Assistance finding a bottleneck

[Alurior]

I'm trying to diagnose what is causing my slow speeds/bottle necking with my desktop PC. On my mobile devices, my speed is close to what I'm paying for, but on my desktop, I'm getting only a fraction (1-2mbps instead of around 30). 

Some notes before suggesting, due to some circumstances I cannot connect this computer. I have a TP-Link wn881nd pci express (?) wifi card. Yes my speed HAS been what I'm getting on my mobile devices but not currently. I am at the other end of the house but my signal is pretty good, and the distance has never affected it that much before.

 

Here's a tracert the googles told me to do.

 

Tracing route to google.com.au [2404:6800:4006:804::2003]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     9 ms     2 ms     2 ms  2001:8003:c03c:7500:2620:c7ff:fefd:eb2a
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3    12 ms    14 ms    12 ms  2001:8003:2a:1700:5:22:0:ea01
  4     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  6    10 ms    13 ms    12 ms  2001:4860:1:1::4d4
  7    13 ms    16 ms    11 ms  2404:6800:8000:27::1:1
  8    14 ms     9 ms    11 ms  syd15s03-in-x03.1e100.net [2404:6800:4006:804::2
003]

Trace complete.
 

I don't know how to read it and why there are three time outs. Would love some help.

 

 

[jde3]

Because they don't reply to ICMP Echo requests.

 

This doesn't show that much traceroute doesn't do what a lot of people think it does. All it does is send a ICMP packet and increment the TTL till the router responds with an error, if it does not respond you get * * * request timed out.

[Alurior]

Just now, jde3 said:

Because they don't reply to ICMP Echo requests.

 

This doesn't show that much traceroute doesn't do what a lot of people think it does. All it does is send a ICMP packet and increment the TTL till the router responds with an error, if it does not respond you get * * * request timed out.

I'm quite a novice at networking stuff, so I just gave it a try any way. How would you suggest proceeding with troubleshooting?

[jde3]

Your on wifi? Sounds like your PC is using 802.11B

 

Not sure, it's a complicated topic.. plug in a wire and test it, start ruling out things one at a time.

[Alurior]

Just now, jde3 said:

Your on wifi? Sounds like your PC is using 802.11B

 

Not sure, it's a complicated topic.. plug in a wire and test it, start ruling out things one at a time.

unfortunately plugging it in is not an option. 

[jde3]

Try to figure out what mode your adapter is in then.

 

If your on windows I really can't help you much, the OS is hard to use.

[Alurior]

Just now, jde3 said:

Try to figure out what mode your adapter is in then.

 

If your on windows I really can't help you much, the OS is hard to use.

Channel 1, 2.4g. Wireless mode 802.11n

[jde3]

N should be well above those speeds. Your next step would be to look for interference and retransmissions on the network. Wireshark can do that or just ping your router.

 

Is it the /f switch on windows that makes it keep going or /t? I forget but send 50 or so packets to your home router and look for pings above single digit. That would indicate a problem on the network level of the WiFi due to interference or poor signal or noise etc.

[Alurior]

5 minutes ago, jde3 said:

N should be well above those speeds. Your next step would be to look for interference and retransmissions on the network. Wireshark can do that or just ping your router.

 

Is it the /f switch on windows that makes it keep going or /t? I forget but send 50 or so packets to your home router and look for pings above single digit. That would indicate a problem on the network level of the WiFi due to interference or poor signal or noise etc.

It will take me a while to get Wireshark, slow internet and all that.

[jde3]

A few tips to try to help you clean that up... use single channel mode. It's slower but more reliable. (no channel spanning, just use a single channel range) Disable what your not using, if all your clients are G and above set to G and above.. if N and above set to N.

 

Find a clean channel. A wifi analyzer (they exist for android) will help you find a clean channel to broadcast on. You want to use one that has no channel overlap on it's sides.. yes there are 11 channels but each channel has overlap. Good choices are usually 1, 6, and 11

 

The 5ghz band uses a less crowded spectrum but does not penetrate walls as well.. Ideally you want nothing on the channel you intend to use but in a city thats pretty much impossible.

[jde3]

avoid wireshark if you don't know how to read it's output, it's kind of a professional tool.

