Linksys routers IRREPARABLY slow down over time?

[Kirsle]

Is it a known problem that Linksys routers irreparably slow down over time?

I used to have a WRT54G Linksys router that I replaced about 6 months ago because it would keep dropping the wifi, and the new one I got is a Linksys E1000 (believe it ran me about $70).

It used to run just fine, and when I moved to my new apartment and got 22 mb/s cable internet, I was seeing 22 mb/s speeds on speedtest.net on my PC over wifi through the E1000 to the modem.

But for the last month or so the Internet has been getting mercilessly slow. Speedtest.net now reports just barely more than 1 MB/s.

Rebooting the router helped bring the speed back up the first couple times but eventually not even rebooting would help.

Tonight I decided to narrow down which device was at fault and connected my PC directly to the modem: got the full 22 mb/s now. So it is definitely the router that's slowing things down.

I've rebooted the router (no help), reset it to factory settings (no help), updated its firmware from 1.0.00 to 1.0.01 (no help) and then did something drastic: flashed dd-wrt onto the router, just to rule out that it's a Linksys software problem. No good! Still only can get between 1 and 2 MB/s when I should be getting nearly 22.

I've been googling and most people can just reboot their routers to get their speed back. I also looked on the DD-WRT wiki about router slowdowns and it told me what files to look at via telnet to see if too many connections were in use or anything. Nothing out of the ordinary there. I'm not using P2P software and haven't been for several days, and definitely haven't been since I did hard factory resets and flashing new firmwares on there.

Any solution to this or should I just ditch this router and get a better one? Any brand that's recommended over Linksys? Having a router just "burn out" beyond any hope of repair after 6 months is ridiculous.

Kirsle.net | My personal homepage

perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'

 

[goombawaho]

The question is, if you left the modem connected directly to the PC for a period of time, does the slow down happen.

That would be a fair test to see if it's anything ISP-related vs. router-related. Try that.

Take a look at what's running on your PC using Autoruns as well and do a malware scan with MalwareByte's Anti-Malware just to make sure you don't have some kind of rogue connection going out from your PC.

 

[SYQUEST]

What about the hardware? Components DUE fail! Even though the quality of some components has increased because of improvements, some items like aluminum electrolytic capacitors are still the weakest component in most electronics today!

Cisco/Linksys QC is no different in this regard, because JIT production is just that "Just In Time"! So when manufacturing is making product and needs parts for a deadline, QC can go out the window, and they use anything they can to finish the production run!

If you really want a better router, that is very flexible, you might try Fortinet or Juniper Networks products. They are truly REAL ROUTERS! Forget Linksys crap!

....JIM....

 

[Kirsle]

goombawaho:

If it was "anything connected to the modem" that slows down over time, then newly rebooting the modem & plugging my PC into it would be the same as newly rebooting the modem & newly rebooting the router. But the router gets only 1 MB/s speed from the get go whereas the PC gets the full 22 MB/s.

Should've also mentioned that I have to reboot the modem whenever I change what device is connected to it, it tends to cache the MAC address from the other end of the ethernet cable. I suppose just to rule this possibility out I could try connecting my netbook directly to the modem, and use its wifi sharing feature and connect the other PCs to that, and see if the speed is good for a day before I go and get a new router tomorrow.

SYQUEST:

Thanks, I'll look into those routers.

Kirsle.net | My personal homepage

perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'

 

[goombawaho]

I think you're missing my point that it might be something on your computer that over time starts to cause the slow-down. But you seem convinced that it can't be.

It's not the router itself would be my bet despite what you've seen. I've had the same Linksys router for years and it never lets me down. I reboot it maybe twice a year.

Now with that said, YES you could have a bad router. Can you borrow a different brand router to run in your environment just to rule out the router you own??

 

[Kirsle]

Ah, a software-related thing on the PCs you mean? I have three wireless PCs in my network (a desktop, laptop and netbook) and they all get the same results on speedtest.net over the wifi, and the netbook when connected to the router via ethernet also gets the same speed (so, the router slows down the internet for both ethernet and wifi).

The desktop and netbook are running Fedora 13 and the laptop is running Windows XP SP3. I don't have another router handy to test with, but if I get a new router and it doesn't help the speed I could just return it within the 30 day window after purchase.

