Not getting great speeds?

[Pizzaguy]

Hey guys, I'm always in a constant battle with my brother over our internet connection. We both like downloading films, games etc. via torrents but as you all know this uses up a great deal of bandwidth, making it very hard to browse the internet, watch videos and play Xbox LIVE. I have recently noticed that even streaming videos uses up alot of our connection but I think I know why this is.

Our connection is as follows:

ROUTER - runs cable to a switch/hub where 2 other cables are connected to both of our computers. Also, my mum uses a laptop for work which is connected wirelessly and my dad uses his computer for business rarely which uses up like 1-5% of our bandwidth I'm guessing which is fine.

They are barely ever ALL in use at the same time so that's fine but say my mum is streaming a video on her laptop at the same speed as my brother is, I will lose alot of speed from my brother and not alot from the wireless laptop connection.

What I'm trying to say is that my brother's PC seems to use up alot of our connection. I was thinking this is because we are using the same ethernet switch?

If I was to get a wireless router or something to receive signal and plug it into my PC would that be better than sharing a wired connection with my brother?

Also, for those of you that play Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4 or whatever, when my brother is streaming I go from green bar connection to orange/yellow/red.

Thanks very much for reading this.

Edit: Also I heard of something called QoS (Quality of Service) that can limit the amount of bandwidth that is used by one system. This is too complex for me and my router/modem is pretty bad and does not show how to use this. Some help using this would be GREATLY appreciated.

 

[Jayce]

Is it a switch or a hub? Yes - it makes a big difference.

So you basically have 1 LAN with 4 clients, 2 wired 2 wireless. The two wired are you and your brother, to which you are connected to a switch/or/hub then to the router.

Question - Does your router not have 4 ports in the back? If it does, why are you dealing with a switch/or/hub in the first place?

 

[Pizzaguy]

So basically, the router is quite far from my brother's and my PC, there is one cable running underground to our house from the garage which is like 10m away, the cable is linked up to a hub, which is then divided into to connections. If I could use 2 ports for 2 computers I would..

 

[mikesgroovin]

What is the make/model of the device that you and your brother are directly connected to?

To add: A lot of the bandwidth problems that have torrenting in the picture involve the upload bandwidth more so than the download bandwidth. Try coming up with a compromise with your brother to always tag his (and your) torrents with a certain (low) upload bandwidth and a certain (low) download bandwidth. Up:5 Down:20 (per torrent)

Can you also post a speedtest result from speedtest.net just so we know what you are dealing with? (Don't use the internet ... stop all torrents/games/streaming when you run the test please)

 

[Pizzaguy]

That's what my speed is at I don't think anything else is using any bandwidth in my house. Although I'll confirm that later when I check again but as you can see it's pretty poor. We're paying for a 8meg speed and I checked online and we're eligible for a 6.5meg.

Our modem/router is some "safecom" blue modem, I'm not 100% sure on the make and the switch/hub doesn't have a make.

Hopefully that helps.

 

[Ryan Riot]

My Modem is DSL(Quest)

I get a lot of better speed, than you.

Umm....

This always worked for me when thy internet was slow, Or it would get very slow browsing. Try deleting some files that you don't need anymore than takes of space(bandwith)

And, I unplug the cord in the back of my modem that turns all the blinking lights off, Like the power,dsl,internet,ethernet,usb,wireless.

Then plug it back in.