[Tabs]

I can't believe nobody has suggested this yet: 

 

You're running in ipv6 default mode. If you have a dual stack connection, try disabling ipv6 and seeing if your performance improves.

[Alurior]

1 minute ago, Tabs said:

I can't believe nobody has suggested this yet: 

 

You're running in ipv6 default mode. If you have a dual stack connection, try disabling ipv6 and seeing if your performance improves.

Dual stack as in it outpust 2.4ghz and 5gz? coz it does.My computer cant pick up 5ghz anyway

[jde3]

2 minutes ago, Tabs said:

I can't believe nobody has suggested this yet: 

 

You're running in ipv6 default mode. If you have a dual stack connection, try disabling ipv6 and seeing if your performance improves.

No he's talking about the TCP protocol version the system chooses by default.. I actually don't know either. I've never seen a windows system use IPV6 (America f*** yeah, and stuff) Your ISP in AU apparently has implemented it.. hmm

[Tabs]

1 minute ago, Alurior said:

Dual stack as in it outpust 2.4ghz and 5gz? coz it does.My computer cant pick up 5ghz anyway

Dual stack meaning it operates on both ipv4 (a traditional address that looks like 100.100.100.100) and ipv6 (an address that looks like dead:beef:dead:beef:dead:beef:dead:beef).

 

The output you linked on the first post shows ipv6 addresses, so if the connection is capable of ipv4 as well but simply isn't doing it, you can try to disable ipv6 and see how the performance is.

[Alurior]

8 minutes ago, Tabs said:

Dual stack meaning it operates on both ipv4 (a traditional address that looks like 100.100.100.100) and ipv6 (an address that looks like dead:beef:dead:beef:dead:beef:dead:beef).

 

The output you linked on the first post shows ipv6 addresses, so if the connection is capable of ipv4 as well but simply isn't doing it, you can try to disable ipv6 and see how the performance is.

Disabled it and there SEEMS to be some improvement. I don't know if its just random fluctiations, but I am fluctiating between 4-10 mpbs. still not acceptable, but better than before.

 

EDIT: Spoke too soon, its now between 800kbps to 3 mbps

[jde3]

@Tabs Funny.. you've stumped an 30 year veteran network engineer with two words "dual stack" .. If you would have asked me two seconds ago I would have said that it wouldn't matter but it depends on how it's implemented I suppose. I'd assume it would be on the DNS side and if a ip6 address resolved it would use just ip6, if your in 4 then I would think it would be encapsulated but it doesn't have to be. Well Done.

[Tabs]

5 minutes ago, jde3 said:

@Tabs Funny.. you've stumped an 30 year veteran network engineer with two words "dual stack" .. If you would have asked me two seconds ago I would have said that it wouldn't matter but it depends on how it's implemented I suppose. I'd assume it would be on the DNS side and if a ip6 address resolved it would use just ip6, if your in 4 then I would think it would be encapsulated but it doesn't have to be. Well Done.

Sorry about that

 

From a more consumer perspective, if a connection happens to offer both ipv6 and ipv4 connectivity (regardless of A or AAAA records through dns, purely through being offered a non link-local address), Windows will often prioritise one encapsulation over the other - most commonly IPV6.

 

In many cases this causes slowdowns since the traffic itself ends up getting routed through 6-to-4 servers at the isp side to ensure full connectivity to the wider web even when using ipv6 for all connectivity at the host end.

 

If 6-to-4 servers didn't exist it shouldn't matter beyond a small delay on waiting for dns requests - as you suggested - but having isp-level servers basically proxying ipv4 packets and connections into client side ipv6 connections muddies the waters a heck of a lot.

[Alurior]

1 minute ago, Tabs said:

Sorry about that

 

From a more consumer perspective, if a connection happens to offer both ipv6 and ipv4 connectivity (regardless of A or AAAA records through dns, purely through being offered a non link-local address), Windows will often prioritise one encapsulation over the other - most commonly IPV6.

 

In many cases this causes slowdowns since the traffic itself ends up getting routed through 6-to-4 servers at the isp side to ensure full connectivity to the wider web even when using ipv6 for all connectivity at the host end.

 

If 6-to-4 servers didn't exist it shouldn't matter beyond a small delay on waiting for dns requests - as you suggested - but having isb-level servers basically proxying ipv4 packets and connections into client side ipv6 connections muddies the waters a heck of a lot.

