Can I avoid QoS throttling my bandwidth when it's not in use

[rtlx]

Hello everyone, I installed Gargoyle on my new router (TP-Link TL-WR740N) and so far I've been very happy with it overall. It's connected to VDSL internet that is roughly 25Mbps down and 1.5 Mbps up. I'm trying to set up QoS in a way that would allow any device to use full bandwidth if it's available. Is it possible?

Following the QoS guide on this site, I have set maximum Total Download Bandwidth to 24127Kbps that my DSL modem is reporting and enabled AAC. This way QoS works fine and seems to be following the rules correctly. However it looks like my internet is faster than that...if I set up max bandwidth to let's say 27Mbps it will peak at around 26500Kbps, but then QoS isn't as effective anymore but I can download at max speeds when there's full bandwidth available

I'm attaching screenshots from both router and modem's admin web GUI.



When total BW is set to 24Mbps:


When total BW is set to 27Mbps:

[pbix]

Your screen shots are completely illegible to me. You should post a legible screen shot of the entire QoS download screen while downloading at 27Mbps and QoS not working as you claim. Also post a screen shot of your overview screen under that same situation so that we can see your Gargoyle version and the CPU load on your router.

[rtlx]

I added screenshot of QoS when BW is set to 27Mbps, including overview screen (I made sure to wait around 1 minute after intitiating download so that CPU average over last minute could stabilize).

I'll create test rule to demonstrate better that QoS is not as effective. Note I didn't say it's not working, merely it's not as effeective as when I set total BW to 24Mbps. I tested it so that I'd load some torrent and let it max out my connection and then ran speedtest.net. This way, when total BW was set to 24Mbps it would measure around 18Mbps download, when total BW was set to 27Mbps the speedtest result would be as low as around 6Mbps (this was with different rule set, the one on screenshots above would obviously yielded somewhat different results)

[rtlx]

Here are two more screenshots, hopefully demonstrating my point a little better than the previous ones.

In both screenshots, I am downloading a torrent that is assigned to "Slow" rule and multithreaded HTTP download from thinkbroadband.com (using IDM as an download manager/accelerator). THe only difference between those two screenshots is Total Download Bandwidth value.





One thing I forgot to add is that the modem is set up as a bridge, so WAN port is set to PPPoE. I don't know if that would have anything to do with it, but after googling around I read on this forum somewhere that Gargoyle somehow takes PPPoE overhead into account when doing QoS.

Interesting find! Here's what happens when I set it to 25.7Mbps which is a median of 27Mbps and 24.2Mbps that I tried previously.



To me it looks as if AAC didn't actually prevent to go over total available bandwidth. When set to 25.7Mbps I get almost maximal throughput but who knows what would happen in peak hours when speeds might fluctuate a bit...?

[pbix]

Your link is highly asymmetric. The problem is probably in your uplink.

See the last "Myth" at the bottom of the QoS Wiki for how to make sure that your HTTP traffic is not affected by other traffic.

Post your uplink page under load if you need more help.

Having your modem in bridge mode is optimum configuration.

[rtlx]

I made a video showing one of my tests... (I recommend to watch in 1080p)

http://youtu.be/dloBufhHXGo

Please note the bandwidth graph, at no point does it upload more than about 40KB/s, which is about a one quarter of my maximum upload speed so I don't think the problem could be in lack of my upload speed.

- QoS for upload during these tests was disabled.
- ACC was disabled because it usually takes a few seconds to ramp up a a download speed.

[pbix]

Well first thanks for devoting some effort to documenting the problem you are having including cool videos. For other users that are following this it is so important to document your problem including data that is gathered while the problem is happening. Data while the problem is not happening is of little value to me.

I had trouble looking at this latest video because of resolution problems. I tried every resolution setting on my monitor monitor and since you said 1080p I even used my XBOX to view it. But the only time I can see any text is when you zoomed in at certain points. Where did 1080p come from anyway? Are you doing this on your TV?

But based on what I could see during those zoom times I have the following comments. First I think I saw on your modem that your DSL bitrate is 26900. Since your modem is PPPoE in bridge mode this is the bit rate you should use in your download screen but only when using the ACC. ACC allows you to access this higher bitrate.

Please read the "Total Bandwidth Field" and ACC sections in the QoS Wiki if you have not already.

Without the ACC active you will need to put in a lower number. If you are familiar with other router software you know this is suggested at 50-80% and still will not always work right.

Perhaps the ACC acts slower than you like but you will need it to prevent the queue on the ISP side of the modem from filling and dropping packets. QoS can only work accurately if Gargoyle is the only one that decides which packets are to be dropped. While it moves a little slowly is should arrive at the proper link limit within a minute and then just stay there not causing you any further problems.

Try again with the ACC enabled and at a lower resolution on your monitor so all the text is visible. Lets watch how fast it arrives at a final link limit and what limit that is. I will be interested to see the result.

[rtlx]

I had trouble looking at this latest video because of resolution problems. I tried every resolution setting on my monitor monitor and since you said 1080p I even used my XBOX to view it. But the only time I can see any text is when you zoomed in at certain points. Where did 1080p come from anyway? Are you doing this on your TV?

So you were trying to adjust your screen resolution? What I meant by watching in 1080p was by selecting quality (resolution) within the youtube player, clicking on the gear icon and selecting 1080p like this:

Furthermore, I will create another video with ACC enabled, but rest assured I tried it with and without ACC with same results in both cases. Would you let me know any and all informations you'd like to be able to see in the video? Was there any info screens missing in my first video? Perhaps I could show also Upload QoS page.

Thank you

[pbix]

Thanks for the tip on 1080p, with that change everything is perfectly legible. I guess I am not much of a youtuber.

I like the 'top' display you have and I want to see the bottom of the QoS download page with classes and ACC status section. Don't need to see the rules at the top of that page. Also the QoS upload screen showing the classes would be cool.

[rtlx]

Ok, here is second video: http://youtu.be/kMHJArxtRu0. I haven't done any fancy effects or cuts to it, as you probably can see everything quite comfortably at 1080p by now You may probably want to see the new video in bottom of this post instead.

Today I upgraded to a newest ispy's build (rev. a78a236) and I noticed some weird CPU usage, that can be seen in the video too. After I set total download BW to 24127 (as reported by my DSL router) the avg CPU spiked really high, but it didn't affect speeds nor did it affect QoS. When it was set to 28000, CPU usage was at acceptable levels. I may try to record it again when CPU usager settles a bit.

Let me know if you'd want to see how it performs on latest official Gargoyle 1.5.9.

EDIT: Here is a new video, probably better than the previous one with few annotations and slowed down part of the clip to allow better view of how and when does QoS exactly stop working. http://youtu.be/pG1rS0PKUSg