DSL slow-me or them? [solved]

Paranoid · Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:01 pm Post subject: DSL slow-me or them? [solved]

Hey all,

Just recently switched DSL providers from verizon 1500/125 to a new 5000/1000 account from another provider. Download speed is pretty good-averaging around 4.5M but my upload speed is averaging around 135Kbits, about 13% of what it should be (I realize max speed at 1000 is probably not obtainable but I expect at least 50%). Before I start pointing fingers I just want to make sure it isn't me.

What I've done:tried 2 nics with various settings on & off-full duplex vs. half duplex, auto-negotation on & off etc...

Rewired entire apt. to the phone companys box.

Tried a couple of kernel sources.

The only thing I haven't tried is changing the IRQ of my nic, currently shared with usb. I have no idea if this would actually effect my speed but don't think so.

Of course the ISP's party line is "we don't officially support linux" so I want to have some hard data. All you network gurus out there any suggestion is appreciated.
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A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.
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NeddySeagoon · Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:15 pm Post subject:

Paranoid,

You probably have a rate adaptive uplink. What this means is that over a certain distance from the exchange, your uplink speed is reduced to maintain your downlink speed. Its not actually based on distance, it done by monitoring the error rate, hence the DSL 'adapts' to line conditions.
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Computer users fall into two groups:-
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Ateo · Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:18 pm Post subject:

Why are you even telling them you have linux? Most ISPs won't have anything to do with linux users.

I would try pinging a couple hundred ICMP packets. First to your default ISP gateway, then something beyond your ISP gateway. Compare the outcome of the 2.

This to start off. Pinging is always the first step in troubleshooting latency.

Ateo · Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 9:22 pm Post subject:

Paranoid · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 9:55 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the reply both of you, been busy and haven't had time to screw around with this until now.

@Ateo,

I did some pinging but since I really don't have any data to compare this to I'm not sure about the results. Have a look and let me know what you think:

Gateway:
200 packets transmitted, 200 received, 0% packet loss, time 199173ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 20.767/24.788/43.438/3.385 ms

Google:
200 packets transmitted, 200 received, 0% packet loss, time 199171ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 34.468/37.319/40.309/1.188 ms

Gateway(large packet -s 1472):
200 packets transmitted, 200 received, 0% packet loss, time 199168ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 108.690/113.265/145.414/4.768 ms

Google(large packet -s 1472):
200 packets transmitted, 199 received, 0% packet loss, time 203310ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 113.897/116.601/120.048/1.259 ms

As far as distance from the telco headend,exchange or whatever the correct telco speak would be I can literally throw a rock and hit their building.

I'm pretty convinced this problem is not located on my end so later I will be on the phone with the provider. This whole "we don't officially support linux" thing pisses me off so I will be lying my ass off about using windows :twisted:

_________________
A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.
William S. Burroughs

aman · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:52 pm Post subject:

I pretty much spend all of my time lying to tech support people anyway. I have already covered at least as much, but usually 10 times more ground in testing problems that I encounter than the average tech support person in India will ask me to do. And its especially easy when it comes to Windoze.

Don't forget to check your network cable to/from the dsl box, I have run into that a few times.

And unless you have guranteed bandwidth, they won't do much to help you with that speed.

Be sure not to tell them you are using a router either cause they always blame it on crap like that.

Who offers that DSL anyway and about how much a month are you paying?

I have a 6MB/768k business DSL from SBC here in California and sometimes I get awesome upload speeds, sometimes not. But since it's only $99 a mo. I cant really complain.

Good Luck!
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Paranoid · Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 12:05 am Post subject:

Joseph_sys · Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 12:42 am Post subject:

aman · Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 6:17 am Post subject:

Wow, you are lucky to have that so cheap. :oops:

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NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 5:25 pm Post subject:

Paranoid,

Run traceroute rather then ping. Its difficult to know if ping times are good or bad without knowing the hop count. Traceroute will provide the ping time to each node.

If your gateway is only one hop, the time should be <1.0 ms after the first ping.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Paranoid · Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:36 pm Post subject:

Yes my gateway is the first hop. After running traceroute several times averages for the first hop seem to be consistent with my gateway ping times above.
_________________
A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.
William S. Burroughs

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 5:08 pm Post subject:

Paranoid,

20ms is dreadful for the first hop.
Do you need to do name resolution somewhere to look up the IP address of your gateway?

Do you still get 20ms to ping the gateway if you use its name or IP address?
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Paranoid · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 9:21 pm Post subject:

@Neddy,

Ping the same whether using name or ip address. I will say their dns servers are fast, beats verizon 10 fold. I just can't see this is a problem on my side-with 4.5-4.6M download out of a possible 5 but the crappy upload. Going to try adjusting my wmem shortly but I don't think that's the problem. The only thing I haven't tested is the dsl modem-Westell c90-36r516-01 rev. j. Only way to access it is via Westell's diag. program which of course is windows only support. Thinking about installing wine but I really dislike wine. Other than that I will be calling my ISP later and lodging a complaint and seeing what they have to say.
_________________
A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.
William S. Burroughs

malloc · l33t Joined: 19 Sep 2003 Posts: 762

Are there many people using the same central/DSLAM you use?
You might have 1000 upload but if they give a crappy contention rate you'd be better off with dialup. Most telcos anounce nice upload speeds however they fail to anounce their crappy contention rates that can turn the best connection into a slugish crap.
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Paranoid · Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2004 10:19 pm Post subject:

Just to follow up-it indeed was a problem at the DSLAM. Running full speed now: 4700/850

_________________
A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on.
William S. Burroughs