100M : New Router time ?

[RainmakerRaw]

Originally Posted by Mr K

You may well be right.

All my households pc's are on a wired connection anyway and are getting about 94MB through the Netgear N150 router; close enough to 100MB for me.

Nobody else seems to have picked this up, so I'll throw in my 2p. Your router's wired ports are all only rated to 100Mbps. There are - generally, these days - two types of Network Interface Cards (NICs): 100Mbps and 1000Mbps/Gigabit. If one or all of the clients on the wired LAN, or the router itself, are running at 100Mbps then the whole network slows down to match.

Because of DHCP overheads and NAT etc, generally you'll never get more than 96Mbps out of a 100Mbps NIC or switch. When you upgrade your router you'll want one that has gigabit ports and to check your wired devices for gigabit compatibility. Once everything is gigabit you will see your speed rise to much closer to the full 100Mbps, or even slightly more (VM give the overheads on cable connections).

You can pick up gigabit NICs for literally a couple of quid these days, though generally speaking proper Intel pci(e) cards (eg Intel Pro 1000 GT or MT) are best. You can get Intel cards new for about £25 each or find them used (ex-business use) cheap on eBay. That way you future proof yourself for if/when you get 152Mbps or higher as VM upgrades roll out.

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by RainmakerRaw

If one or all of the clients on the wired LAN, or the router itself, are running at 100Mbps then the whole network slows down to match

wrong. Each port on the switch will auto negotiate it's link speed with the client. You can quite happily have a legacy device running at 100mbits on one wired connection to the switch whilst two other devices with gigabit nics each have gigabit link speeds to each port on the switch and communicate to one another >100mbits

[RainmakerRaw]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

wrong. Each port on the switch will auto negotiate it's link speed with the client. You can quite happily have a legacy device running at 100mbits on one wired connection to the switch whilst two other devices with gigabit nics each have gigabit link speeds to each port on the switch and communicate to one another >100mbits

Not always in my experience. I have had issues with LAN transfers (PC > PC) running at ~11MB/sec and couldn't get them to bump for anything. Then I realised the TV was plugged into the router (100Mbps NIC), so I unplugged it and voila - full transfer speeds between the PCs again.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

that may be so but I consider TP Link to be a cheapo naff brand which is why they are a higher spec price for price.

It is like getting a 20pk of McVities biscuits for £2 or a 50pk of Asda biscuits for the same price.

Not really, since they use the same internal components built in the same factory.

It's like getting a 20pk of McVities biscuits for £2 or a 20 pk of McVities biscuits for 50p but calling the latter "naff" because it's cheaper.

I'm sure you'll also consider PCs "cheapo naff" because they contain the same hardware as Macs at a lower price.

I consider anyone who pays more for exactly the same thing with a different logo on it to be either stupid or ignorant.

---------- Post added at 03:17 ---------- Previous post was at 03:12 ----------

Originally Posted by Carlos Carboni

Not quite... read this.

Clearly, the Tplink ain't your cup of tea for you to dunk your McVities biscuits.

Also, I was saying Archer 5 v1.6 (the one with the 3 Aerials) is the same hardware as Archer 7, read this

I've told him to read this several times but he prefers drinking his own kool-aid and believing a product is inherently better if it has his favourite company logo on it.

---------- Post added at 03:21 ---------- Previous post was at 03:17 ----------

Originally Posted by RainmakerRaw

Because of DHCP overheads and NAT etc, generally you'll never get more than 96Mbps out of a 100Mbps NIC or switch.

Ermm there's no such thing as DHCP overheads and NAT doesn't exist on a NIC or a switch, are you sure you're not just picking random networking-related terms out of thin air?

[RainmakerRaw]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Ermm there's no such thing as DHCP overheads and NAT doesn't exist on a NIC or a switch, are you sure you're not just picking random networking-related terms out of thin air?

That's the way it was explained to me, I didn't question it because I don't know any better. I have 152/12 (nearer to 160/12.5 throughput), and when one of the PCs started running at 10/100 I was maxing out at 96Mbps consistently. I was told on OcUK you never get the full 100Mbps throughput on a 100Mbps NIC for the reasons I stated earlier. So instead of just being patronising why not explain the reasons in your reply? I'm all ears.

EDIT: Re-reading my earlier post perhaps I should have been (rather) clearer. I meant connecting through a gigabit router with a NIC set at 100Mbps. I obviously realise NAT doesn't exist on a NIC or switch, but rather that a NIC connected at 100Mbps to a gigabit router with a high speed WAN (i.e. >100Mbps) would not pull the full 100Mbps. If you'd care to explain where the 'missing' ~5Mbps goes to give a maximum throughput of ~95Mbps I'd love to hear it. There's no need to be rude.

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by RainmakerRaw

That's the way it was explained to me, I didn't question it because I don't know any better. I have 152/12 (nearer to 160/12.5 throughput), and when one of the PCs started running at 10/100 I was maxing out at 96Mbps consistently. I was told on OcUK you never get the full 100Mbps throughput on a 100Mbps NIC for the reasons I stated earlier. So instead of just being patronising why not explain the reasons in your reply? I'm all ears.

