Help with accurately measuring bandwidth

[RL317]

Hi Duma bros,

 

This isn't actually for me, but a friend who just picked up the R1 today. I walked him through the setup process but we seem to be having some trouble choosing the right CC settings.

 

He was struggling to find out what internet package he has - other than the fact it's Comcast Xfinity Blast - but knew he got at least 100/10 down and up respectively. At first we left the set bandwidth values on 100/10 as he's never really seen more than that other than the occasional increase in upload. He was previously using a DD-WRT flashed TP Link router and since his download bandwidth fluctuated heavily he just set it to 80Mb down and worked with that. After he checked it was on 100/10 I suggested loading up PingPlotter on a PC and running speed tests while at 100% reactive, 90% reactive etc. so he could visually understand what reducing the sliders does for bufferbloat when the line is maxed out, but as we weren't sure about his download bandwidth I suggested unticking IPv6 and deep packet processing, and then ticking turbo mode. On his first test he got over 200Mb down... something he NEVER saw even just using his ISP modem router with no bandwidth control in place LOL. A few more tests showed up to 250Mb down, so we thought it was safe to assume he's on the Blast 250-300Mb package (upload is still a mystery, but it hovers consistently around 12Mb - seems like an odd number). Here's the weird part though. He checked his cable and it was labelled cat5. I'm almost certain max throughput on a cat5 cable is 100Mb :s

 

Anyway he repeated the test with 100% reactive and turbo mode on his PS4 - which uses a cat6 cable - and he rarely passed 100Mb; I believe the max was 117Mb. If he reduced sliders to 70% there didn't actually seem to be any congestion control in effect, and the bloat was still considerable. So I've got a few questions for those either on a Comcast Xfinity, or anyone on a 100Mb+ cable package:

 

Do you see any weirdness when applying congestion control to say 70%? For example, sliders not seeming to have any effect even though you're not getting full speeds anyway.

 

Does turbo mode seem to make a difference either for your full speeds or the effectiveness of using sliders and suppressing bufferbloat?

 

Have you noticed any discrepancies when using different grade cables? This cat5 vs cat6 backwards thing is bending my brain haha

 

We're gonna test some more tomorrow when his family isn't around and using the internet at home, but as I've not encountered anything like this before I was just wondering if any of you had similar experiences and/or any suggestions. His upload doesn't fluctuate at all, but the fact he gets 200+ on cat5 and seems to be limited to 100~ down on cat6 to the PS4 is a weird one. I'm fairly sure the PS4 Pro has gigabit ports too, especially as I know for a fact it can handle up to 867Mb over WiFi, so he shouldn't be capped to 100ish testing on the PS4 browser. I suggested just choosing 70% preemptive for now as he's anxious to play with his new piece of kit, but I want to ensure we get it set up right for his network. Thanks in advance

[iAmMoDBoX]

Hi Duma bros,

 

This isn't actually for me, but a friend who just picked up the R1 today. I walked him through the setup process but we seem to be having some trouble choosing the right CC settings.

 

He was struggling to find out what internet package he has - other than the fact it's Comcast Xfinity Blast - but knew he got at least 100/10 down and up respectively. At first we left the set bandwidth values on 100/10 as he's never really seen more than that other than the occasional increase in upload. He was previously using a DD-WRT flashed TP Link router and since his download bandwidth fluctuated heavily he just set it to 80Mb down and worked with that. After he checked it was on 100/10 I suggested loading up PingPlotter on a PC and running speed tests while at 100% reactive, 90% reactive etc. so he could visually understand what reducing the sliders does for bufferbloat when the line is maxed out, but as we weren't sure about his download bandwidth I suggested unticking IPv6 and deep packet processing, and then ticking turbo mode. On his first test he got over 200Mb down... something he NEVER saw even just using his ISP modem router with no bandwidth control in place LOL. A few more tests showed up to 250Mb down, so we thought it was safe to assume he's on the Blast 250-300Mb package (upload is still a mystery, but it hovers consistently around 12Mb - seems like an odd number). Here's the weird part though. He checked his cable and it was labelled cat5. I'm almost certain max throughput on a cat5 cable is 100Mb :s

 

Anyway he repeated the test with 100% reactive and turbo mode on his PS4 - which uses a cat6 cable - and he rarely passed 100Mb; I believe the max was 117Mb. If he reduced sliders to 70% there didn't actually seem to be any congestion control in effect, and the bloat was still considerable. So I've got a few questions for those either on a Comcast Xfinity, or anyone on a 100Mb+ cable package:

 

Do you see any weirdness when applying congestion control to say 70%? For example, sliders not seeming to have any effect even though you're not getting full speeds anyway.

 

Does turbo mode seem to make a difference either for your full speeds or the effectiveness of using sliders and suppressing bufferbloat?

 

Have you noticed any discrepancies when using different grade cables? This cat5 vs cat6 backwards thing is bending my brain haha

 

We're gonna test some more tomorrow when his family isn't around and using the internet at home, but as I've not encountered anything like this before I was just wondering if any of you had similar experiences and/or any suggestions. His upload doesn't fluctuate at all, but the fact he gets 200+ on cat5 and seems to be limited to 100~ down on cat6 to the PS4 is a weird one. I'm fairly sure the PS4 Pro has gigabit ports too, especially as I know for a fact it can handle up to 867Mb over WiFi, so he shouldn't be capped to 100ish testing on the PS4 browser. I suggested just choosing 70% preemptive for now as he's anxious to play with his new piece of kit, but I want to ensure we get it set up right for his network. Thanks in advance

 

Had this issue and it was the modem... I was going crazy for months trying to figure out why devices seems to just be ignoring congestion control settings. Switched to the TC-7610 and everything has been fine. I have no idea how a modem can effect a router's QoS but it did.

