Another question about routers....

[dmarook]

Hello

I wonder if someone could help me solve an annoying problem I am having with my router.

I am currently on NTL 10Mbps connection. I have been using a Belkin High-Speed Mode Wireless G Router (F5D7231-4) for home networking. I have had no problem with the router when I was on 3Mbps and never had a single router crash. Since going up on to 10Mbps, I am having a certain problem frequently. If I start downloading a file from the net using a download manager like Flashget (file broken in to 8 simultaneous downloads) the download starts at full speed than after about 5 to 8 seconds the connection just freezes. Now, this happens on http connection. I am unable to browse the internet at this time. However, I can use the NTL newsgroups via a news reader while the http connection is frozen. Also, if I change the proxy in my web browser to a different NTL proxy (normally I leave it blank), I can carry on browsing without resetting my router.

I am inclined to think that this is a router problem as the problem is fixed if you do a hard or soft reset of the router. I have so far never had to reset my cable modem to fix this problem. Belkin technical support has been very unhelpful so far. And my firmware is up to date.

The odd thing is the router is quite happy to download at full speed from the newsgroups (I often get constant speeds of 1100KB/s) but not happy with the web and http. Also, it does not like file sharing progs like torrent, mule etc which needs a lot of simultaneous connections to work effectively.

So, is it something to do with the router? Or am I beating about the wrong bush? Thanks in advance for any help.

DMarook

[MrBen]

Well you could try to confirm it's the router causing problems by connecting one of your computers directly to the cablemodem and see if the download problems still exist.

Ben

I agree with MrBen, try to eliminate the router as the cause of the problem first.

The best explanation I can think of is that either your router, your PC's NIC, or both, are not able to cope with the 10Mb speed. Many older pieces of kit will wobble and may fall over if asked to handle more than 5Mb. Can you perform a speed test and establish whether you are even getting the full 10Mb speed?

[dmarook]

Thanks for the prompt reply. I will try out without the router for a few days and then report back. I guess I have become a bit dependent on the router firewall, as there are so many issues with the software firewalls I had tried in the past.

With regards to speed, I find it can be slow in the evening times but most often I do get 8 to 10 Mbps. I did try out various speed tests in the past when I upgraded to 10Mbps. Actually I was on the silver (?Ambit 100) which was not at all handling the 10 Mbps. So NTL kindly gave me one of the new blue modems which has been ok so far.

I do have a sneaky suspicion that the Routers WAN port is having trouble at 10 Mbps. But I don't really know how to test that. Belkin Tech Support would hear none of it. I have 2 PCs connected via wire and a Laptop on wireless. When the HTTP goes it goes in all 3.

DMarook