EDIT: Re-reading my earlier post perhaps I should have been (rather) clearer. I meant connecting through a gigabit router with a NIC set at 100Mbps. I obviously realise NAT doesn't exist on a NIC or switch, but rather that a NIC connected at 100Mbps to a gigabit router with a high speed WAN (i.e. >100Mbps) would not pull the full 100Mbps. If you'd care to explain where the 'missing' ~5Mbps goes to give a maximum throughput of ~95Mbps I'd love to hear it. There's no need to be rude.

Overheads, just not the overheads you mentioned. Qas can probably explain it in better detail than I can, but the data being transferred has to be wrapped into packets (At the TCP/IP level) and frames (at the Ethernet level). Think about it like sending a letter through the post - you can't just shove it in a letter box, you have pop it in an enveloper which will add a small amount of weight to the thing. You also need to write the address on it and when it comes to communication, the address of the receiving machine also takes up precious bytes. That all adds up.

You're right about 96Mbps being a reasonable real world maximum when using a 100Mbit router, but OP said himself that he's happy with the current performance he has:

Originally Posted by Mr K

You may well be right.

All my households pc's are on a wired connection anyway and are getting about 94MB through the Netgear N150 router; close enough to 100MB for me. The only things I have wireless are a laptop (a lenovo s400 ideapad) and a Android Moto G phone, both of which are getting about 50MB wireless according to speed tests, bit of a coincidence. I suspect the Moto G wouldn't take any more anyway and I don't need anymore on it. The laptop will get the same 94MB if I wire it up and 50 MB wireless. The wireless network adapter on it is an IntelCentrino (R) Wireless - N2230, so not sure if thats capable of 5Ghz.

tbh I wasn't really looking for a speed upgrade anyway but 100 worked out cheaper than 50MB when renegotiating my package for some bizarre reason.

Will probably stick with the Netgear N150 router for now (what wireless speed should it be capable of in the real world ?)

And indeed, it's not worth spending any amount of money for the sake of 3-4Mbit. In all likelihood, OP's PC's are gigabit anyway, so if/when he upgrades his router he'll probably see his PC's sync at 1Gbit regardless.

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

he prefers drinking his own kool-aid and believing a product is inherently better if it has his favourite company logo on it

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by RainmakerRaw

That's the way it was explained to me, I didn't question it because I don't know any better.

Then it was explained wrong. Horrendously wrong. My apologies to you, however whoever explained it to you needs to be bashed over the head. Or perhaps has already been bashed over the head a few times too many.

If you'd care to explain where the 'missing' ~5Mbps goes to give a maximum throughput of ~95Mbps I'd love to hear it. There's no need to be rude.

TCP/IP and Ethernet overheads.

---------- Post added at 11:16 ---------- Previous post was at 11:15 ----------

Originally Posted by Kushan

Overheads, just not the overheads you mentioned. Qas can probably explain it in better detail than I can, but the data being transferred has to be wrapped into packets (At the TCP/IP level) and frames (at the Ethernet level). Think about it like sending a letter through the post - you can't just shove it in a letter box, you have pop it in an enveloper which will add a small amount of weight to the thing. You also need to write the address on it and when it comes to communication, the address of the receiving machine also takes up precious bytes. That all adds up.

I think he understands overheads, he just used random words that were unrelated to fact. It's like saying "A 2 hour flight takes longer than 2 hours because tickets and waking up in the morning" when he really means "A 2 hour flight takes longer than 2 hours because of airport security and passport control."

---------- Post added at 11:16 ---------- Previous post was at 11:16 ----------

Originally Posted by General Maximus

/me bashes General Maximus over the head with his Cisco certification papers.

[Mr K]

Thanks for the advice. For info I went for the Netgear N600 Dual Band. Decided I might aswell as it looks like my 100MB connection will go to 200MB soon plus Netgear has always been fine for me in the past.

It's increased my wired speed to 109MB on my main pc and wireless to 93MB on my laptop. Haven't got anything above 50MB on my Moto G phone so suspect thats its limit. Turns out I do have one 5g device after all - my work laptop - not that I was ever bothered about speed on that !

[thenry]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CFEBQI...ing=UTF8&psc=1

[General Maximus]

Originally Posted by thenry

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00CFEBQI...ing=UTF8&psc=1

I was thinking exactly the same thing as I was leaving work and read his post on my phone

Originally Posted by Kushan

Overheads, just not the overheads you mentioned. Qas can probably explain it in better detail than I can, but the data being transferred has to be wrapped into packets (At the TCP/IP level) and frames (at the Ethernet level) ....

Dont forget the protocol overheads as well (http for example). On average, by the time you add them all up, its about 4 to 5 %, so as per above, about 95Mbps to 96Mbps is the best you are ever going to get (and thats in ideal conditions).

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by General Maximus

Cis-what?

[General Maximus]

I knew you loved them really. I bet you save the boxes and use them as wallpaper in your house :P

[qasdfdsaq]

Nah those boxes are full of old/broken kit going back to the supplier as trade-in