Bandwidth

[Rakkattack]

Hi there,, My name is Rusty ! I've been reading your posts and i find you are a very Friendly and helpful bunch. That led me to contact you with my problem.
I have a highspeed cable connection with 3 computers on it. Moms ..(lol) my brothers ,, and mine . We are connected through a router.

Problem is ,,, i cannot play online games such as counter strike source . I lag horribly. Someone told me to get a 'switch" .. so i did and its still the same. On the switch , all lights are on except the link and 100 mps are off. Is that normal? Can i expect to get a decent connection in online gaming with 3 computers on 1 broadband connection? Or should i get my own connection?

If there IS a way to play on the network with a good latency... please tell me how...

Also i know that it is the 3 pcs online that causes the lag because if i stay up till 3 in the morning ,, i have no lag,,, ( mom and bro are gone to bed by then lol )

Thank you for your time and knowledge :)

[GMac222]

Hi Rakkattack

How have you got the network setup now, did you replace the router with the switch?
A couple of questions may help us get to an answer here.
What cables are you using?
What type of switch is it (i.e Ethernet, Token Ring)
What Operating Systems are you using?
What Network Interface Cards do you have in your machines?

[Rakkattack]

Hi again ,,

all i did was connect the switch to the router ,, and the pcs to the switch. modem to router ,to switch ,, to pc's .

not sure what cables ... it was installed by the company that put it in.

The switch is ,,TE100-S55E plus TRENDnet 10/100 mps

OS is Intel pentuim 4 80 gig hard drive nvidea gforce 5500 256 mgs 768 ram
Not sure where to find the network interface cards.

I was told that a switch would keep each pc running 10 mbs with no lag .
But the lag did not go away.

The router is an SMC7004VBR barricade
I've tried tinkering with the options but can't find anything.
I'm also aware that playing online games at prime time web hours ,,you will experience more lag than usual .
My next test is to plug my line directly into the modem and run the game ,, and if theres still lag then its the connection. But if it was the connection ,, i would see lag even at the wee hours of the morning ,,. and i don't,,, lol soooo its gotta be the setup configs etc .

The main question is ,,, Am i able to play through a router with three pc's online? The game DOES require a lot of bandwidth

Rakk

[bAdWaYz]

Hello Rusty and welcome to CTH,

You should have no trouble playing an online game with 3 pc's all running at the same time and pluged directly into the router. As long as the other two pc's aren't sharing out tons of songs or movies over a p2p app like kazza or BT you should have plenty of bandwidth to share with each other. If you have a cable isp you might want to check the router config and look at the MTU setting. For a cable connection it should be fine at 1500 for dsl 1400 to 1492 is good. You also might want to forward the ports in the router that the game uses. Last thing next time you try to connect to play a game try using a different game server see what the pings are on a different server it may just be you are using a very busy server.

[Rakkattack]

Hi Bad thanks!
my mom plays yahoo games and my brother just surfs mostly.
If i do a speed test i only get 500 to 700 kbs a sec .... thats not good . When other two pc's aren't online i get 1.5 mgs a sec ,, still slow for highspeed cable. <<<<< or is it? Whats happening in my games is ,, It seems like im getting packets of info in intervals instead of feeding the info as soon as its available. Seems like it collects incoming/ outgoing info and then sends it . And in any online game ,, that is lag or high latency or crappy ping lol ,,, I've been at this problem for a few months now and you too are telling me i should have no problem playing any online game with no lag. Thats great news lol
Now what configs in the router can i look at and change ?,,, i've been in there and i don't know what im looking for. I was trying to find something with packet speed or bandwidth allocations . yes i am desperate lol

Thank you again for your help!!!
This is a great site for retrieving reliable assistance!

Rusty

[bAdWaYz]

If you post the make,model, and ver number of the router we can give you advice on where to go and what to look for in the routers setup. One question I have is what speed should you be getting? Some cable ISP's offer different speeds depeding on what package you have. For exable you might pay 30 bucks a month for 1 mb service or 50 bucks a month for 3mb service.

[oracle128]

Some cable ISP's offer different speeds depeding on what package you have. For exable you might pay 30 bucks a month for 1 mb service or 50 bucks a month for 3mb service.And often, that speed's not guaranteed.

[Rakkattack]

The router is an SMC7004VBR barricade

Not sure what speed i have ,,, its highspeed cable . dl songs avg 1 min ,,, its pretty fast. But with 3 pcs on at the same time , i experience lag in counter strike source.
A high ping is no good ,anything above 80 ., and thats me when 3 pcs are on . Last night when mom and bro were in bed ,, it was 32 my ping ,,, that was really great.

There has gotta be some sort of bandwidth confusion in our network setup.

btw we pay 45 bucks a month.

[GMac222]

Just another thought, do you have problems when you are just surfing the net?
If you don't then you could try and figure which port your game is using and using port-forwarding to open it up, see if it helps.
Port forwarding can be found in your router setup.

[Rakkattack]

Yeah i have all the ports forwarded that need to be.
No i have no problem surfing ,,, its quite fast actually!

I know its something with the router ,,, i just don't know what!

[bAdWaYz]

I will download and have a look at the man for your router, but I need to know the part number to make sure we are working with the right one. Take a look at this link to help you find your part number..

http://www.smc.com/index.cfm?event=whereToFindPartNumber&localeCode=EN_USA

In the mean time take down the ip address of the game server you are trying to connect to and from a command prompt ping it. Post the part number and the ping results in here.

[Rakkattack]

part # 751.7923

ping test on an ip? command prompt? hmm i need to study more.

When i play on a server and other 2 pcs are on i lag ,,,,,,,,,,,, if i play on the same server when other pc's are offline ,,, i do not lag. Sharing bandwidth is the problem . Some say a switch fixes that, but it didn;t ... so that leaves me with the router and possibly a packet confusion going on somewhere.

