ fios connection - the 100mb wired connection will give you around 30 or 40mb connectivity.

Adding a 10/100/1000mb wireless N router inside will change you connectivity for all your internal machines to run at gigabit speed (somewhere around 300 or 400mb) between themselves.  The wireless N connection will give your wirelss connection somwehere above 100mb connectivity so they will be able to utilize the full bandwidth available to them on the fios connection.  If you need more wired ports you just have to add a switch the the router, lan port to lan port, whhich will extend the segment.


I didn't pick up on the wireless part in your first post, so I can see where one would want a better router downstream if you have any wireless connections about.  Especially since mine is Rev. D, which is known to have a teensy NAT table anyway.  I'm involved in another thread where the OP was having trouble with his game and him being connected to a router downstream from the Actiontec, and just from past experience if I wanted better wireless performance I would hook up a wireless router to the Actiontec and set it up as a switch only, and so avoid any possible conflicts with port forwarding, firewalls, etc.  For anybody interested there is/are thread(s) in this forum on how to do that.


@viafax999 wrote:

In your case when you connected the gigabit switch to the actiontech router you will see that the connection port shows yellow not green, or whatever colour scheme they used, since the port has connected at 100mb.  Depending on the switch type reducing one port to 100mb may reduce all the ports to 100mb.  You may also want to check whther you are connecting half duplex or full duplex.  Typically a setting of auto on the nic will default to full duplex but it's worth checking.  By definition full duplex is capable of moving twice as much data as half as the nic runs in simultaneous up and down operation.


Nope.  Everything's green.  This thing's a honey.  I haven't had it a year yet, so not sure how long it lasts beyond the warranty period, but since I installed it it's been PnP all the way.  Not even sure it has a Reset button on back. LOL

Pure duplex, auto switching, not dumbing-downable, if that;s a word.  Here's the info on it for those who have interest:

http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/EG008W


@viafax999 wrote:

The bottom line is that a 11n wireless connection will probably help your wireless machines in using the fios internet connection and having a totally gigabit internal network will help you local to local machine access.


Too true.  The Actiontec may be an Ok way to the 'net, but it makes a lousy switch.  Hooking everything to a (decent) switch (whether wired or wireless) and then hooking only the switch to the Actiontec for Internet access of all one's devices that need to get out gets you the best of both worlds, given the equipment at hand. 

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Re: Actiontec router slows my home network down.
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@Arthurlw wrote:

I didn't pick up on the wireless part in your first post, so I can see where one would want a better router downstream if you have any wireless connections about.  Especially since mine is Rev. D, which is known to have a teensy NAT table anyway.  I'm involved in another thread where the OP was having trouble with his game and him being connected to a router downstream from the Actiontec, and just from past experience if I wanted better wireless performance I would hook up a wireless router to the Actiontec and set it up as a switch only, and so avoid any possible conflicts with port forwarding, firewalls, etc.  For anybody interested there is/are thread(s) in this forum on how to do that.

 ___________________

Not necessary to was a port like that.  All you have to do is set port fowarding rules in each router and connect a lan port from router 1 to the wan port of router 2.


Nope.  Everything's green.  This thing's a honey.  I haven't had it a year yet, so not sure how long it lasts beyond the warranty period, but since I installed it it's been PnP all the way.  Not even sure it has a Reset button on back. LOL

Pure duplex, auto switching, not dumbing-downable, if that;s a word.  Here's the info on it for those who have interest:

http://www.linksysbycisco.com/US/en/products/EG008W

________________________________

Never seen a router that doesn't differentiate the speed of it's connections.  Sometime they use coloured leds and more often different leds.  My 3com office connect 8 has 3 rows of leds, top row connected at gigabit, 2nd connected at 100 and 3r2 row connected at 10mb.  In addition there are another sets of leds that show whether each connection is full duples or 1/2 duplex

http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/detail.jsp?tab=prodspec&sku=3C1670800&pathtype=purchase

It shows that the connection to the VZ Westell router is a 100mb full duplex and the connection from it to my Trendnet  8 port gigabit switch teg-s80-txd shows as being Gigabit Full duplex.  Unfortunately the connection from the 3com to my Linksys wrt54g shows as 100mb 1/2 duplex.  The Trendnet switch also has 3 rows of leds, 1 shows link 2nd shows 1000 and the 3rd 100.

.


Too true.  The Actiontec may be an Ok way to the 'net, but it makes a lousy switch.  Hooking everything to a (decent) switch (whether wired or wireless) and then hooking only the switch to the Actiontec for Internet access of all one's devices that need to get out gets you the best of both worlds, given the equipment at hand. 

__________________

Yes, sort of.

You are going to have have gigabit speeds between all you local equipmnet that have gigabit nics.  But you are now bottlenecked on the 100mb connection from your gigabit switch the the Actiontec router - doesn't really mean much as finally the Actiontech is bottlncked by the single WAN port to the internet.

You should really make sure that the port to port connection for the Actiontec to your Linksys switch is running at full duplex.

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