 

Also I'm on Blast and the speeds are 240/12... If he's getting inconsistent speeds that means his line is bad or signal is out of range.

 

I've seen cat 5 do gigabit depending on the length also. I get all my cables from Monoprice now.

[ExtraCrispy86]

For most companies the upload is around 5-10% of the download speed, to get an accurate measure of your speeds, hook your pc up directly to your modem with a cat6 Ethernet cable, do a hard reset on each then run a speedtest on your pc and write down the values.(if the modem has built in WiFi make sure to google the proper way to disable it first) After that connect the R1 to the modem with another cat6 cable(shorter the better) and plug the cable from your pc into the R1. Hard reset again then input the values you wrote into the R1 and choose the option to let the router auto setup for those speeds.

 

Now with the PS4...

So I’ve found that the PS4 has one of the biggest connectivity issues that PlayStation has yet to correct, No matter how you set it up to any modem/router it always has a degrading connection. There’s a trick around this when it comes to downloads and updates, just pause the download every 1-3mins and it will download 10-30times faster!

[RL317]

Had this issue and it was the modem... I was going crazy for months trying to figure out why devices seems to just be ignoring congestion control settings. Switched to the TC-7610 and everything has been fine. I have no idea how a modem can effect a router's QoS but it did.

 

Also I'm on Blast and the speeds are 240/12... If he's getting inconsistent speeds that means his line is bad or signal is out of range.

 

I've seen cat 5 do gigabit depending on the length also. I get all my cables from Monoprice now.

Ah so is if a modem chip issue or something? I hear similar things about Virgin Media's Superhub 3 here in the UK (cable) and the instability it causes. I'll bring up trying a new modem as an option. How is the TC-7610 in terms of cost?

 

His download drops randomly most of the time (for example on a speed test graph you'll see it climb, suddenly drop to double digits then climb back), so I was hoping we could find a download CC setting to keep it steady around the point it drops to at most. Gonna try that tomorrow when he's available to test again

[RL317]

For most companies the upload is around 5-10% of the download speed, to get an accurate measure of your speeds, hook your pc up directly to your modem with a cat6 Ethernet cable, do a hard reset on each then run a speedtest on your pc and write down the values.(if the modem has built in WiFi make sure to google the proper way to disable it first) After that connect the R1 to the modem with another cat6 cable(shorter the better) and plug the cable from your pc into the R1. Hard reset again then input the values you wrote into the R1 and choose the option to let the router auto setup for those speeds.

 

Now with the PS4...

So I’ve found that the PS4 has one of the biggest connectivity issues that PlayStation has yet to correct, No matter how you set it up to any modem/router it always has a degrading connection. There’s a trick around this when it comes to downloads and updates, just pause the download every 1-3mins and it will download 10-30times faster!

Yeah we tried that bud. I wanted to walk him through it so he'd get it set up properly as soon as possible so he can just get on with playing. Just seems weird he can get over 100Mb on some long old cat5 to his laptop but is capped around 100 on cat6 to the PS4 using the same site lol

[ExtraCrispy86]

Yeah we tried that bud. I wanted to walk him through it so he'd get it set up properly as soon as possible so he can just get on with playing. Just seems weird he can get over 100Mb on some long old cat5 to his laptop but is capped around 100 on cat6 to the PS4 using the same site lol

That is pretty weird, could be a faulty cat6 cable, a lot of cables purchased through amazon aren’t properly labeled/verified. As far as consistent CC, I use dslreports to get the highest rating bufferbloat and use those settings. Start with CC at 70% upload and download then decrease the download by 5% and test again then decrease the upload by 5% and test again, all the way down to 20% on each. I’d write down all the test stats from 70% to 20% l, fine which one is best, then try increasing/decreasing by 1% until you get the sweet spot. Also I would set the PC to 50% and ps4 to 50% on the “flower chart” so the same settings will apply to both connections.

 

Hope that helps.

[titofuenla]

good companions, as I understand from X meters of Ethernet cable it is better to use Cat 6.

if I remember correctly I think it was from 10 meters when it was best to change to Cat 6 but that does not mean that cat 5 does not take more than 100 megabytes from those meters

 

I currently use a CAT5 cable because my CAT6 cable broke, the cable has about 10 meters and PS4 I get in a speed test of the console about 280 to 300 megs down, up 150 to 200 megs.

 

I really would not worry about that but I would check that the cables were good because if you miss a cable the ones that enter the plug can have drastic speed loss

 

A greeting fellow Duma army.

[RL317]

HI tito, and thanks. I just saw your recent post showing you're on FTTH, so it's good to know it's not "weird" to see 100Mb+ on cat5. Well... unless it's pretending to be cat5 and you actually got a cat5e for less money haha

 

I've never used 100Mb+ broadband meaning I can't help my pal from personal experience, so I really appreciate the feedback folks.

[iAmMoDBoX]

Ah so is if a modem chip issue or something? I hear similar things about Virgin Media's Superhub 3 here in the UK (cable) and the instability it causes. I'll bring up trying a new modem as an option. How is the TC-7610 in terms of cost?

 

His download drops randomly most of the time (for example on a speed test graph you'll see it climb, suddenly drop to double digits then climb back), so I was hoping we could find a download CC setting to keep it steady around the point it drops to at most. Gonna try that tomorrow when he's available to test again

 

It's $40 but regularly on sale for $30 and you'll save on the $10 a month rental fee from Comcast. It's really a no brainer when it comes to it

 

Speed fluctuations like that are usually from a bad signal... See if he can go into his modem and post a picture of his signal levels.