OT - Any computer network savvy people on here ???

badazztealcobra · 12/13/2008, 05:37 PM

My brother is having some issues with his home network and we have no idea what to try out to try to solve the problem. When you hook his PC up straight to the cable modem the thing FLIES.... I dont remember his readings from speedtest.net, but they were in the 8MB download and 3.4MB upload range. When his wireless router gets put into the loop those numbers are more like 1MB down and 1MB up. His PS3 and XBOX360 are also not running right when theyre on the network either. Either one is taking forever and a day to load the names of the people on friends lists, getting booted off online games like crazy, etc....

We thought it might be the wireless router, so we installed a new Linksys and its still having the same problems.....

Anyone have any suggestions or settings we can try to look into and hopefully get him back to where he was 2 weeks ago ???

little_squid · 12/13/2008, 05:47 PM

as far as speed goes it will slow down some but not that much. now if he is not running secure wireless a neighbor or three might be hogging all his band with?? as for the games some will boot you off if your running multiple games off the same ip number. but if this was not a issue before hand it shouldnt be now. adding ip addresses is easy enough if needed :-)

badazztealcobra · 12/13/2008, 05:50 PM

Everything is WEP encrypted, and right now all the items (Desktop PC, PS3, and 360) are all wired into the router with cat5 cable.

It was running like a champ up until like 2 weeks ago, and I know he wouldnt have messed with any settings.....

BlueCorn · 12/13/2008, 05:51 PM

Check the specs on the router. See what the WAN port is rated for. Lot's of cheaper ones have a 10mbt half/duplex port which is a likely source for your performance problem.

little_squid · 12/13/2008, 05:56 PM

how many items is he trying to run wireless

badazztealcobra · 12/13/2008, 06:07 PM

currently none. We ran cat5 to everything across his room just to see if the speed changed between them. His wife has a laptop that she uses wirelessly, and he occasionally uses his PS3 wirelessly..... Thats all for the wireless though....

this is the router he picked up.......
Linksys Router

little_squid · 12/13/2008, 06:12 PM

can ps3 and or xbox run wireless n?? i would not think so

how far away is the router from the game console

keyman1848 · 12/13/2008, 06:19 PM

try a couple of different ethernet cables. I seen a bad cable slow things down.

-=Efrain=- · 12/13/2008, 06:36 PM

Does the router have built in firewall, security, virus detection or spyware detection if so turn it all off.. Try to ping yahoo.com with and without the router, then do a trace route with and without the router. What happens when you hook up the PS3 directly to the cable modem?

badazztealcobra · 12/13/2008, 06:55 PM

It seems to be working now..... he talked with Linksys support and there was something with cloning an address or something ?!?!?

Thanks for the ideas guys, I appreciate it.

DragonFish · 12/13/2008, 07:24 PM

A lot of cable providers intentionally block the MAC addresses of known third party routers, forcing you to buy their products. What you did is called MAC address cloning. Basically you told the Linksys to pretend it is your PC. I had the same problem with Time Warner. On a similar topic, if you haven't heard of Tomato, it's a linux based firmware that works on several different routers including the Linksys WRT54G. It adds all kind of advanced functionality like real-time bandwidth monitoring and even has a built in radius server. Open source too!

skunkmere · 12/13/2008, 07:39 PM

DD-WRT Firmware and QOS was my savior.

livingcorals · 12/14/2008, 12:56 AM

I had an issue with att using there internet. Same thing happen.
Turns out there is a bad port on the main office side. lol

1 month and I had 5 techs, 3 modems, new cable line into the house and not there is going to be a port change in the main office.
I personaly never liked Linksys.
Did the tech say anything about getting a password reset as well?

livingcorals · 12/14/2008, 12:56 AM

I had an issue with att using there internet. Same thing happen.
Turns out there is a bad port on the main office side. lol

1 month and I had 5 techs, 3 modems, new cable line into the house and not there is going to be a port change in the main office.
I personally never liked Linksys.
Did the tech say anything about getting a password reset as well?

N3gative Cr33p · 12/14/2008, 09:42 AM

I'm going out of my mind... this friggin' thing isn't working anymore. It worked just fine last night, and now this morning I'm back to the same old song and dance. I'm literally about ready to give up, because this two week long song and dance is ticking me off...

