Using a router increases my speed 10-fold?!?

batman697 · Post by **batman697** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 12:09 pm

Here's the situation. I have Earth Link cable modem in NYC and I had a router set up in my network (a network of just the router and 1 desktop comp). I got download speeds of around 2300. When I removed the router and fed the cable modem ethernet cable directly into the computer my speed dropped to 300. Ok, that's strange. I try a different cable and I get the speed up to 1500, but still not near the 2300. The funny thing is both these cables were used in the modem-router-computer setup. I am completely perplexed. Anybody know what's happening?

BDillon21 · Post by **BDillon21** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 1:50 pm

What are you using to determine your bandwidth and what speed are you suppose to be getting? I've seen some REALLY unreliable bandwidth tests out there. The ones at DSL reports.com work really well.

Have you used to registry tweaks found under the broadband section on this site? It's quite possible that the router had an optimized MTU setting, or something similar but it would seem to me that your connection would only be as good as your NIC or PC will allow it to be.

batman697 · Post by **batman697** » Tue Oct 26, 2004 2:24 pm

I used MSN's speed test and DSLreports.com. They were consistent with each other.

I haven't touched the network settings in the registry and the router is on the default settings.

Also, when I removed the router, my upload speed was 2-3 times higher than my download speed.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 8:11 am

Perhaps your NIC doesn't auto-adjust its settings very well with your cable modem, but the auto-detect of the LAN switch of your router gets along with it fine. Could test this by spending some time, direct connect the NIC to your modem, and fiddle with settings, 100/full, 100/half, 10/full, 10/half. Run speed tests.

Just be aware that your computer is open to attack when plugged directly into the modem. The router gives you a good hardware firewall.

batman697 · Post by **batman697** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:42 am

I did experiment with one setting and changed the duplex to 10 half duplex (it was set to auto). And the speed with the bad cable reamined nearly the same and the speed with the router was halved.