When I do an scp file transfer between two of the PCs in the LAN over wifi, the transfer speed starts at 2 MB/s and quickly plummets down to about 600 KB/s and stays there, so it seems the router can't even manage a decent speed from node to node within the LAN either.

Kirsle.net | My personal homepage

perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'

 

[SYQUEST]

In the case of WIFI, you may have an interference problem that "Wired" Ethernet does not have. You might want to change the channel selection in your router config or the PCs using it in the control panel, and see if that makes any difference. Also, if you are doing file transfer tests via Wired Ethernet and you get the same slow down via the internal switch of the router, than I would say it is defective period!

....JIM....

 

[Kirsle]

Okay, this has escalated to the realm of ridiculous...

I went to Best Buy and got a new router, it's a Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Router "High Performance", up to 300 MB/s it says, ran me $94.

I got home, connected it to my network, Internet was working through it out-of-box so before I even set up the wifi or anything I ran a speedtest.net test over the ethernet...

STILL only <= 2 MB/s download speed!

It gets stupider. I decided to see what the speed would be between two PCs on the LAN over ethernet, so I plugged in my laptop and netbook and had the laptop (Windows XP) download a 300 MB file from the netbook (Linux) via an Apache server installed on it.

It got up to 8 MB/s download speed from the netbook. OK, that's fine, at least it shows the router is capable of more than 2 MB/s.

Here's where it gets retarded:

I connect my netbook to the modem directly again and run a speedtest, and I get 19 MB/s. OK, then I have the netbook create its own wifi network, and the laptop connects to this network and then I run a speed test from the laptop.

Laptop -> Netbook wifi network -> Modem is... 15 MB/s

My crappy netbook that isn't meant to be a wifi router makes a better wifi router than this brand new high end Netgear router.

What in the world could be wrong? Is my luck really THIS bad that I would buy a brand new but defective again router?

Kirsle.net | My personal homepage

perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'

 

[goombawaho]

I don't think your luck could be that bad that it would be router-related three times in a row, though I don't have any more ideas.

Have you tried a friend's laptop to see if there is anything different?

The one thing in my mind is that you are being throttled by your ISP on purpose due to the detection of file sharing, though I thought Comcast had been directed to NOT do that any longer.

 

[JMoore64]

Is there any QOS settings in the router software?

 

[Kirsle]

JMoore64: the QoS settings aren't enabled.

I called Netgear's tech support about the new router and he had me change a few settings but it didn't make it any better so he just told me to return it and get a different model. -_-

The internet speed is fine when I connect anything to the modem directly. Last night after I put the Netgear back in the box I connected my netbook to the modem and used it as a wifi point for the night. Its antenna isn't the most powerful in the world but it was giving my other devices 6 MB/s speeds which is still better than the routers.

At the end of the night when I went to shut down the netbook I ran one last speed test and was getting > 19 MB/s download speed, so the modem doesn't slow down "any" device after a period of time, it stayed at its full speed for my netbook from a reboot to several hours later.

I think next I'll try using a cable modem/router combo and see if I have better luck with that... I'd think it would have no excuse not to give me my full internet speed if it's also the modem.

Kirsle.net | My personal homepage

perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'

 

[Kirsle]

Just returned the Netgear got a Belkin Share Max Wireless Router. It claims to have similar features to the Netgear one and was a similar price, but the Belkin actually does its job.

I get 16 MB/s speeds from speedtest.net now over wifi from the Belkin router.

Kirsle.net | My personal homepage

perl -e '$|=$i=1;print" oo\n<|>\n_|_";x:sleep$|;print"\b",$i++%2?"/":"_";goto x;'

 

[SYQUEST]

One thing to keep in mind is, patch cords DO go bad, and can cause similar problems - intermittent and otherwise. I have had them fail, and that was the last item we checked! So we learn from experience, and go step-by-step when troubleshooting. One other thing I do is, cut the defective patch cord in half! I have had people pull them out of the trash and try to use them, not knowing they were no good.

....JIM....

 

[goombawaho]

I think it's way too bizarre that you could have had this many routers that exhibit the same symptom. There has to be another root cause.