Wireless Network Bandwidth Issue

Sferics · Post by **Sferics** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 2:13 am

I'd like to start off by admitting that I am not terribly informed when it comes to networking, hence me coming here for guidance. So please excuse for my ignorance.

My brother started playing World of Warcraft about a year ago. After a couple months of playing the game, he has had problems with high latency. He has since started blaming his problems on my internet usage. However, the majority of my internet usage consists of casually surfing the internet and I am quite positive that my network usage pales in comparison to his.

We are both currently using about year-old Dell laptops of the same brand on model and are on a wireless network through our 2Wire router. I am curious as to the existence of software that would allow me to monitor the network usage of each user on the wireless network so that I can prove him wrong and finally put this to rest. Personally, when I watch him play lag seems almost non-existent. I have a theory that as he progresses and becomes more involved, he engages in a dick swinging contests with other players regarding how low they can get their latency. But regardless, I'd like to be able to monitor this and get the issue resolved.

Thanks in advance.

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 3:00 am

Usually surfing while on any broadband connection doesn't cause it. It is usually the use of torrents or any sort of constant mass downloading that would cause this to happen. Once either the upload or download bandwidth is saturated, every bit of latency goes to hell.

Rashidi · Post by **Rashidi** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:37 am

Deathlike2 wrote:Once either the upload or download bandwidth is saturated, every bit of latency goes to hell.

i second that, it happen when i seeds (they already complete download) some active/popular torrents , my other internet apps goes really sluggish.

certain lame ass isp also hate it, when their client have too many active connection to the net. (usually, torrent do this)

yeah my isp said then download rate was for their customer is now upgraded to about 512 kbit/s, but the upload rate was still only around 128 kbit/s.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 4:44 am

I think there's software to ensure a specific computer on a network is guaranteed a minimum % of the bandwidth. could try something like that maybe and see if it makes a difference?

Post by **Nach** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 5:44 am

It's not just amount being transfered. Routers and certain operating systems generally have a limit as to how many network ports they can open at once. Some, even if they can open more, start mismanaging them.

BitTorrent generally kills routers because it's designed to open up many ports, even if you have it locked to only transferring 5-10 KB/s it could still kill your network.

Wireless connections on cheaper routers are also handled poorly, and on some, many ports + wireless in use is a guaranteed way to kill them.

If this is happening for you, look into a more expensive router, one with lots of memory, can handle many open connections, and has QoS.

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Jun 22, 2009 10:36 pm

Rashidi wrote:yeah my isp said then download rate was for their customer is now upgraded to about 512 kbit/s, but the upload rate was still only around 128 kbit/s.

Some ISPs do that too.
Use encrypted torrents on a nonstandard port.

Squall_Leonhart · Post by **Squall_Leonhart** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 1:12 am

get a decent router.

2 wires suck ass.