Help! Is my roommate capping my bandwidth?

[Blurry]

Hi all,

Came back home today to find my internet much slower than before. After doing several speed tests, I found that my downstream/upstream had been reduced to 500kbps/200kbps. Since I like to give people the benefit of doubt, I haven't pressed this issue to my roommate yet - but I would like to know if it is possible for someone to cap your bandwidth via a router.

He does have the Linksys WRT54g with the DD-WRT Firmware - but I have no idea if this allows him to cap my bandwidth.

Also - just yesterday, I was enjoying downspeeds of roughly 6000kbps and upstream of 800kbps.


Thanks!


UPDATE: Finally got him to admit that he was capping my speeds - told me he joined some kind of private torrent site and needed to use most of the upstream bandwidth to maintain his ratio. (Ridiculous excuse). Since I couldn't get him to forfeit his membership, I now pay him $5 a month for internet - which I think is fair considering I'm only getting 1/10 of our original speed. As an ex-gamer, I no longer have much need for lots of bandwidth - just checking e-mail, etc. Still, it irritates me to think that someone I know well would do this just to pirate stuff.

Thanks to everyone who helped!

 

[ViRGE]

Yes, he could do that. This does not mean that he's doing so however.

 

[kevnich2]

Who is paying for the internet connection and who bought the router? Yes, that router could easily limit the bandwidth for your computer.

 

[Blurry]

We're both paying for the internet connection - it's split evenly between us.

Originally we were using a Dlink router that I supplied - but a few weeks ago he told me he wanted to *upgrade* to a Linksys 54g - at his expense.

I'm probably going to have a word with him later today - I just find it so suspicious that my down/uploads would be capped so perfectly at 500/200 with little fluctuations - something only a router could do.

 

[James Bond]

Originally posted by: Blurry
We're both paying for the internet connection - it's split evenly between us.

Originally we were using a Dlink router that I supplied - but a few weeks ago he told me he wanted to *upgrade* to a Linksys 54g - at his expense.

I'm probably going to have a word with him later today - I just find it so suspicious that my down/uploads would be capped so perfectly at 500/200 with little fluctuations - something only a router could do.

What speed do you pay for?

Best way to test would be to run the test on each computer and compare results.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: James Bond

Originally posted by: Blurry
We're both paying for the internet connection - it's split evenly between us.

Originally we were using a Dlink router that I supplied - but a few weeks ago he told me he wanted to *upgrade* to a Linksys 54g - at his expense.

I'm probably going to have a word with him later today - I just find it so suspicious that my down/uploads would be capped so perfectly at 500/200 with little fluctuations - something only a router could do.

What speed do you pay for?

Best way to test would be to run the test on each computer and compare results.

and on the off chance that the roommate didnt do anything, id ask first whether his speeds have taken a hit

 

[kevnich2]

Yeah have the roommate do a speed test on his, if it's giving full speed on his, something's up. If your paying 50/50 for internet, he has no right to cap you down that much, whether it's his router or not.

 

[Blurry]

OK I think I'm on to something -

Asked roommie to do a speed test but he refuses - says I'm invading his privacy.

I'm pretty sure I know what's going on now.

Time to get creative.

 

[brblx]

sounds like your roommate is a douche nozzle and maybe you should get a new one?

 

[kevnich2]

You can try installing a new NIC in your PC and test out your internet speed then, if it's back up, you know what happened. I'd give your roommate an ultimatum - either uncap you or your getting your own internet and he'll be stuck paying the entire bill himself. He has no right to do that if your paying it 50/50. That's also a pretty cheesy, stupid thing to do too

 

[Blurry]

Thanks for the help guys -

Since I'm running off of a laptop, I can't switch NIC - and I can't use different laptops - my roommate has configured the router such that it won't accept connections from unknown ip addresses - no matter, I unplugged the router and connected my laptop directly to the modem

end results: speeds are back to normal!


I wonder why?

 

[racolvin]

if he wants to split it 50/50 just like the cost, maybe you could work something out like if your speed is 10M down/1M up, you could set it up where you both got 5M/500k .. but if he's hogging it and only paying half the bill, that's BS

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: racolvin
if he wants to split it 50/50 just like the cost, maybe you could work something out like if your speed is 10M down/1M up, you could set it up where you both got 5M/500k .. but if he's hogging it and only paying half the bill, that's BS

i think if theyre both splitting the bill, they should both have admin access on the router to ensure that nobody makes changes that could affect the quality of the connection in any way without the other being privy to that information

 

[racolvin]

Originally posted by: xSauronx

Originally posted by: racolvin
if he wants to split it 50/50 just like the cost, maybe you could work something out like if your speed is 10M down/1M up, you could set it up where you both got 5M/500k .. but if he's hogging it and only paying half the bill, that's BS

i think if theyre both splitting the bill, they should both have admin access on the router to ensure that nobody makes changes that could affect the quality of the connection in any way without the other being privy to that information

I would agree to that as well. What his roomie was thinking by capping the bandwidth I dunno .. like he wouldn't notice?

 

[Pghpooh]

This is nasty!
Do a hard reset on the router!
http://technicallyeasy.net/200...nksys-wrt54g-wireless/
Now you can change the password to one of your choosing.
This takes you back to the original settings too.
Not sure if you loose the ddwrt
If roomate gets upset then you can get your own internet service and let the roomate pay full price on his own.

Or,,, buy a awitch and plug that into the modem. then plug your original d link into the switch and you should be ok. Not sure if that will work but might be worth a try.