Anytime that I want to get on the internet without a hassle, I seriously have to plug my modem directly into the back of my computer. Two Linksys routers and I still can't get on the internet with any kind of consistency... good times.

slumpysix · 12/14/2008, 10:00 AM

maybe unplug the router and give it 30 sec. then plug it back in. My router needs a kick in the butt sometimes to reset so everything flows normal. Comcast wants you to pay for extra IP's so they may be blocking it somehow. The MAC address cloning works but you can only use one device at a time. Maybe I'm wrong. Hope it helps

badazztealcobra · 12/14/2008, 12:27 PM

Sorry to hear the problem came back Keith.....

Believe me slumpy, if theres one thing we've tried its the unplug and plug back in 30 seconds later.....

Thats the old comcast standby for EVERYTHING.... "Well sir, have you unplugged everything" ????

N3gative Cr33p · 12/14/2008, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by badazztealcobra
Thats the old comcast standby for EVERYTHING.... "Well sir, have you unplugged everything" ????

Yeah... it sure is their number one answer for almost any kind of internet issue.

Here I am... forced to have my PC linked directly to my modem in order to surf the 'net... good times (pause) not.

slumpysix · 12/14/2008, 01:02 PM

yeah that sux for sure. I know the IT guy at my company told me that devices are assigned IP's when they sign on to the router and that they will get the same IP the next time they sign on to it. Then if another device calls for that same IP, conflict happen. I assigned different IP's for things and it worked. But later on I found that the Belkin router I was using was crapola. I purchased a Linksys WRT54G2 and everything has been happy ever since.
Hopefully that all made sense...

3 PCs, xbox 360, Wii, network printer, 2 wireless laptops... i think I just geeked out....

Brian1980 · 12/14/2008, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by N3gative Cr33p
I'm going out of my mind... this friggin' thing isn't working anymore. It worked just fine last night, and now this morning I'm back to the same old song and dance. I'm literally about ready to give up, because this two week long song and dance is ticking me off...

Anytime that I want to get on the internet without a hassle, I seriously have to plug my modem directly into the back of my computer. Two Linksys routers and I still can't get on the internet with any kind of consistency... good times.

two routers? That is what your problem sounds like. replace one router with a 8 port gigabyte workgroup switch that is capable of jumbo packets and you shouldnt have any problems

Brian1980 · 12/14/2008, 08:06 PM

btw what type of computer mac or pc and what os?

badazztealcobra · 12/14/2008, 08:21 PM

He's not using two routers at once, he's saying he went through 2 linksys routers and its still doing the same thing.....

Hes using a HP PC with Windows XP as the OS, and the weird part is everything was fine up until 2 weeks ago, and then this started happening......

He was using a Linksys WRT54GS wireless router, and he thought that might have gone bad and thats what the problem was, so he went and bought a new WRT160N wireless router and is still having the same problem.....

kawicivic · 12/14/2008, 09:43 PM

I had the same problem with comcast, Is he in a dense area by any chance? try logging into the router settings and switching which channel it is running on. there are 3 recommended one. I moved to 6 and have not had any issues getting kicked off anymore. I tried everything and it seems his issue is the same. My computer would work fine for awhile and then all of the sudden everything would need to be rebooted. A wired connection always worked well for me. Now that I changed teh channel they both work!

DragonFish · 12/14/2008, 10:14 PM

Reading comprehension is good... he's not running wireless at all at the moment so switching channels isn't going to help much. Has his provider replaced the cable modem yet? If not that might be a good place to go next. I'd say he has exhausted every other reasonable option on his end.

kawicivic · 12/14/2008, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by DragonFish
Reading comprehension is good... he's not running wireless at all at the moment so switching channels isn't going to help much. Has his provider replaced the cable modem yet? If not that might be a good place to go next. I'd say he has exhausted every other reasonable option on his end.

not being an *** is good as well. I was under the impression that things were running fine when they wired them up. Maybe I am just dumb... I was just offering a suggestion...

