splitting router bandwidth

[fishstix]

I have this router: Netgear Wireless-G Router WGR614 and I'm interested in splitting the bandwidth between my roommate and I (both wireless) I quickly looked around the router software page: 192.168.1.1 and didn't see anything that can do this (maybe the QoS? idk really) or do I need 3rd party software for this?

We got a 20mbps cable line and I tend to torrent/seed a lot and he's worried about lag while playing League of Legends. Easy solution would be to not download while he's doing so, even though I dont think it'll lag him much. Any ideas?

[Caiyuo]

This is more or less precisely what QoS does, though whether or not that router does it well is another story. I believe Tomato (3rd-party firmware) is pretty notable for its QoS while DD WRT is lacking there as of the most recent stable build.

I can look up your actual router later to check out the QoS features, but hopefully what you'll be able to do is just set the torrent/p2p traffic/ports to a low priority class, the sensitive stuff like voice and gaming to a higher priority class and that would ideally do the trick. That way anything else on the network is prioritized over p2p speed with connection-sensitive stuff being prioritized over everything.

As for "lag", the torrenting itself may cause general router slowdown, but that'd be something you'd notice in general for everything.

[fishstix]

so far, doing direct downloading from hotfile @ 300kb/s isn't affecting his gameplay, he's still kinda picky about things, so I'll play around with the router's QoS later tonight. I'll check out Tomato also

[Caiyuo]

stuff like gaming online doesn't really use up any noticeable bandwidth, it just needs to be able to transfer constantly without having to wrestle for bandwidth from things that would normally soak up as much as they can, like p2p or any large downloads, as opposed to small, unnoticeable things you'd be doing on the internet where nothing's even big enough to fully utilize 300KB/s. That's essentially what QoS does, it just reserves bandwidth specifically for users/ports/whatever you specify so that those things always have requisite interbutts.

[bungiefan]

Torrenting, as opposed to downloading from web sites, establishes hundreds/thousands of connections at once, and in a very short time. The router can only track so many connections at once. If you're overloading the CPU in the router with traffic like that (home routers aren't meant for such heavy usage, some are actually built to become unstable when running torrents through them by not purging the connection table more than once about every 5-7 days) then it can lag him because of the sheer amount of processing you are asking it to do to the network data. Web browser downloads tend to only establish a single or handful of connections at a time.

[The Stig]

As unfair as it may seem to the torrent community, when I shared a house with 6 people I used Azureus for my torrent fixes. I cap at the maximum upload to be 2kb/s (minimum) and also a max of 2 connections only, so at worst I was upload 4kb/s to 2 different IPs.

This allowed me to do it all day with no complaints whatsoever from the guys.

[bungiefan]

Downloading uses a lot of connections too. Even just downloading at 30 KB/s out of my 150 KB/s connection, with upload capped at 2 KB/s will lag my one roommate playing Combat Arms enough that he has trouble running through the levels. It will also lag FFXI to where it takes 5 seconds to respond to me using spells or job abilities. Then again, I'm on a LinkSys WRT54G version 8, which I had to put DDWRT on so it wouldn't lock up after 10 minutes of torrenting because the connection table got full. It still overheats if anyone watches a movie off my computer over the network for more than an hour at a time, and redials the DSL modem when it does so.

[The Stig]

Downloading uses a lot of connections too. Even just downloading at 30 KB/s out of my 150 KB/s connection, with upload capped at 2 KB/s will lag my one roommate playing Combat Arms enough that he has trouble running through the levels. It will also lag FFXI to where it takes 5 seconds to respond to me using spells or job abilities. Then again, I'm on a LinkSys WRT54G version 8, which I had to put DDWRT on so it wouldn't lock up after 10 minutes of torrenting because the connection table got full. It still overheats if anyone watches a movie off my computer over the network for more than an hour at a time, and redials the DSL modem when it does so.

Ok I had that or a similar router before (WRT54-something) and I do recall the same happening before we replaced the router. On the new/different router this problem disappeared for me allowing me to do my usual things with minimal/no lag. However my other roommates also play Counterstrike (original and source) regularly and no one complained at all.

Varied milage I suppose dependant on router/internet connection, but yes sorry I forgot to mention such a fact.

[Caiyuo]

What Bungiefan is talking about has to do with the way p2p applications open tons of connections with properly closing them, meaning in order to ensure router stability you'll want to shorten the length of TCP and UDP timeout settings so that your router isn't left with a sea of connections it's no longer using. Unfortunately I don't think this is a common setting in the average home-use router. D:

[bungiefan]

Linksys used to have a setting in their router configuration to let you set the connection table timeout. When Cisco bought Linksys, that option disappeared, and is set to something unreasonable, like 5-7 days. That happened around version 5 of the WRT54G. Version 4 and earlier don't have the problem. I've also seen the problem on some Belkin routers. What happens is that the router can only track 1000-2000 connections, which BitTorrent will quickly establish and leave half-open, and once that happens, you can't add new IP addresses to the connection table. If you were using www.msn.com before starting BitTorrent on a network using a router with that problem, then start a torrent and leave it running for a while (10-60 minutes), you'll find that you can't get web pages to load, except msn.com, because it's already in your now-full connection table, and you won't be able to get internet applications to connect except those you had running before you had the torrents running. DD-WRT and Tomato give you access to this setting, and you can set it to something more reasonable, like 10-12 minutes for timeout. You can also increase the number of connections your table can track, if your router has the memory.

I'm turned off to Linksys routers after having this proiblem with version 5, 7, and 8, and have been unwilling to pay the now higher price of a Linksys router to try the N or WRT54G2 routers. I'm going D-Link with my next one, since my parents' Belkin has the same problem as my Linksys, and no other brands seem to be on the shelves at the local stores. I'm setting up a DIR-615 right now, and it doesn't look like I'll need DD-WRT on it right away to fix any problems. Torrents will be the test though.

[Caiyuo]

Honestly at this point, any future routers I'd purchase would likely be entirely based on 3rd-party firmware compatibility. After setting up DD-WRT on 2 separate WRT54GLs I don't really foresee turning back to stock firmware again in the future, especially after saving myself $70 on an Xbox wireless adapter and being able to setup a virtual secondary wireless network for non-WPA2 devices.

[bungiefan]

Now I'm having bad luck with D-Link. That's two routers in a row that I can set up, and will dial the DSL line, but won't let us out to the internet. DNS works, so I can get an IP address for domains I'm trying to go to, but while in a web browser it says the connection was reset while trying to load the page if I try any address outside of the home network. I can't get to my ISP's web page or ping the other end of the DSL connection. What's weird is both have obtained a 255.255.255.255 subnet mask from the ISP, which shouldn't be valid. 255.255.255.252 should be as high as it can go to have two devices on the same network. The ISP is saying to call D-Link for support, and they are closed for the day.

It's also hard to find out if DD-WRT can be put on the thing on their site with the change to the compatability list. I have a DIR-615 version E1.