Router slowing down performance

[MrChipMuthabored]

Hi everyone,

I just a new ISP (RCN Philadelphia) which is a new network and they advertise up tp 7Mbit download speed and 800K upload.

I have a couple computers to connect and so I use a Siemens Router (Model SS2604) as my gateway.

I have measured my bandwidth using the online testers (cnet, 2wire, bandwidthspeedtest.com, etc) and I get significantly less throughput when connected using a router as opposed to just going from my Cable Modem to the NIC. (5 Mbit vs 1.5Mbit)

Is there something I can do to increase performance? Are there better routers out there?

I do have my NIC on autosense, I have swapped cables, I turned off the DoS firewall and windows firewalls, etc.

Maybe I should change to a switch? Does the fact that the router has to divide the total bandwidth to another computer affect performance? ( 4 ports total, only 2 of which are being used.)

Thanks for your help in advance!

 

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally posted by: MrChipMuthabored
Hi everyone,

I just a new ISP (RCN Philadelphia) which is a new network and they advertise up tp 7Mbit download speed and 800K upload.

I have a couple computers to connect and so I use a Siemens Router (Model SS2604) as my gateway.

I have measured my bandwidth using the online testers (cnet, 2wire, bandwidthspeedtest.com, etc) and I get significantly less throughput when connected using a router as opposed to just going from my Cable Modem to the NIC. (5 Mbit vs 1.5Mbit)

Is there something I can do to increase performance? Are there better routers out there?

I do have my NIC on autosense, I have swapped cables, I turned off the DoS firewall and windows firewalls, etc.

Maybe I should change to a switch? Does the fact that the router has to divide the total bandwidth to another computer affect performance? ( 4 ports total, only 2 of which are being used.)

Thanks for your help in advance!

Some of your questions are beyond my area of expertise .... however maybe I can still shed some light.

First off, your router should only interfere with your through-put if you have more than one computer competing for the available bandwidth at the same time.

Secondly, I'm assuming your router is a 10/100. Your nics you say are in auto-sense mode which has been shown to sometimes cause packet-loss. I've got an old "linky" BEFSR41 linking 2 systems to a 3mbit line. I had the same kind of issues until I switched both nics to run on 100T full duplex. That seemed to help!

At this point, I think I'd be looking at packet-loss as its more than likely contributing to the problem. DSL reports has a nice little tweak test and a packetloss test that may be of some help. I'd also try switching your nic off auto-sensing mode. This helped mine. I'm not familiar with your router though. I know its name and I always viewed Siemens as a reputable brand, but as to personal experience with one .... I have none so I can't help you there.

Lets toss this "cookie" to the network pros .... maybe you'll get a bite.