Managed Network Advice

[Blatman]

10 hours ago, corsechris said:

It’s been a while, but I do recall having to force both switch and device ports to specific speeds to avoid this sort of auto negotiation downwards. Didn’t happen often, but did happen. 

 

Try setting the switch port feeding the modem to manual 1000M

 

Worth a try but often setting a static speed on a decent switch when communicating with a cheap router can cause just as much aggro. Really we need the specs of the Virgin hub to be absolutely sure of the speed of the yellow switch ports on the hub. It may be that there is something going on with the managed switch "confusing" the hub with all the "extra" traffic a managed switch generates (not that much, but it isn't silent) so adding an unmanaged switch in theory would not help as it will simply forward all the same traffic to the hub. But it's worth a try...

 

With regards to wireless, irrespective of what type of extender is added to the system, go in to the settings of the extender, change the wifi name and password to match what is normally used and it will work seamlessly. No need for different network names everywhere. 

 

With regards to wifi signal itself, 99.9% of issues of "bad wifi" I respond to and resolve have NOTHING to do with the network equipment and EVERYTHING to do with the device the user has in their hands, IE the phone or tablet. Here's the tech, and I'll try and keep it short and simple...

A wifi network is a two way HALF-DUPLEX radio network. Half duplex means if one device is talking the others are not. I'll come back to that.

The signal from the router/hub/extender/access point or whatever is in use to broadcast the wifi signal, must be strong enough to reach the user device and provide connectivity.

The user device MUST be able to provide a signal strong enough to broadcast its traffic back to the router/hub/extender/access point or whatever.

It is the user device that is usually deficient NOT the ISP supplied equipment. At full power, a router/hub/extender/access point will push out a signal strength of 100Mw (100 milliwatts, or 1/10th of 1 watt). No, it won't go through thick walls...

A phone or tablet often maxes out at HALF to three quarters of that strength. Having a "more powerful router" is often not possible because maximum power is regulated by law so don't be fooled by marketing garbage about "strongest signal in theUK" 'cos they all are... it's how they are deployed that's key. 

If the "problem" is that the wifi signal showing on the phone is only (lets say) 3 bars out of 5, (or 2 out of 3 on an iPhone) if you measured the user device signal at the router, it would be LESS than that. The wifi can reach the user device fine. But the user device can't reach back well enough to provide speed or reliability. 99.9% of the time this is the problem.

 

HALF-DUPLEX. Like a two way radio, if your device (phone/tablet/laptop) is "talking to" the router, then the router is listening. If the router is talking to the device then the device is listening. ALL wifi devices cycle through this Tx/Rx process VERY quickly so it looks like the device is working seamlessly, but it isn't.

And remember that once a page is viewable on the device, you're not really on the internet. The page has been sent in it's entirety to the device. It's only when you click to go to the next page or click a link that the Tx/Rx process happens again so the device is largely "silent" in use when browsing the internet.

 

I could go on and on, but I won't. There's a whole world of wifi "optimisation" that can happen, but in all of that please remember that when the problem is wifi, it's usually (that's USUALLY) NOT the network... there are exceptions of course but in my experience they are rare.

 

Lastly a wifi mesh network is one where the access points can "see" multiple other access points so they have failover paths should an access point fail. In a house or at the office where there are access points in rooms that connect with wires back to a central switch / router for internet connectivity, they are just wirless LAN's, not "mesh" networks... usually...

 

 

[Andy - a15cro]

Blatman, Im picking up so much from this thread. The wifi worked seamless until recently, but now I can see the admin page and do a scan, its going up with a message that the wifi has got issues, when you scroll down it identifies a weak signal on every item its connected to. On reading the Virgin forums loads of people say that the antenna is too small and the wifi range is poor.

 

I never thought about naming all of the network items the same so it blends together, top tip.

 

The bit from Chris about setting the port to 1000, ,it just won't let me do it, it only goes - Auto, Manual 10 100 half and full.

[Blatman]

It's OK, the Virgin hub may well have limited features. It's kind of expected and yes I have a client who has been through about 4 Virgin hubs, all of them with terrible wireless.

And remember the antenna's on phones and tablets are tiny too.

My advice for Virgin customers (bearing in mind mine have money to burn) is to disable the wireless on the Virgin hub and use some sort of access point, either TP LInk (or similar) wifi home plugs or proper access points, although that means cables and yet more homeplugs, unless you want to pull some CAT6 around the place  

[Andy - a15cro]

This whole exercise started due to,the WiFi, bloomed into Ethernet, and seemed to come full circle. I’ve got a 305m drum of cat 6 to go crazy with.

 

I’ve picked up a small 5 port tp link switch tonight to do some testing.

 

results

 

Pic 1 - router, tp link, Netgear smart switch - low speed still 50mbs

 

Pic 2 - router, tenda switch (original set up) fast again 221mbs

 

Pic 3 - router, tp link to tenda switch (that’s two in the loop) still fast 219mbs

 

Disappointed the fancy switch hasn’t played ball, but I’m hoping if I turn the hub into a modem and connect the new router to the switch via a gigabyte port it might work? Or am I throwing good money after bad. 

 

 

[Blatman]

Don't spend any more money!

I presume all the tests were carried out suing the same cables? I want to rule out a bad cable on the Netgear switch.

Got the model number of the switch? I want to have a look at the specs and see if there is a gotcha hidden in there. Not had much direct experience of them but I don't recall the ones I have seen being inherently slow or of poor quality.

[Paul Aspden (MoFast)]

One of the best things I did was change to a MESH network

[Andy - a15cro]

1 hour ago, Blatman said:

Don't spend any more money!

