Missing Half Download Bandwidth

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Culex
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Dec 25, 2010 5:38 am

Missing Half Download Bandwidth

Post by Culex »

I have a WRT54GL with the latest 1.3.9 firmware, although the problem also existed in 1.3.8.

Various speed tests confirm when using this firmware my upload link is unaffected, however download is halved, instead of 21mbps I get 11mbps.

I flashed dd-wrt and lo and behold, 21mbps, reflashed gargoyle, 11mbps. After ssh'ing I notice cpu usage goes up 100% when transfering large amounts of bandwidth. The culprit? [ksoftirqd_CPU0] infact I suspect others having similar problems have the same issue.

It seems to be a common problem in especially in linux 2.4, not so much in 2.6 but seems to relate to the network driver in a lot of cases. I haven't come up with a solution yet...

edit: could this be the problem?

root@Gargoyle:/bin# ethtool -k eth0
Offload parameters for eth0:
Cannot get device rx csum settings: Operation not supported
Cannot get device tx csum settings: Operation not supported
Cannot get device scatter-gather settings: Operation not supported
Cannot get device tcp segmentation offload settings: Operation not supported
Cannot get device udp large send offload settings: Operation not supported
Cannot get device generic segmentation offload settings: Operation not supported
no offload info available
oh, the b44 driver reports 0.93, while on broadcom's website the latest linux driver is 1.00g....

Culex
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Dec 25, 2010 5:38 am

Re: Missing Half Download Bandwidth

Post by Culex »

alright I have had some success. Normally I get about 21mbps with dd-wrt and 8mbps with gargoyle. However I was actually able to push it to 17mbps.

The secret? disabling bwmon_gargoyle. Yes, with it enabled I lose 9mbps. It's still not 21, but it's a lot closer.

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DoesItMatter
Moderator
Posts: 1373
Joined: Thu May 21, 2009 3:56 pm

Re: Missing Half Download Bandwidth

Post by DoesItMatter »

I've done a bunch of testing with PBIX on the
WRT54G - I was using a WRT-54G-TM for tests

These routers are really too weak now to run a lot of the advanced
features and stuff like Bandwidth monitoring and QoS capability.

I was testing on a 10mbps down / 768kbps up line and trying to
help him test QoS settings, etc.

With downloads/torrents going on, I could completely max out the
CPU and use up a bunch of memory, and never hit my max download
limits. The CPU was the issue. It could not keep up.

These routers, the WRT54G's, while still good for basic stuff,
are just not powerful enough to run all the advanced features
if you have a really fast network connection.

If you have over 10mbps download, get a 400mhz+ router!
:twisted: Soylent Green Is People! :twisted:
2x Asus RT-N16 = Asus 3.0.0.4.374.43 Merlin
2x Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH V1 A0D0 = Gargoyle 1.9.x / LEDE 17.01.x
2x Engenius - ESR900 Stock 1.4.0 / OpenWRT Trunk 49400

Culex
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Dec 25, 2010 5:38 am

Re: Missing Half Download Bandwidth

Post by Culex »

Here is my problem. DD-WRT micro works on a 2 meg flash unit, ie. wrt54g2 and gets the 21mbps download with dd-wrt's bandwidth monitoring enabled.

So how does eko micro have many more features on half the flash when compared to gargoyle?

I can't use bandwidth monitoring, have to disable QoS as well, why do I use Gargoyle? Simple.... Quota's.

pbix
Developer
Posts: 1373
Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2009 5:09 pm

Re: Missing Half Download Bandwidth

Post by pbix »

In my experience the WRT54GL can work with QoS I just recommend that you set the connection limits down to 1024. Many people are using the GL without issues.

However, if you have unexplained problems with the GL then the first thing to check is the memory situation. It may be that disabling QoS will help.

Now regarding DD-WRT Micro. In the first place if we are talking Micro it does not have more features than Gargoyle. Especially when you consider that its QoS does not work and that its bandwidth monitor is less capable compared to Gargoyle. DD-Wrt Micro does not have the Quotas, access restrictions, whitelists also present Gargoyle. I do agree that other versions of DD-Wrt have some way cool features and the web interface is fast which is something I covet.

The guys at DD-Wrt have spent a lot of effort on getting their code size down which is great for you but has the disadvantage of being labor intensive to maintain. But they have full time guys earning a living do it so it works for them.

Gargoyle has basically 2-3 guys working on it (for free). All the code is GPL and available for inspection. We have a forum were you have a good chance to get your questions answered and reported bugs get looked into. DD-Wrt is well a horse of a different color.

It must be cool to have 22mbps download. I live on a meager 1mbps as do a lot of people in this world. For those people the capability of the GL is adequate. Its a design decision to have the more capable bandwidth monitor in exchange for the bandwidth loss. I also wish it did not take as much CPU time as it does but thats were we are. It would take many many hours of labor to redesign it.

For $25 you can get a TP-Link TL-WR741ND on Ebay and get that bandwidth back. You can sell your GL on Ebay for about the same amount so you will not be out much. Seems like a good solution to me.

Anyway thanks for looking into the performance issues. Maybe one day someone will take up the task to improve Gargoyle in this regard.
Linksys WRT1900ACv2
Netgear WNDR3700v2
TP Link 1043ND v3
TP-Link TL-WDR3600 v1
Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH2
WRT54G-TM

Flak
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2011 2:21 am

Re: Missing Half Download Bandwidth

Post by Flak »

I have a TP-Link 1043, running Gargoyle 1.3.9. I am also experiencing the issue with only getting 50% of my down speed. I get my full 5mb up, my down on stock firmware and on dd-wrt (which isn't very stable for me on this router) is over 60mb. On Gargoyle (this is my first experience with it) my down caps out at 35mb.

vplessky
Posts: 60
Joined: Sun Oct 31, 2010 10:31 am
Location: Moscow, Russia
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Re: Missing Half Download Bandwidth

Post by vplessky »

pbix wrote: ...
It must be cool to have 22mbps download. I live on a meager 1mbps as do a lot of people in this world. For those people the capability of the GL is adequate. Its a design decision to have the more capable bandwidth monitor in exchange for the bandwidth loss. I also wish it did not take as much CPU time as it does but thats were we are. It would take many many hours of labor to redesign it.
I have WR1043ND and running OpenWrt 10-03.1-RC4 currently.
Tariff from ISP is 15Mbit unlimited. Connection to provider is 100Mbit (Ethernet 10/100), and I may have access to resources at provider's LAN at full speed (if I enable DualAccess/2nd IP interface)

For bandwith monitoring - I settled on collectd and rrdtool.
Works pretty well for me. But you need to have 8MB flash to get it installed.

For Torrents - I get appx.1.4MB/sec. (either seeding or leeching)
If some Local Peers appear (provider's LAN) - download/upload speed can get up to 6MB/sec.
Overall traffic is about 60GB-70GB per day.
WR1043ND/OpenWrt handles it without problems.

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