Hardwired PC not getting bandwidth?

[jporteus]

First, the relevant hardware list.

Router: Asus RT-AC3200

NAS: Drobo 5n

First switch: TP-Link 8-Port Giagbit PoE Switch (Unmanaged, powers a TP-Link AP)

Second switch: D-Link DGS-1005g (Unmanaged, gigabit)

 

My internet is supposed to be 40 down/10 up, but recently I haven't really seen anywhere close to that speed on my hardwired PC (it usually hovers around 12 down/2 up).

I haven't changed anything about my network recently, but this performance drop is relatively recent.  I don't mind the slower internet so much - most of what I do is completely text based, and when I need to upload, it is usually something that can be left overnight, but there is also a noticeable lag on the local network - and I work with media files stored on the NAS on a regular basis, usually in Adobe CC programs (primarily Premiere Pro).

 

Nothing has been changed recently, so I'm wondering what the potential problem could be?  The Drobo is plugged into the TP-Link switch, which is plugged directly into the router, and my PC is plugged into the D-Link switch, which is also connected directly to the router, but through a 50 foot cable.

 

I don't even know where to begin troubleshooting this...networking has never been my strong point.

 

Thanks for any help!

 

[coderrquitsreality]

Can you draw a diagram of your network?

[jporteus]

Here ya go.

If it's relevant, the access point is dual band - there are a bunch of smart home devices connected to its 2.4 GHz band, the 5 GHz band is for a couple wireless PCs and mobile devices, and I use the 5 GHz band on the router itself for smart TVs & gaming consoles.

[Overtaxed]

Are you seeing full speed on any device, or are they all limited to the speed your described for your hardwired system?  If all of them are limited, can you try doing two speed tests at once, one from the wired PC and one from the wireless and see what you get with 2 systems pushing the Internet connection at the same time?  Finally how's the speed between your Drobo and your wired PC?

[jporteus]

Everything except for my wired PC works normally.  The WiFi connected PCs are able to get the full 40/10 speeds.  

 

Currently, I am getting about 90 MB/s download from the Drobo, and 70 MB/s upload, but right now seems to be one of the good times - I'm also getting 40/10 to the internet at the moment.  I will wait for it to crap out again and repeat the file transfer test.

 

I forgot to mention in the original post that this is an intermittent problem - re-reading it, I see that I was letting my frustration get to me and made it sound like more of a constant problem than it is - it is quite frequent, but there are times when things actually work as they should.

 

This actually got me thinking - Nobody is home right now except for me, and everything is working normally...so I poked into the QoS settings on the router, and right now it is set as Adaptive, prioritizing media streaming (often, my wife will be watching TV while I work).  Would that impact my LAN performance as well, or is that just WAN traffic?  If that is the problem...what category would Premiere's use of network files be under? Media streaming? File transfer? Other?

 

For now, I'm just going to leave QoS turned on and set up the same way as it is now, and see if my performance takes a hit when the TV goes back on...if so, I'll start tweaking at that time.

[Overtaxed]

As long as you're not running your PC-Drobo traffic through the router (on seperate subnets), your wife watching TV will have no impact.  Switches (at least any decent one) are "wire speed", you can push full traffic on all ports at the same time so long as it's a simple switching operation vs a routing one.  So, long way of saying, unless your switch/router is really old, the traffic heading over the router to the Internet shouldn't impact your PC-Drobo connection.  

 

 

[jporteus]

Ok, so to update - I think I have it fixed (hard to tell sometimes with intermittent problems)

 

It was two separate issues - a bad QoS setup was choking my traffic to the Internet, and there was an internal network problem that was causing the traffic to my Drobo to be unreliable.

 

I never did pin down exactly what the problem with the Drobo was, but during troubleshooting I had run an SFC scan, which did report a few corrupted & fixed files, and I reset the winsock settings, and now everything appears to be working normally...so I would assume that the problem was either in the winsock settings or the corrupt files that the SFC scan detected.

 

Thanks!

 

Edit: Just to clarify, in case anyone finds this while having similar issues, the thing that led me to try fixing issues on my PC rather than looking at network problems was measuring the actual transfer speed of files between the Drobo and my PC - and even when I was experiencing severe issues, the file transfer speed was the same as when I was not experiencing issues, but performing actions like navigating the folders, or creating new folders, were extremely sluggish.