12/13/2008, 05:37 PM	#1
badazztealcobra Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Streamwood, IL Posts: 7,394	OT - Any computer network savvy people on here ??? My brother is having some issues with his home network and we have no idea what to try out to try to solve the problem. When you hook his PC up straight to the cable modem the thing FLIES.... I dont remember his readings from speedtest.net, but they were in the 8MB download and 3.4MB upload range. When his wireless router gets put into the loop those numbers are more like 1MB down and 1MB up. His PS3 and XBOX360 are also not running right when theyre on the network either. Either one is taking forever and a day to load the names of the people on friends lists, getting booted off online games like crazy, etc.... We thought it might be the wireless router, so we installed a new Linksys and its still having the same problems..... Anyone have any suggestions or settings we can try to look into and hopefully get him back to where he was 2 weeks ago ???

12/13/2008, 05:51 PM	#4
BlueCorn Retired Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,908	Check the specs on the router. See what the WAN port is rated for. Lot's of cheaper ones have a 10mbt half/duplex port which is a likely source for your performance problem. __________________ Doug [I]Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made when establishing tonal relationships. ~ Ansel Adams[/I]

12/13/2008, 06:36 PM	#9
-=Efrain=- Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 2,895	Does the router have built in firewall, security, virus detection or spyware detection if so turn it all off.. Try to ping yahoo.com with and without the router, then do a trace route with and without the router. What happens when you hook up the PS3 directly to the cable modem? __________________ Reefing! Complicated enough to tickle my brain but not complex enough to give me a headache. ><((((º>`•.¸¸.•´¯`•.¸.•´¯`•...¸><((((º> •´¯`•.¸. , . .•´¯`•.. ><((((º> Current Tank Info: 125 GL, Mixed Reef, Yellow, Hippo, Sailfin, Powder Blue, Kole Tangs, 2 Onyx Clowns, 4 Firefish, Midas Blenny, Malenarus & Yellow Coris Wrasse 3 250W MH 14K DE, 250Lbs LR, 150 Lbs LS, 2 Korilias 4s, 45g Sump/Fug, Carbon Reactor, Cal Reactor, Skimmer

12/14/2008, 09:42 AM	#15
N3gative Cr33p Blackhawks Fanatic Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Streamwood, IL Posts: 875	I'm going out of my mind... this friggin' thing isn't working anymore. It worked just fine last night, and now this morning I'm back to the same old song and dance. I'm literally about ready to give up, because this two week long song and dance is ticking me off... Anytime that I want to get on the internet without a hassle, I seriously have to plug my modem directly into the back of my computer. Two Linksys routers and I still can't get on the internet with any kind of consistency... good times. __________________ PSN ID: N3GAT1VE_CR33P XBL ID: N3gative Cr33p Twitter: @N3gativeCr33p Current Tank Info: 90g reef tank, 2 x 250w MH bulbs, Vertex Omega 150 skimmer, (3) Tunze powerheads, BRS dual reactor...

12/14/2008, 08:06 PM	#21
Brian1980 Plumer/outdoorsman Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Woodridge,IL Posts: 1,112	btw what type of computer mac or pc and what os? __________________ Plumbing a tank is like a puzzle just all the pieces are at the store. Spell check why??? I have ekrunch v1.0 beta for that. Current Tank Info: 210 gal and a 55

12/13/2008, 05:47 PM	#2
little_squid Moved On Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: joliet,il Posts: 2,395	as far as speed goes it will slow down some but not that much. now if he is not running secure wireless a neighbor or three might be hogging all his band with?? as for the games some will boot you off if your running multiple games off the same ip number. but if this was not a issue before hand it shouldnt be now. adding ip addresses is easy enough if needed :-)

12/13/2008, 05:50 PM	#3
badazztealcobra Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Streamwood, IL Posts: 7,394	Everything is WEP encrypted, and right now all the items (Desktop PC, PS3, and 360) are all wired into the router with cat5 cable. It was running like a champ up until like 2 weeks ago, and I know he wouldnt have messed with any settings.....

12/13/2008, 05:56 PM	#5
little_squid Moved On Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: joliet,il Posts: 2,395	how many items is he trying to run wireless

12/13/2008, 06:07 PM	#6
badazztealcobra Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Streamwood, IL Posts: 7,394	currently none. We ran cat5 to everything across his room just to see if the speed changed between them. His wife has a laptop that she uses wirelessly, and he occasionally uses his PS3 wirelessly..... Thats all for the wireless though.... this is the router he picked up....... Linksys Router

12/13/2008, 06:12 PM	#7
little_squid Moved On Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: joliet,il Posts: 2,395	can ps3 and or xbox run wireless n?? i would not think so how far away is the router from the game console

12/13/2008, 06:19 PM	#8
keyman1848 Registered Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Barrington, IL Posts: 34	try a couple of different ethernet cables. I seen a bad cable slow things down.

