# Custom made router speed.



## Mr0wyx (Feb 12, 2010)

Hello!

I couldn't find answer on internet, so I decided to put my question here. 

I have D-Link DI-624 Wireless router. I would like to replace it with computer (Wifi card + FreeBSD routing setup). How much will differ (download) speed by wireless?

Now all my laptops connected to D-Link have ~2 mb/s when they download simultaneously. Will speed be the same if I replace my router with PC?

Thank you!


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## aragon (Feb 12, 2010)

Should be the same or faster.


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## knarf (Feb 12, 2010)

You won't get an answer, because there are too many open questions.

- maximum speed of your internet connection
- speed of your wireless LAN (maybe 54 Mb/s for both D-Link and WiFi card, maybe not)
- number of simultaneous clients (Wifi is a shared medium, use only one client on a dedicated channel for measuring maximum performance)
- if you write "mb/s", do you mean Megabyte or Megabit (MB/s vs. Mb/s)? There is no such thing called millibit.

Anyway, the FreeBSD routing machine will give you a lot more power in handling "download speed" (whatever that means in your personal setup). I'm not sure if it was the DI-624 but I remember the D-Link "routers" having a very limited number of active connections, 2000 or something like that, which is often not enough for about 10 active torrents.


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## phoenix (Feb 13, 2010)

The DI-624 uses an Atheros SuperG chipset.  Which means, the best way to get a speed boost is to use wireless cards that also use an Atheros SuperG chipset.  That will allow you to get a 108 Mbps connection instead of the standard 54 Mbps that 802.11g gives you.  Look for wireless cards that specify 108 Mbps.

However, that only applies to the local network (ex: transferring files between computers at your house).  The next bottleneck in the chain will be your Internet connection.

Unless you have a super-fast connection (ex: over 4 Mbps download), you won't get more than 2 Mbps downloads on multiple computers.  Take whatever your Internet download "max" is, and divide that by the number of computers that will be downloading at the same time, and you will have the "max" per download/computer.

The DI-624 is a great piece of hardware.  I miss mine immensely (fried 3 before the warranty ran out, due to overheating ... don't stuff this in a cupboard and do 24/7 downloads).  With all Atheros chipsets, I could max out my cable Internet connection across three laptops, talk on the phone using Vonage without noticing (QoS/prioritising works on this one), and still watch movies off the media server.


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## Mr0wyx (Feb 13, 2010)

Hello!

Thank you for all of your reply's! You gave me already answers to all of my questions, without me asking them. 

Knarf you wrote:


			
				knarf said:
			
		

> - number of simultaneous clients (Wifi is a shared medium, use only one client on a dedicated channel for measuring maximum performance)


So if there are 3 clients connected to router by wireless interface and downloading at the same time, download speed will not be same as if one user is downloading? It will be shared? So how differ router from "custom router" (by custom I mean old PC with FreeBSD + WiFi card on it)? I thought that router (Dlink for example) will give to all users same speed of 54Mbps at all time. And sorry for my mistake, I wanted to say MB/s.

Phoenix:
My internet connection is 100 Mb/s or 12.5 MB/s. But I never had download speed from router more than 2 MB/s.


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## knarf (Feb 13, 2010)

Mr0wyx said:
			
		

> So if there are 3 clients connected to router by wireless interface and downloading at the same time, download speed will not be same as if one user is downloading? It will be shared?



Correct. And WLAN is half-duplex, LAN is full-duplex.

Getting 2 MB/s is not so bad if you use b/g mixed mode. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11g-2003 states a 19 Mb/s net throughput.

Have a look at the table in this article (I'm sorry, it's German, but just look at the numbers).

http://www.tomshardware.com/de/auge...ahlen-die-wlan-luege,testberichte-1135-2.html

You should try to measure the download speed without using wireless lan at all in order to find out your "real" internet connection speed.

Then you can consider switching to 802.11n or better use copper cables and use Gigabit-LAN.


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## Speedy (Feb 13, 2010)

> ... or better use copper cables and use Gigabit-LAN


Even without Gbit LAN copper is the king. Wireless should be used only when wired is not available. Meaning if your laptop is on your desk you plug it in. People not familiar with radio communications and ethernet in depth may think wireless is great. Guess what. It's not. It's a technology many companies have invested in and now they are trying to make max profits. Resulting in nonsense devices like wireless printers, etc. As usual, do good marketing and the majority is buying. And as usual, the mob is manipulated and does not know what they are doing. 
End of rant. Everyone have a good morning now.


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## phoenix (Feb 15, 2010)

Mr0wyx said:
			
		

> So if there are 3 clients connected to router by wireless interface and downloading at the same time, download speed will not be same as if one user is downloading? It will be shared? So how differ router from "custom router" (by custom I mean old PC with FreeBSD + WiFi card on it)? I thought that router (Dlink for example) will give to all users same speed of 54Mbps at all time. And sorry for my mistake, I wanted to say MB/s.



Wireless is a shared medium and works in half-duplex (a computer can either be sending or receiving data, but can't do both at the same time).  There's also only a single radio in a wireless router, which means it can only send packets to or receive packets from a single computer.  These are limitations of the wireless medium, regardless of whether it's a wireless router or a "custom router" using a PC.

If you want 3 computers to have full access to the total 54 Mbps bandwidth, then you would need 3 wireless routers, and dedicate each router to a single computer.

Or, use a multi-radio router.  Or switch to a faster router (Super G provides 108 Mbps, 802.11n provides ~400 Mbps).  These "hide" some of the limitations, and can provide more bandwidth to each wireless computer.



> Phoenix:
> My internet connection is 100 Mb/s or 12.5 MB/s. But I never had download speed from router more than 2 MB/s.



2 MBps is 16 Mbps.  Are you sure your wireless computers are negotiating and using a 54 Mbps connection with the router?  If possible, configure the router in 802.11g-only mode (802.11b compatibility will drag down throughput for all wireless connections).  If the router provides any stats, check to see how often the computers are dropping down below 54 Mbps.  There may be interference that's causing the links to drop to lower speeds.


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## Ruler2112 (Feb 15, 2010)

knarf said:
			
		

> There is no such thing called millibit.



I don't know about that... my last internet provider said I had 3mb/s and it was truly like 3 milli-bits (1/1000 of a bit) or 1 bit every five and a half minutes.  :e 

On a related note, if you're in Michigan, don't choose SpeedNet - I was routinely getting 0.05 Mbps according to SpeedTest.net and they either could not or would not fix it, not to mention that it dropped completely when it rained, snowed, was very sunny or humid...


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## foo_daemon (Feb 15, 2010)

I did not have a good experience with my DI-624.  Worked great for the first year, but then I read from others who said many of these units had faulty power adapters, and then of course mine started acting up.  Unit started to reboot itself under high network load (e.g., when I used bitorrent).  Other than that incident, though, I love D-link products  .


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## phoenix (Feb 15, 2010)

The DI-624s came with 3-year warranties.  Just return it and get a new one.    I did that, and went from a B1 rev to C2 before the last one finally gave up the ghost ... after the warranty expired.  Had a good 5 years total usage with that model, though.


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## Mr0wyx (Feb 17, 2010)

*Hello!*

Thank you all for all your replays. You made all things clear for me.

I have DI-624 and same thing happens to me as foo_daemon told. I have changed it but on new one same was happening. It is H/W ver D2 and I latest firmware but I'm still not satisfied with it. That's why I decided to try "custom router". I'm now trying to setup router and NAS on my old box. Hope it will be worth it.

*Thank you!*


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