 

[RebateMonger]

Log into the router and see what the settings are.

If you don't know the password, then you'll need to do a hard reset of the router. I'll default to the "factory" settings, including the default password and no bandwidth limits.

I've never used it, but, presumably, DD-DRT will default to whatever its default settings are just like the original Linksys firmware would have done.

 

[kevnich2]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Log into the router and see what the settings are.

If you don't know the password, then you'll need to do a hard reset of the router. I'll default to the "factory" settings, including the default password and no bandwidth limits.

I've never used it, but, presumably, DD-DRT will default to whatever its default settings are just like the original Linksys firmware would have done.

Yes, if you hard reset it, the DDWRT will go back to standard default settings. UN for ddwrt is root, default PW is either blank (as in no password) or admin. I'd say default the router to factory defaults and setup your own UN & PW on it.

Are you on cable or DSL? Cable won't need anything additional setup on the router. DSL however might have PPPOE settings with it.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Blurry



UPDATE: Finally got him to admit that he was capping my speeds - told me he joined some kind of private torrent site and needed to use most of the upstream bandwidth to maintain his ratio. (Ridiculous excuse). Since I couldn't get him to forfeit his membership, I now pay him $5 a month for internet - which I think is fair considering I'm only getting 1/10 of our original speed. As an ex-gamer, I no longer have much need for lots of bandwidth - just checking e-mail, etc. Still, it irritates me to think that someone I know well would do this just to pirate stuff.

Thanks to everyone who helped!

wow. your roommate is an asshole. he must be downloading an enormous amount of shit to need all that upstream bandwidth constantly.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: xSauronx

Originally posted by: Blurry



UPDATE: Finally got him to admit that he was capping my speeds - told me he joined some kind of private torrent site and needed to use most of the upstream bandwidth to maintain his ratio. (Ridiculous excuse). Since I couldn't get him to forfeit his membership, I now pay him $5 a month for internet - which I think is fair considering I'm only getting 1/10 of our original speed. As an ex-gamer, I no longer have much need for lots of bandwidth - just checking e-mail, etc. Still, it irritates me to think that someone I know well would do this just to pirate stuff.

Thanks to everyone who helped!

wow. your roommate is an asshole. he must be downloading an enormous amount of shit to need all that upstream bandwidth constantly.

/agree

OP, is your name on the bill as well? If so I would tell him to get his own connection so he doesn't bring you down too

 

[kevnich2]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: xSauronx

Originally posted by: Blurry



UPDATE: Finally got him to admit that he was capping my speeds - told me he joined some kind of private torrent site and needed to use most of the upstream bandwidth to maintain his ratio. (Ridiculous excuse). Since I couldn't get him to forfeit his membership, I now pay him $5 a month for internet - which I think is fair considering I'm only getting 1/10 of our original speed. As an ex-gamer, I no longer have much need for lots of bandwidth - just checking e-mail, etc. Still, it irritates me to think that someone I know well would do this just to pirate stuff.

Thanks to everyone who helped!

wow. your roommate is an asshole. he must be downloading an enormous amount of shit to need all that upstream bandwidth constantly.

/agree

OP, is your name on the bill as well? If so I would tell him to get his own connection so he doesn't bring you down too

OP, if your name is the one on the bill, you need to have your roommate stop torrenting (that much torrenting is obviously not legal). If anything legal happens, your name will be the one implicated in it. If he wants to use the internet for those activities, buy his own account in his name. If his name is the one on the bill, well then that's up to you if paying $5 for that low of bandwidth is acceptable or not.

And yes, you need to find a new roommate - that's a very low thing to do.

 

[skyking]

What they said+++++. I'd be damn sure my name was not associated with it whatsoever.

 

[Blurry]

Thankfully I'm graduating in less than three weeks - and considering how busy I've been, I don't really use the internet that much - so no real need to change roommates (he's not graduating tho )

And also, my name is not on the bill - he's the one who's name is on the internet bill - I just take care of PG&E.

He belongs to some kind of Warez/Games site - I can only imagine that when your torrents amount to several gigs per file, you would need every bit of bandwidth available.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Blurry
Thankfully I'm graduating in less than three weeks - and considering how busy I've been, I don't really use the internet that much - so no real need to change roommates (he's not graduating tho )

And also, my name is not on the bill - he's the one who's name is on the internet bill - I just take care of PG&E.

He belongs to some kind of Warez/Games site - I can only imagine that when your torrents amount to several gigs per file, you would need every bit of bandwidth available.

my cousin did that when he started at nc state. built a computer with a few hundred gb of storage for torrenting movies and games.

thing is, he didnt watch or play 85% of the stuff he downloaded. id ask about a movie "yeah, i got that" but hed never watched it. ditto for games. go figure.

 

[somethingsketchy]

I'm surprised that his ISP hasn't caught on yet, to what he's doing. If every other company has been implementing new caps on bandwidth, something as big as downloading many games a month in torrents should have raised a red flag to his ISP. If anything I would get back at him by alerting his ISP (if they have strict rules in their EULA) that he is performing an illegal action with their bandwidth. That'll teach him a lesson.

 

[kevnich2]

well torrenting like that can lead to several hundred gb's of bandwidth, it's no wonder ISP's are wanting to cap stuff like that. There's really no need to do that. All it does it lead to useless bandwidth usage that's not needed. Most people I know that use P2P, they never even use the stuff they download, it just sits there.