[oracle128]

Consumer switches and routers both do the same thing; give equal network time to all connected devices. You never needed the switch, as a router does a much better job, and connecting both the switch and the router was a completely redundant setup. If the problem only happens when the other PCs are on, get them to stop downloading. Other than that, the next step would be to find a router that allows you to indicate which devices should receive more bandwidth (ie. are a higher priority), but good luck with that, since I've never seen any routers like that at your everyday retail electronics stores.

[Rakkattack]

I just might have to get my own connection. They play online games so i won't be able to convince them to stop. lol

[GMac222]

Oracle 128, Im still learning here so I'm probably wrong (feel free to correct me :blush: ) I thought a switch allows interconnecting nodes to be placed into their own collision domains and cut out frame collisions, therefore speeding up a network and a router was to allow interconnecting between different protocols, which probably makes getting the switch a good idea right? Dunno, maybe my knowledge is a little out of date, but hey life is a learning process.

Rakkattack: Click Start - Run and type in cmd (still not sure what OS you are using)
type in PING and then the name of your server (DNS should take care of the difference between the IP address and the english translation)
It can be likened to a submarine sonar that pings and gets a reply when it hits something, if not then it doesn't which means you have difficulties making a connection to this particular server.

Have you disabled your proxy server in internet options? According to your setup manual you need to do this (can't see this being a fault or you wouldn't connect but just checking).

[oracle128]

Oracle 128, Im still learning here so I'm probably wrong (feel free to correct me ) I thought a switch allows interconnecting nodes to be placed into their own collision domains and cut out frame collisions, therefore speeding up a network and a router was to allow interconnecting between different protocols, which probably makes getting the switch a good idea right? Dunno, maybe my knowledge is a little out of date, but hey life is a learning process.Sort of. Routers perform both the data packet management functions of a switch, plus the interconnection of different protocols (such as a gateway router which interfaces between your LAN and your ISP).

[Rakkattack]

Ok did the ping test and had 0% loss of packets.

See the problem is ,,,it seems theres not enough bandwidth for the 3 pc's ,,, and with highspeed cable ... thats not possible . We should be able to run a game on one of the pc's and have no affect on the others. This is not the case. I get lag in my game and booted from most servers.
There are some who play through a router with no problems. Also,, when i am in a server ... i get huge ping spikes... translation? i think its packet confusion or something cause the ping goes back to normal ... but playing like that is horrible. Are there routers out there that are way better than others or do they all perform the same function?

[bAdWaYz]

This is just my opinion so take it for what its worth. If you get a 2mb or better connection there is not reason why you shouldn't be able to play online games and others computers use the net at the same time all hooked to a router. If you have forwarded the ports right and set the MTU to 1500 there shouldn't be an issue. The places to look for slowdowns would be:

The game servers you connect to
A software firewall running on your computer config'ed wrong
Other people on your network downloading or sharing out songs/videos
Playing online games during peak times

There are some routers out there that do QOS type options and can limit bandwidth for apps being run on computers in the local network. Such a router is the WRT54G V2 and V4 from Linksys. I don't know if you have updated the firmware on your router lately but give that a shot and you might find it helps.

[oracle128]

This is just my opinion so take it for what its worth. If you get a 2mb or better connection there is not reason why you shouldn't be able to play online games and others computers use the net at the same time all hooked to a router. If you have forwarded the ports right and set the MTU to 1500 there shouldn't be an issue. The places to look for slowdowns would be:

The game servers you connect to
A software firewall running on your computer config'ed wrong
Other people on your network downloading or sharing out songs/videos
Playing online games during peak times

There are some routers out there that do QOS type options and can limit bandwidth for apps being run on computers in the local network. Such a router is the WRT54G V2 and V4 from Linksys. I don't know if you have updated the firmware on your router lately but give that a shot and you might find it helps.I second all that.

[GMac222]

I third and fourth it :)

[Rakkattack]

Thank you very much for all your help! At least now i know the problem. :)

Rakkattack - Rusty

[AzureIce]

Buying the switch was reduntant - routers that have more than one LAN port have built in switches which perform the exact same function. The person that recommended the switch probably thought you had a hub, which uses shared bandwidth. A switch gives each computer it's own bandwidth. But as I said, your router probably has a switch built into it.

I don't tihnk you have "packet confusion" problems. Routers and switches these days are pretty efficient, and adding a router won't just cause you to lag.

If I am understanding you correctly, you don't have these other problems when other family members aren't using their computers. This probably means one of the other computers is using up the bandwidth, either knowingly (using some kind of P2P software like BitTorrent) or unknowingly (computer has been infected by a virus or spyware and is being used as a zombie or something).

[Rakkattack]

That is very possible. Come to think of it ,,, my brother told me he does not have a firewall installed. Maybe he is infected. I have spybot and a few others .. i will get them to run it.

My worst fear is if i get my own connection ,,, will it be the same problem. Our cable provider is videotron ,, highspeed 10/100 and it truly is. If i download songs i can listen to it as its downloading,,, thats quick. But for some reason when i play online multiplayer , , i get lag spikes and unstable ping. And its not the pc cause at 3 in the morn ,, i have no problems on any server.

I'll run the spyware programs and see what happens.

Rusty

[AzureIce]

There's an easier way to figure out if another computer is causing the problem. When playing a game and it starts lagging, unplug each computer one at a time and see if the lag goes away. If it does, then you know where the problem is.

Also, what is your ping when you have this "lag"? A ping of 100 is not bad. A ping of 200 isn't great but isn't a sign of bad hardware. If your bandwidth is being sucked, you'll get pings >400.