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I'm living at a university where I get around 100mbit download/16 mbit upload when I have my computer directly connected to the ethernet jack. I just bought a wrt54gl because I wanted wireless too, but with a wired connection through the router I only get about 50mbit download. The upload speed is same. Is this normal? I'm not very familiar with networking, but I thought the WRT54GL was capable of speeds up to 100mbit. Is there anything I can do to increase the speed or do I need to buy a better router?

Seems about right: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/componen ... temid,189/

Better router is the way to go. It's unlikely you'll see better performance from alternative firmwares.

It sounds like you're operating in half-duplex mode. The WRT54G series, if I'm not mistaken as I've seen 10+ of them, all have 100mbit Ethernet ports, so if it was operating in half-duplex mode, then that could very well be what is stopping you.

At 100mbit speeds, the Ethernet wire uses 2 pairs out of the 4 to operate. If one of those pair is damaged, then it could just be using 1 of the pairs to operate at half speed (50 mbit).

The other option is that either port is set to half-duplex operation (on your PC or on the router). AFAIK, the router doesn't have an option for this (at least not with the default firmware).

Might I suggest that you upgrade to a different firmware, as well? There are several flavours out there that are quite robust in comparison to the vanilla firmware that the WRT54GL offers. You even bought the 'L' version, which means that you're able to do that with your router instead of the other flavours which have a small RAM footprint.

Nitrodist wrote:

It sounds like you're operating in half-duplex mode. The WRT54G series, if I'm not mistaken as I've seen 10+ of them, all have 100mbit Ethernet ports, so if it was operating in half-duplex mode, then that could very well be what is stopping you.

At 100mbit speeds, the Ethernet wire uses 2 pairs out of the 4 to operate. If one of those pair is damaged, then it could just be using 1 of the pairs to operate at half speed (50 mbit).

The other option is that either port is set to half-duplex operation (on your PC or on the router). AFAIK, the router doesn't have an option for this (at least not with the default firmware).

Might I suggest that you upgrade to a different firmware, as well? There are several flavours out there that are quite robust in comparison to the vanilla firmware that the WRT54GL offers. You even bought the 'L' version, which means that you're able to do that with your router instead of the other flavours which have a small RAM footprint.

I say again: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/componen ... temid,189/
Want more? http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless ... l=&start=2 and for alternative firmware: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/lanwan/l ... ad-routing

The router can't handle it. MOST consumer routers can't. It just hasn't mattered (and in most places, still doesn't) since net speeds have been lower than the throughput the routers can handle.

arsenhazzard wrote:

The router can't handle it. MOST consumer routers can't. It just hasn't mattered (and in most places, still doesn't) since net speeds have been lower than the throughput the routers can handle.

Not to mention that most illicit music and warez sites can't serve a 50 megabit upload speed.

Nitrodist wrote:

It sounds like you're operating in half-duplex mode. The WRT54G series, if I'm not mistaken as I've seen 10+ of them, all have 100mbit Ethernet ports, so if it was operating in half-duplex mode, then that could very well be what is stopping you.

At 100mbit speeds, the Ethernet wire uses 2 pairs out of the 4 to operate. If one of those pair is damaged, then it could just be using 1 of the pairs to operate at half speed (50 mbit).

The other option is that either port is set to half-duplex operation (on your PC or on the router). AFAIK, the router doesn't have an option for this (at least not with the default firmware).

Might I suggest that you upgrade to a different firmware, as well? There are several flavours out there that are quite robust in comparison to the vanilla firmware that the WRT54GL offers. You even bought the 'L' version, which means that you're able to do that with your router instead of the other flavours which have a small RAM footprint.

You have a faulty understanding of duplex operation, throughput, Ethernet cabling, and, as arsenhazzard has mentioned twice already, link rate vs device throughput.

Nitrodist wrote:

It sounds like you're operating in half-duplex mode. The WRT54G series, if I'm not mistaken as I've seen 10+ of them, all have 100mbit Ethernet ports, so if it was operating in half-duplex mode, then that could very well be what is stopping you.

At 100mbit speeds, the Ethernet wire uses 2 pairs out of the 4 to operate. If one of those pair is damaged, then it could just be using 1 of the pairs to operate at half speed (50 mbit).

That's not what full and half-duplex mean. Duplexing in regards to ethernet connections is the ability to send and receive simultaneously. Half-duplex means it can only do one at a time, not that it runs at half of 100Mbit/s. If we state the bandwidth as tx and rx added together then the nominal data rate for full-duplex Fast Ethernet would be 200Mbit/s but that requires a rather unrealistic symmetrical traffic pattern and thankfully was apparently too misleading even for most marketers

stop using 802.11 wireless A
and I think he is being fire walled.
where did you find those torrents, naughty, naughty.

how are you testing your download speeds and what laptop is this?
probably nothing is wrong.
those are astronomical numbers, btw. don't fry anything.

