connection speed slowed on 4 port wired router?

Question

we're a four - roomate, four computer household and our computers are connected to a D-Link DI-604 4 port Router on a comcast broadand connection. we're all experience slow connection problems - webpages are loading slowly, sometimes at less than a dialup rate. we've screened our computers regularly for viruses and trojans and there are none. disconnecting *any* two computers from the router restores the speed (it doesnt matter which two computers are discoonected from the router) does this indicate a specific problem that we can solve, or do we need to get some type of higher performance router? (if such a thing exists).

Answer 1

I have heard comcast is not that good, but your on broadband so that should be very fast, Ok are the computers hard wired (CAT cabled) or wirelessed,

for the best results is hardwire 2 systems. (direct cable) Modem cable to WAN port, on d-link router
then computer one cabled to (1) LAN port and computer two cabled (2)LAN port, on router

test the speed with just one computer first you should get around 160 plus kbs then couple up the second computer test the speed with both systems online, should drop to around 120 kbs still fast,

Wireless the thirded computer, test speed should drop to around 100 kbs, and wireless the 4th should drop to around 90 kbs

now here is the thing if one is downloading (music) (Video) files that will hit your band width.. most ISP limit what you can download in a 24 hour period, find out what is the limit you can download in a 24 hrs.period, cause once you hit that limit your speed will drop to less than dial up speed.
it may be better for you to upgrade to a higher band width may cost you $10.00 extra a month

Answer 2

I would do some additional troubleshooting first before considering a new router. A few possible issues are 1) Poor cable connection(s) 2) bad network card

I recommend running a speed test with each computer tested individually. Disconnect 3 other pc's at the router because a bad nic can bring your network to a crawl. Generally, all pc's should have comparable test results. If one or more have poor results, troubleshoot further - update drivers, etc

If they all have decent results, you can try updating the firmware on your router. If that doesn't help, you might want to consider another router.

Answer 3

You can do some thorough diagnostics to trace down the problem for certain, but what you've done is probably good enough. Assuming you've got adequate Cat5e cables, the problem is with excessive collisions, which a router is designed to avoid.

First, I've never been happy with D-link routers. You could try a Linksys, but... again you'd be getting a cheap router to replace another cheap router. For the money, I'd get a netopia/cayman 3300 series router. It's a bit more money, but it's business class... 90% odds that would solve your problem.

Answer 4

I would power cycle the router first to see if it helps.

If not, perform a internet connection speed test on a individual port.

Then do a speed test without the router, having one computer directly bypass the router.

That should isolate the problem.

Answer 5

Most likely it's sharing the bandwidth that's slowing you down. If you're all on line at the same time, you each get about 1/4 of the available bandwidth. And if you're all running P2P at the same time, it will be dog slow.

Run some speed tests at http://www.speakeasy.net and see what you get with 1, 2, 3, and 4 machines running.

Could be you need a firmware upgrade too.

Answer 6

Do you have any wireless devices inbetween your wirless computer and the router? I have have two tv sets normally between my laptop in the bedroom and the router in the living room If I take the laptop into the same room it gets the same transfer on the internet. It is a little hard to believe you get 4.1 megabits on DSL. About the fastest you can get is 2.4 on fiber which I have here.

Answer 7

Check the settings of the router, it could be configured wrong or you might need to optimize it. I've seen some routers come out of the box set at 10/Mb network speed instead of 100Mb, this could kill ur speed also