I presume all the tests were carried out suing the same cables? I want to rule out a bad cable on the Netgear switch.

Got the model number of the switch? I want to have a look at the specs and see if there is a gotcha hidden in there. Not had much direct experience of them but I don't recall the ones I have seen being inherently slow or of poor quality.

 

Yes same cables.

 

The switch is a GS116Ev2 by Netgear

https://www.netgear.co.uk/business/products/switches/web-managed/GS116Ev2.aspx

 

[Blatman]

And I forgot to ask... what firmware version?

Latest version on the Netger site is 2.6.0.48

 

One of the common threads running through networking is that quite often the gear is supplied with a "base" firmware and it is up to the customer to update it. In my line of work the first thing I do when getting a new bit of kit ready is update the firmware. It's VERY rare for kit to arive with the latest version...

[Andy - a15cro]

😳 I think I've fixed it!

 

Tried the second cable in a port and its giving 1gb - Ran a speed test and......200mb! and a second test of 220mb

 

The control panel now shows 1000

 

Now I need to establish if there is a problem with the cable at the wall end.

 

I updated the firmware last night as well, but clearly its been cable, I may have broken a strand when pulling the second one through the face plate.

 

UPDATE:- Ive just done a test on the faceplate and cable off it and its showing fine, tried to plug it in again and it flashes 1g then drops to 100m - swap back to cable number 2 and were back in business. I will swap that one out just to try and put it to bed.

 

Run the rest of the cables and WI-FI next on my hit list!

[Blatman]

Yup, bad cable. It happens...

[Andy - a15cro]

This may be the last installment for a while.

 

After my little win, I had a go at converting an old BT Hub6 to a wireless access point, which seems to work, and reinstated my Power line kit to give it another shot. I've ended up with a number of networks that pop up now. Can I rename them all the same with the same password?

 

 

[corsechris]

There's a lesson here I think. Modern kit is usually so good at dealing with 'issues' in layer 1 that we tend to forget that's where it all starts, and that they aren't just 'wires', they are transmission lines. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model)

 

I saw things go in waves back when I was working. My first exposure to what you can properly call a LAN was using broadband as a transport (broadband, as in the stuff they used to use to distribute cable TV throughout America about 30 years ago). Big, thick coax cable, big metal boxes for tap-off points (they were designed to resist small arms fire because...America), you could only connect to a cable at the exact right point along it where there was a signal node and you used a 'vampire tap' to get to the cable core then you needed an extremely expensive modem to get anything on and off. As well as having it carry some 10Base-2 it also carried a bunch of TV and audio signals around our site. It was so fussy, we all knew not to be blasé with it.

 

Then we moved to a more conventional 10Base-2 with a few bits of fibre to get between distant buildings (don't abuse 185m the max run length on 10Base-2)  We got loads of problems with this system due to a variety of layer 1 issues like chairs sitting on drop cables, folk unplugging one leg of a drop pair which killed that entire network segment, crimped cables, etc etc.

 

Then we went 10Base-T on CAT3 with switches!! Wow, that was a revelation. Now it (usually) took more than one person to crash an entire LAN segment.

 

Then it got pushed up to 100Mbps and again, a rash of issues which all fell square on layer 1 again.

 

Then Gb and so it goes. As the signalling rates go up, the 'wires' have to be treated with more and more respect.

 

We had a similar thing when we first went from baseband video to SDI - loads of problems. Effectively, layer 1 again. The wiremen who tended to build the racks hadn't been trained on dealing with SDI and had a habit of over-tightening the cable ties causing tiny sections of crush on the cables. Often enough to start messing with it.

 

I'm just glad I was out of it by the time the trend moved towards using TCP/IP for absolutely everything. Bad idea if you ask me.

[Glen_I]

Can anyone explain in layman's terms what bandwidth is and should I get obsessed (like I have it seems) with going around the house checking Internet speeds thinking higher the better when in reality there are other aspects which are more important.

 

We are a family off 4 and there are days we are all on the PC's working or home schooling via Teams/Zoom and all seems okay, but sometimes someone may (fortunately not often though) mention Teams/Zoom states Internet signal is unstable and all I know is how to check the speed, when in fact there are other issues?

 

Is this a little like we all want high horsepower but in reality higher torque is actually better as it is makes everything more usable (in most circumstances).

 

[Ian Kinder (Bagpuss) - Joint Peak District AO]

Bandwidth is like comparing a 10 lane Yankee freeway with a narrow uk single track back lane 

[corsechris]

Basic connection speed is a good thing, but latency (ping time) is more so once you achieve a certain basic speed (which yours is well above for most needs). You ping times to the speed test site look fine, but when you have issues with services, try pinging them to see how they look, test end-to-end.  The speed test is only really testing a fairly limited set of paths & systems, and I suspect ISPs give those sites higher priority.

 

For a bad car analogy, your car can do 200mph on a clear motorway but when you try to get to Lands End via the twisties full of caravans, it goes slower. The internet at large can be the the twisties, the speed test site is the motorway destination.

 

Then you have a whole other set of variables you have no control over like how much capacity does the service you are using have. It's finite of course, and things like Zoom are going to be hugely busy right now. I've no idea how they manage their system nor how it works, but when the client reports "unstable internet" it can mean pretty much anything, but probably that it is having trouble connecting with the host site, but that probably has nothing at all to do with your setup or anything you can do anything about.

 

A common tool used by bad actors to mess with internet services is a DOS - denial of service attack. Basically they swamp a service with requests to the point it becomes unusable. As a client of that service, the symptom from your end would look like a problem with the internet connection...until you check somewhere else and find all is well with your connection.