To start… a quick notice concerning my knowledge of this area, its very unknown, so please forgive me if I show a lack of understanding of certain concepts. (P.S. writing this at midnight)
Alright here is the current problem. Recently, my internet has been dreadfully slow, and it has not been fun to deal with. Due to this problem I decided to take a look into this problem. Some information that might be important:
Router is a little over 5 years old
My router at this moment hosts about 7 people at a given time.
The router is a WNDR3300
Me including 2 other people play games requiring internet connection (Multiplayer)
My first thought was, my router is just old and we need to get a newer one, however, I wanted to be sure, so I checked my router’s logs and found this.
[LAN access from remote] from 58.115.113.111:8028 to 192.168.1.10:6881 Monday, Oct 05,2015
also I noticed this:
[Self2WAN ICMP type b Detected!] To prevent from revealing router’s activity, this packet is dr Monday, Oct 05,2015
These two things scare me, because ICMP is (I believe) “ping” or some sort of request/reply thing… (Sorry, probably butchered it). I have been told, that this could be a potential security risk.
Thanks for reading and if it turns out to be nothing, that is great. And if its something… well time to work.
One thing to remember when it comes to networking is that wireless will never perform as well as wired. So if you’re an avid gamer (I am) you will want whatever device you’re gaming on to be physically connected to the network with a network cable (as versus wireless) whenever possible. This will improve performance and reduce latency and lag.
I didn’t think to ask what type of wireless devices you’re running, and how many of them. I would recommend you have at the very least a Wireless N device. If possible, dual radio (2.4 and 5.0 GHz) If you’re running an older device, then buy yourself at least one, and perhaps two, depending on budget and the size of your home, dual radio “N” access points and add them to your network. If you presently only have a single wireless device, then all wireless clients are connecting to it and that will decrease performance. Adding one or two more devices would reduce overall load on any single device and help balance the wireless load as well.
Lets say you have a typical two floor, bungalow with approx. 1000 sq ft on the main floor. Lets also assume your internet and router, are in one end of the main floor of your home. If you buy two AP’s (access points) and both are dual radio “N” devices, I would put one in the middle of the basement, and the other at the far end of the main floor. This would provide better coverage of your home. It would also provide stronger signal to users in the basement or far end of the house opposite the router. It would spread clients over the 3 wireless devices as well.
If possible, you would want to connect them to your router via a network cable but if that’s not at all possible, get the kind that allow you to extend your wireless network. Wired would again be much better because network load would aggregate on extendable devices.
With adequate coverage using recently made wireless access points connected to your router (or 1 Gig switch) with wired connections you would get the best possible performance from your wireless LAN.
It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
***William Henley***