Pizzapotamus wrote:

Nitrodist wrote:

It sounds like you're operating in half-duplex mode. The WRT54G series, if I'm not mistaken as I've seen 10+ of them, all have 100mbit Ethernet ports, so if it was operating in half-duplex mode, then that could very well be what is stopping you.

At 100mbit speeds, the Ethernet wire uses 2 pairs out of the 4 to operate. If one of those pair is damaged, then it could just be using 1 of the pairs to operate at half speed (50 mbit).

That's not what full and half-duplex mean. Duplexing in regards to ethernet connections is the ability to send and receive simultaneously. Half-duplex means it can only do one at a time, not that it runs at half of 100Mbit/s. If we state the bandwidth as tx and rx added together then the nominal data rate for full-duplex Fast Ethernet would be 200Mbit/s but that requires a rather unrealistic symmetrical traffic pattern and thankfully was apparently too misleading even for most marketers

They are separate paragraphs for a reason (they are separate ideas)

The first paragraph I'm saying that the device is set to half-duplex mode. The second paragraph is where one of the pairs is damaged and the actual throughput of the operations is limited through Ethernet frame loss or otherwise.

As for the repeated linking from the same website... I'm quite skeptical.

Yes Nitrodist, it is a conspiracy to sell routers. Once the business world finds out they can pass 1000 Mbps of traffic, bidirectional, with a $90 D-Link router, Cisco will go bankrupt overnight.

OP doesn't indicate if it's bi-directional.

Doesn't matter, it's a preposterous assumption.

I don't think it's the router at fault here (unless there are obscenely high amounts of connections being made via BitTorrent) as I've seen, many times, that router operate at its 100mbit limit.

I doubt you've measured performance beyond "Connected at 100 Mbps."

Using WRT54G v.3

You tested the switching chip. Try running it across the router (LAN<>WAN) where the CPU has an impact.

Contingency wrote:

You tested the switching chip. Try running it across the router (LAN<>WAN) where the CPU has an impact.

Will do! This is shaping up to be the most fun I've had this weekend.

But, I have to sleep now, so probably in about 16 hours or so I'll get to it.

Nitrodist wrote:

Contingency wrote:

You tested the switching chip. Try running it across the router (LAN<>WAN) where the CPU has an impact.

Will do! This is shaping up to be the most fun I've had this weekend.

But, I have to sleep now, so probably in about 16 hours or so I'll get to it.

Fair enough. I have a GS v3 I can reference if the results are sketchy, but since you offered to test again instead of editing in the right IPs, I doubt it'll come to that.

Nitrodist wrote:

Pizzapotamus wrote:

Nitrodist wrote:

It sounds like you're operating in half-duplex mode. The WRT54G series, if I'm not mistaken as I've seen 10+ of them, all have 100mbit Ethernet ports, so if it was operating in half-duplex mode, then that could very well be what is stopping you.

At 100mbit speeds, the Ethernet wire uses 2 pairs out of the 4 to operate. If one of those pair is damaged, then it could just be using 1 of the pairs to operate at half speed (50 mbit).

That's not what full and half-duplex mean. Duplexing in regards to ethernet connections is the ability to send and receive simultaneously. Half-duplex means it can only do one at a time, not that it runs at half of 100Mbit/s. If we state the bandwidth as tx and rx added together then the nominal data rate for full-duplex Fast Ethernet would be 200Mbit/s but that requires a rather unrealistic symmetrical traffic pattern and thankfully was apparently too misleading even for most marketers

They are separate paragraphs for a reason (they are separate ideas)

The first paragraph I'm saying that the device is set to half-duplex mode. The second paragraph is where one of the pairs is damaged and the actual throughput of the operations is limited through Ethernet frame loss or otherwise.

Except that with either paragraph taken on it's own your still wrong about duplexing.
Paragraph 1) "so if it was operating in half-duplex mode, then that could very well be what is stopping you" sure as heck sounds like seems like a claim that half-duplex would result in his problem.
Paragraph 2) "If one of those pair is damaged, then it could just be using 1 of the pairs to operate at half speed (50 mbit)" Using 2 pairs is full-duplex, using 1 pair is half-duplex which is one way 100MBit/s not half of 100Mbit/s

Ah, sorry. You're right.