12/13/2008, 06:55 PM	#10
badazztealcobra Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Streamwood, IL Posts: 7,394	It seems to be working now..... he talked with Linksys support and there was something with cloning an address or something ?!?!? Thanks for the ideas guys, I appreciate it.

12/13/2008, 07:24 PM	#11
DragonFish Unregistered Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Pleasant Prairie, WI Posts: 1,988	A lot of cable providers intentionally block the MAC addresses of known third party routers, forcing you to buy their products. What you did is called MAC address cloning. Basically you told the Linksys to pretend it is your PC. I had the same problem with Time Warner. On a similar topic, if you haven't heard of Tomato, it's a linux based firmware that works on several different routers including the Linksys WRT54G. It adds all kind of advanced functionality like real-time bandwidth monitoring and even has a built in radius server. Open source too!

12/13/2008, 07:39 PM	#12
skunkmere Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: chicago Posts: 6,434	DD-WRT Firmware and QOS was my savior.

12/14/2008, 12:56 AM	#13
livingcorals Moved On Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 2,730	I had an issue with att using there internet. Same thing happen. Turns out there is a bad port on the main office side. lol 1 month and I had 5 techs, 3 modems, new cable line into the house and not there is going to be a port change in the main office. I personaly never liked Linksys. Did the tech say anything about getting a password reset as well?

12/14/2008, 10:00 AM	#16
slumpysix Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 837	maybe unplug the router and give it 30 sec. then plug it back in. My router needs a kick in the butt sometimes to reset so everything flows normal. Comcast wants you to pay for extra IP's so they may be blocking it somehow. The MAC address cloning works but you can only use one device at a time. Maybe I'm wrong. Hope it helps

12/14/2008, 12:27 PM	#17
badazztealcobra Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Streamwood, IL Posts: 7,394	Sorry to hear the problem came back Keith..... Believe me slumpy, if theres one thing we've tried its the unplug and plug back in 30 seconds later..... Thats the old comcast standby for EVERYTHING.... "Well sir, have you unplugged everything" ????

12/14/2008, 01:02 PM	#19
slumpysix Registered Member Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 837	yeah that sux for sure. I know the IT guy at my company told me that devices are assigned IP's when they sign on to the router and that they will get the same IP the next time they sign on to it. Then if another device calls for that same IP, conflict happen. I assigned different IP's for things and it worked. But later on I found that the Belkin router I was using was crapola. I purchased a Linksys WRT54G2 and everything has been happy ever since. Hopefully that all made sense... 3 PCs, xbox 360, Wii, network printer, 2 wireless laptops... i think I just geeked out....

12/14/2008, 08:21 PM	#22
badazztealcobra Registered Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Streamwood, IL Posts: 7,394	He's not using two routers at once, he's saying he went through 2 linksys routers and its still doing the same thing..... Hes using a HP PC with Windows XP as the OS, and the weird part is everything was fine up until 2 weeks ago, and then this started happening...... He was using a Linksys WRT54GS wireless router, and he thought that might have gone bad and thats what the problem was, so he went and bought a new WRT160N wireless router and is still having the same problem.....

12/14/2008, 09:43 PM	#23
kawicivic Registered Member Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Rockford Posts: 2,316	I had the same problem with comcast, Is he in a dense area by any chance? try logging into the router settings and switching which channel it is running on. there are 3 recommended one. I moved to 6 and have not had any issues getting kicked off anymore. I tried everything and it seems his issue is the same. My computer would work fine for awhile and then all of the sudden everything would need to be rebooted. A wired connection always worked well for me. Now that I changed teh channel they both work!

12/14/2008, 10:14 PM	#24
DragonFish Unregistered Member Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Pleasant Prairie, WI Posts: 1,988	Reading comprehension is good... he's not running wireless at all at the moment so switching channels isn't going to help much. Has his provider replaced the cable modem yet? If not that might be a good place to go next. I'd say he has exhausted every other reasonable option on his end.