No idea if you're still talking to me or not, but the speed has improved a bit, but its fluctuating quite a lot between sub 1mbps to around 10mbps

[jde3]

Hmm.. learn something new every day.. that seems like a pretty backwards implementation. Usually this occurs on the ISP side blind to the customer. I mean.. why route everything from 6 to 4...? nooooooo.

[Tabs]

10 minutes ago, Alurior said:

No idea if you're still talking to me or not, but the speed has improved a bit, but its fluctuating quite a lot between sub 1mbps to around 10mbps

No, that wasn't aimed at you sorry - from my side of things it was only a suggestion, it may (or may not) have much effect on your overall connection, but it was worth a shot.

 

If you're getting fluctuations to such a degree, I'd try to find out if you have any wifi-level local interference (cordless telephones and microwave ovens are huge culprits), and to try to find a location where your phone (transceiver in this case) is getting as high a signal strength as it can, separate (but with in range) of the machine it's tethering to via wifi.

 

Edit: I totally misread part of your original post. Ignored what i strikethrough since it isn't relevant.

 

[jde3]

1 minute ago, Alurior said:

No idea if you're still talking to me or not, but the speed has improved a bit, but its fluctuating quite a lot between sub 1mbps to around 10mbps

Make sure your lan is in good shape. You can use iperf and ping to test your local connection to your router, like i was saying, Once you have your ping at around 1-2ms consistently (over a couple hours all single digit).

 

there is no harm in calling the ISP as well.. but they will prob tell you to plug right in so they can make sure it's not their network.

[Tabs]

2 minutes ago, jde3 said:

Hmm.. learn something new every day.. that seems like a pretty backwards implementation. Usually this occurs on the ISP side blind to the customer.

No, you're totally right - the customer never knows. That's part of the problem in my example, many ISP's are testing "ipv4 to ipv6 migration" systems whilst most of the internet still relies heavily on ipv4-only connections. That leads to many 6-to-4 servers at the ISP side which aren't designed to cope with the levels of traffic they are seeing - primarily because (I believe) Windows 10 has started prioritising ipv6 traffic over ipv4 - leading to degraded overall performance for normal users who really needn't be affected by this kind of transition at this point in the first place.

[Alurior]

2 minutes ago, Tabs said:

No, that wasn't aimed at you sorry - from my side of things it was only a suggestion, it may (or may not) have much effect on your overall connection, but it was worth a shot.

 

If you're getting fluctuations to such a degree, I'd try to find out if you have any wifi-level local interference (cordless telephones and microwave ovens are huge culprits), and to try to find a location where your phone (transceiver in this case) is getting as high a signal strength as it can, separate (but with in range) of the machine it's tethering to via wifi.

 

The phone transmitter doohickey is quite close to the router, but it has been ever since I've lived here, and I don't think it's ever been an issue before. I have also called the ISP in the past couple of days and they insist it is on my end. I turned off the microwave and secondary phone reciever, and it's probably a placebo thing but the speed seems to have reached a slightly more stable 4-8 mbps.

 

As mentioned before though, connecting via LAN or cable is not possible.

[jde3]

Thats fine, rule out this stuff first. Troubleshooting is testing one thing at a time.

 

Quote

N should be well above those speeds. Your next step would be to look for interference and retransmissions on the network. Wireshark can do that or just ping your router.

 

Is it the /f switch on windows that makes it keep going or /t? I forget but send 50 or so packets to your home router and look for pings above single digit. That would indicate a problem on the network level of the WiFi due to interference or poor signal or noise etc.

 

A few tips to try to help you clean that up... use single channel mode. It's slower but more reliable. (no channel spanning, just use a single channel range) Disable what your not using, if all your clients are G and above set to G and above.. if N and above set to N.

 

Find a clean channel. A wifi analyzer (they exist for android) will help you find a clean channel to broadcast on. You want to use one that has no channel overlap on it's sides.. yes there are 11 channels but each channel has overlap. Good choices are usually 1, 6, and 11

 

The 5ghz band uses a less crowded spectrum but does not penetrate walls as well.. Ideally you want nothing on the channel you intend to use but in a city thats pretty much impossible.