[WhatTheSchmidt]

The internet is setup with 3 routers acting as access points in the house, connected to a big switch(which has about 15 landlines spreadout in the house and the router connections) connected to the modem. We have comcast internet and cable.

The problem is that very often the internet becomes painfully slow for no reason. It's not P2P programs or anything, something with the setup but I have no idea what. How do I go about figuring out what the problem is? Is there some kind of software to use to figure it out?

thanks.

[WhatTheSchmidt]

just wanna add the ping jumps high as well...

just did a speedtest

lol god this internet sucks

results are usually 5500, 600, ping of about 60

EDIT:

Fixed your Speedtest graphic :]

Jon

[dylskee]

What kind of routers and switch are you using? I bet you one of those 35 guys are downloading torrents or something.

[Jon]

Enable spanning tree protocol, if available, and see if it goes away.

[IAmMoen]

bittorrenting is hugely draining. We have three people on a line and online gaming becomes impossible when one of us is bittorrenting. Poke around and see what people are doing. Anyone know of a bandwidth monitor per user that he could try? (program sounds cool but dont know if one exists)

[skidooosl]

do all computers have some form of updated antivirus installed?

how is everything connected? when you say 3 routers and a big switch what exactly are they and how are they configured?

are the wired PC's slow or the Wireless or both?

What time of day does this happen? and for how long?

how many people use the wireless vs wired at the same time?

Can you setup span ports on your switch?

Is anyone running any type of server? (ftp, http... that sorta thing)

[WhatTheSchmidt]

do all computers have some form of updated antivirus installed?
-yes

how is everything connected? when you say 3 routers and a big switch what exactly are they and how are they configured?
-I will check further into this later today, routers are linksys, switch im not sure.

are the wired PC's slow or the Wireless or both?
-both

What time of day does this happen? and for how long?
-sporatic...late night often, but anytime

how many people use the wireless vs wired at the same time?
-probably 10 people wired rest on wireless....As for use at the same time I would say 15-20 at night time is the max.

Can you setup span ports on your switch?
-dunno what that is

Is anyone running any type of server? (ftp, http... that sorta thing)
-no

[WhatTheSchmidt]

also, bittorrents aren't what's slowing it down either, we have gone around to see what people were doing to slow down the internet and it wasn't that or P2P programs...

[Kendan]

Most likely someone is using BT and lying when asked.

[The_Jizzler]

are the routers doing any routing, how do you have them setup? and how long are the cable runs?

[Captain Newbie]

Originally Posted by Kendan

Most likely someone is using BT and lying when asked.

Yep. Slap a sniffer on the line.

[WhatTheSchmidt]

Originally Posted by The_Jizzler

are the routers doing any routing, how do you have them setup? and how long are the cable runs?

Well I didn't set them up but they are access points...The cables run anywhere from 30 feet to 150 feet I would say.

[The_Jizzler]

im just kinda wondering, is the network like this?

modem-->switch-->AP's and wired conx.

if so wheres the routing taking place?

[skidooosl]

You could have a number of things slowing down your connection.

First place to start would be to confirm you have everything cabled properly (if you could post a diagram that shows your network and where users are connecting that would be very helpful)

There are a number of different ways to do this but a good start is to have the modem hook into the WAN port on the first router then do not use the WAN port on any of the following routers…. Cable devices using only switch ports (this will place all traffic on the same segment.. you can cut it up some more but this is a good simple start)

Do you notice a decrease in speed on your physical network or only on connections out to the internet? Maybe at times when everything seems very slow try to copy a file from one PC to another that would force the traffic to be pushed through the main switch and time it then try again when things seem normal.

Worm traffic and such can also consume a large amount of bandwidth so you should confirm that all PC’s are clean

From the sound of it my guess is you may be overloading your equipment and your pipe…

Most home routers and such are not designed to handle the number of connections you have going through the main router and it may be getting bogged down…. Post the model of the router and you may be able to install 3 rd party software that will allow you to monitor load and usage better…

Also if you are using Comcast and from the looks of it have the 6mbps service you may be maxing out your bandwidth on your internet connection. If everyone is using the internet at the same time that could very well be clogging things up… especially if people are downloading, playing games and such…

Do you have any old hubs around?
Since you can not setup a span port you could use a cheap hub between your internet router and modem and use a program such as ethereal, tcpdump (linux) or Windump to view what type of traffic is flowing over your internet connection so you can be sure there is not someone out there with bit torrent or something like that running… also if you have much linux experience a SNORT IDS box may not be a bad idea with that number of users just to help keep an eye on things.

My guess though is that at periods of high usage your equipment and internet connection are getting maxed…

You may want to upgrade your hardware…. Do you have any experience with Cisco equipment or enterprise class firewalls?

Netscreen makes very good (and cheap) enterprise firewalls which are extremely fast for around $50 (5xt or xp) - $150 (5gt) on ebay
You may also want to move up to something like a CISCO 2900xl series switch $40 - $60 on ebay for about a 24 port device that will support the use of vlans

This will allow you to have greater control of traffic and mgmt on your network

$150 + 50 = 200 / 35 people = $5.71 each

I would also up your connection speed or look into another service provider….


one last thing... how many IP's is comcast giving you? depending on how it is wired you may be pulling more than 1 ip address

[Vulcan]

35 People on one cable connection?

I'm really the only person on mine most of the time, and I think its far too slow sometimes.

[aftermath]

Please clarify a little You have 3 wireless access points connected to a switch as the back bone and 35 users?

Collisions. switch to wires.

make sure your APs are at least on separate frequencys.

or

is your connection only 2mb?

[fUzZ bUnNy]

Based on the small description. I would guess it is a broadcast storm. The best way to find out is get ethereal running on a computer and start seeing if a single computer is broadcasting packets.

I am wondering if each AP is really a a router with dhcp running? If so when someone gets online they broadcast for a dhcp address, quite possibly more than one of these routers is responding.

35 users on DSL or cable shouldn't be that big of an issue I have 120 students on a 5Mb x 512Kb connection. Filtering out mp3's and torrents keeps everything working mean and lean.

[brakezone]

how many subnets do you have? you'd have to give more details about the network.

[WhatTheSchmidt]

ok talked to the guy that sets it up

SMC Cable Modem/Router is the head unit. 2 ports go to wrt54g access points(linksys routers). 1 port goes to wrt54gs access point.

Only the SMC cable modem/router is running dhcp.

connection is 54Mbps

[WhatTheSchmidt]

could the problem possibly be the old SMC cable modem/router?