very slow routing throughput

[hzwaal]

I've been struggling with my WL500gx for some time now and can't get a decent throughput. I'm quite desperate and hope someone here can help me. I'll include as much information to this post as I can think of, so it'll be long (sorry). If anyone still needs more info, please ask.

Ok, here goes. My setup consists of two routers, an ADSL router (ZyXel 2602) and the Asus (WL500g Deluxe). Each of the routers has its own subnet, 192.168.1/24 for the ZyXel and 192.168.2/24 for the Asus. The Asus is in router mode (no firewall) and is connected to the ZyXel using its WAN port. A static route is defined in the ZyXel.

When I connect my laptop wired to the ZyXel I get a download speed of roughly 13mbps (tested with http://www.giganews.com/performance.html). When I wire the laptop to the Asus I only get around 1mbps. Wireless is even less, only 800kbps. I've tried different cables (both on the laptop and on the uplink to the ZyXel), without any effect. I've also tried running the Asus in AP mode and connected the ZyXel to one of the LAN ports; this gives some improvement, but nowhere near the 13mbps). CPU load is always 0 or near 0.

Here's the output of the route command:

$ route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.1.254   *               255.255.255.255 UH    0      0        0 vlan1
192.168.2.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 br0
192.168.1.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 vlan1
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
default         zeikcel         0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 vlan1

The firewall is turned off entirely:

$ iptables -L
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination
ACCEPT     all  --  anywhere             anywhere

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination
ACCEPT     all  --  anywhere             anywhere

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target     prot opt source               destination
ACCEPT     all  --  anywhere             anywhere

There are quite a lof of frame errors on eth1:

$ ifconfig
br0       Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:15:F2:3D:67:07
          inet addr:192.168.2.254  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::215:f2ff:fe3d:6707/10 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:24218 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:32913 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:1374438 (1.3 MiB)  TX bytes:44887927 (42.8 MiB)

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:15:F2:3D:67:07
          inet6 addr: fe80::215:f2ff:fe3d:6707/10 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:39284 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:52063 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:43954900 (41.9 MiB)  TX bytes:17254788 (16.4 MiB)
          Interrupt:4 Base address:0x1000

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:15:F2:3D:67:07
          inet6 addr: fe80::215:f2ff:fe3d:6707/10 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:16995 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:15981
          TX packets:41951 errors:12 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
          RX bytes:1157297 (1.1 MiB)  TX bytes:33365615 (31.8 MiB)
          Interrupt:12 Base address:0x4000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:45466 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:45466 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:3887603 (3.7 MiB)  TX bytes:3887603 (3.7 MiB)

vlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:15:F2:3D:67:07
          inet6 addr: fe80::215:f2ff:fe3d:6707/10 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:7183 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:29386 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:479128 (467.8 KiB)  TX bytes:14476506 (13.8 MiB)

vlan1     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:15:F2:3D:67:07
          inet addr:192.168.1.1  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::215:f2ff:fe3d:6707/10 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:32101 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:22674 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:42768660 (40.7 MiB)  TX bytes:2778064 (2.6 MiB)

I suspect these have to do with the WAN uplink, but I don't really know how to troubleshoot this. I've tried setting the WAN port to auto negotiation and 100mbps/full, both with the same results. I've also tried different LAN ports on the ZyXel, also no improvements.

Who has ideas on what to do next?

PS: I'm using the latest Oleg firmware: 1.9.2.7-10.

[hzwaal]

I made some progress, but then again, no progress whatsoever.

Yesterday I set out to use a network performance tool (netio) to determine all possible throughputs. (lan-lan, lan-wan, lan-wlan, wlan-wan). To my surprise I got quite decent figures:

• lan-lan: 90 mbps
• lan-wan: 24 mbps
• lan-wlan: 8 mbps
• wan-wlan: 8 mbps

I then retested my download speed and found the following:

• internet-lan: 10 mbps
• internet-wlan: 6 mbps

In the meantime I had not rebooted either of my routers, nor changed any cables or parameters. Still, the problem somehow disappeared (could it have been my speedtests?), until today...

My throughput is as lousy as before. I reran some of the speedtests, but this time got the same lousy results. So I'm back to square one, without a clue...

HELP!!!

aynone?

[hzwaal]

I think (hope ) I found my problem.

All along I suspected my WAN connection. In the nvram I found the following parameters:

wan_etherspeed_x = 100full
wan0_etherspeed_x = auto

I have no idea why it's there twice and what the wan0 is for, but decided to change the wan0 speed to 100full as well. Committed the nvram and rebooted the router and now it seems ok. But let's wait a few days if it doesn't lapse back into its previous bad behaviour.

I suspect something goes wrong with the auto-negotiation between both routers (I suspect my other router of this, because of previous similar problems with a auto-sensing hub).

I'm still curious of the wan and wan0 (ans also wl and wl0) difference. Does anyone here know this?

[jackal331]

I have exactly the same problem, I tried changing wan_etherspeed_x and wan0... but it didint help, can you tell me how you solved it ?