Slow(er) Home Network

[Peter Smout]

Hi all I have moved this from the thread it was in danger of 
overwhelming (Dead USB ports on laptop...ideas)

Quote what has been said for clarity in later reviews:
On 09/21/2014 09:11 AM, Colin Law wrote:
 > On 21 September 2014 13:38, Peter Smout <smoutpete at gmail.com> wrote:
 >> On 21/09/14 13:16, Colin Law wrote:

/snip/

 >>>
 >>> On 21 September 2014 12:14, Peter Smout <smoutpete at gmail.com> wrote:
 >>>
 >>> Can you explain what you mean by limited bandwidth?  Bandwidth within
 >>> your home network is nothing to do with your internet connection, if
 >>> that is what you are referring to.
 >>>
 >>> Colin
 >>>
 >> Hi,
 >>
 >> That is what I was referring to, since my move into the wyldes 
everything I
 >> took for granted has slowed down including my home network (still 
using the
 >> same d-link router in addition to the "free" one provided by the 
ISP) this I
 >> assumed was a symptom of the slow internet speeds out here! (Having 
moved
 >> from a fibre optic connection in the city to the "top" broadband 
available
 >> in the area everything is painfully slow ;-D)
 >> Perhaps my faithful D-Link router is on it's last legs, file 
transfer speed
 >> within my home network is CONSIDERABLY slower than it used to be! not
 >> unusable but still noticeable to the point of a film being quicker 
to copy
 >> onto USB stick and physically move the stick into the other machine!
 >>

/snip/

 >>
 >> If you have any ideas why my home net has slowed I will of course 
try them
 >> (perhaps in another thread as this is not even my thread & I don't like
 >> hijacking others!)
 >
 > Start another thread to discuss this, as you say, but any wired
 > network should be able to get close to 100Mbps, the age of the router
 > is irrelevant.  On wifi if you are only a room or two away from the
 > router you should get at least 20Mbps (around 2MBytes/sec).  In the
 > case of wifi living in the country can be an advantage as their is
 > less likelihood of close neighbours clogging up the wifi channels.
 >
 > Colin
 >

One point was made already: is your router further away from your
printer, or whatever it is that's slow?
Another thing: look for some big metal appliance or somthing like that 
between the
router and the destination--a file cabinet, a refrigerator, something 
like that.
Is it possible that some other device, either in your house or in the 
next building
may be creating an interfering signal? Do you have some home automation 
that you didn't
have before? Change channels on your router and see if that helps.

Just some ideas. Hope something helps. (I don't believe your router is 
"on its last
legs"--a thing like that either works or it doesn't, it doesn't fail 
gradually like
an electric motor.)

--doug

Hi,

The distance from the router is slightly greater but not enough to mean 
I had to buy new cables ;), for reference only my laptop and phone 
connect via wifi all others are wired via ethernet, (others being my 
main PC / server, second PC (home office use) Raspberry Pi-1 (used 
mainly as a media centre) and a PS4, sometimes a second Pi when I'm 
playing at getting my robot to move!! Of course others come and go, 
friends phones / tablets / laptops etc). The only thing that has changed 
is that my "internet over the earth circuit" gadget plug things gave up 
the ghost and I had to resurrect my 10m ethernet cable

A brief outline of what I try and achieve:

My laptop, phone and second PC all backup / upload their important data 
in compressed tar files (Laptop Sun 4am, phone as & when PC Mon 4am) to 
a specific 2tb hdd in the main PC / Sever. Any movies, series or music 
that I download are stored again on a different hdd in the main tower.
Note that ALL my gear is running a Linux distro from the Debian derived 
family (apart from PS4 which is beyond my control but still not the evil 
MS, phone is Android)

I have noticed that when I want to watch a movie for example, the movie 
file (.Mp4 or .MKV usually some .avi) is stored on the main server, I 
used to be able to "stream" the movie straight from the server to the Pi 
used a media server and watch it with little if any lag. Since my move 
into the sticks the lag has increased and I now get buffering!

This I have worked around by copying the file onto a USB memory stick 
and plugging that into the Pi and watching the file from there! Such a 
hard life ;)

I will try changing channels on the router but as the lag is over copper 
I am unsure as to the benefit.
I mentioned my faithful D-Link router as it must be nearing it's "built 
in obsolescence time" by now (5 years I believe)
I might try cutting out the D-link & going straight to the "free" ISP 
one although this may cause IP address issues in scripts etc.

I'm not advanced enough to do home automation yet, I still have to get 
up and close the curtains ;(

Regards

Pete S