Gargoyle Forum

Hi everyone. This is my first post, but I've been using Gargoyle for over 4yrs now. My question or concern is due to a recent network upgrade. I recently physically separated my network into two networks. The first network runs off a Linksys WRT1900ACS (10.x.x.x) and connects directly to the modem. The second network runs off a Netgear WNDR4300 v1 (192.x.x.x) and its WAN port connects to the LAN of the Linksys. Both routers are running v1.12.

All works great. The Netgear can see and ping everything on the Linksys but not the other way around. This is ideal for me. The problem lies in the WAN speed of the Netgear. Any connection between the LAN of the Netgear to the LAN of the Linksys is limited to ~100Mbps(13MB/s). The physical connection is 1Gbps and is verified in both routers. I even bypassed the Linksys LAN ports and used a 1000Mbps switch to test the LAN->WAN->LAN speed and got the same result. On the other hand, when I force the Netgear WAN to bridge to the LAN, speeds jump up to 75MB/s. Long story short, Netgear LAN -> WAN to Linksys LAN is ~100Mbps. Netgear LAN to Linksys LAN ~1000Mbps.

Is it possible to change or force the WAN speed when connecting to specific network or another LAN outside of its own LAN?

Thanks for the awesome software by the way!!

I think what you'll find is that the Netgear is bottlenecking due to its slower CPU, and just can't route traffic through the firewall fast enough.
If you go LAN to LAN, the firewall isn't involved hence you get full speed.

You can verify this is the case by monitoring "top" on the command line during a long duration data transfer at max speed. If your SIRQ goes to 99% and your idle to 0-1%, you're at the limit of the CPU.

You would probably find that if you reversed your hardware, this would be a lesser or even non issue as the Linksys is way faster.
So maybe consider which device goes where in the network, especially if your internet speed is < 100mbps

Thanks for the reply. I've been reading the forums and google for the past 3hrs. I knew the WAN firewall/settings was the issue but I never thought the Netgear wasn't fast enough. I may need to bump up the time frame on getting a second Linksys. I also saw a couple post where others added the second router to the DMZ of the first router. I wanna try this to see if it helps a bit.

It's not that big of concern at the moment. The Linksys has a webserver that I would like to keep separate from the Netgear, but still need to transfer large files to every few weeks. Push come to shove, I'll just move the server back to the Netgear side until I get another Linksys.

Thanks Lantis. I swapped the routers and that great increased the transfer speeds. From 13MB/s to 63MB/s. I'll still need to get another Linksys as it seemed to work better with my modem. My connection is only 100/5Mbps but the modem is loosing bonded upload channels frequently.
Was hoping to get new modem before a second Linksys, but your suggestion has helped a lot.

Cool that's a better result.
Surprised it wasn't a tiny bit faster but very good.

Lantis wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 28, 2020 6:12 pm

I think what you'll find is that the Netgear is bottlenecking due to its slower CPU, and just can't route traffic through the firewall fast enough.

Just my two cents...

I have a WNDR3700v2, which I believe it's much less powerful than WNDR4300, and I can normally reach 130 Mbps on the WAN interface.

Note that 130 Mbps is the limit of my VDSL.
Note also that while downloading at that speed, SIRQ value is well below 50%.