Roblox kills my bandwidth
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Hi folks,
I have a problem with bandwidth, roblox and the kids which is driving me mad.
I have the following:
- 350Mb/35Mb which I can saturate with speed test and general downloads
- up to date pfsense running on a Gigabyte J1900 with dual NICs (Quad core celeron, 1.99GHz) with 2GB RAM
- multiple VLANS (but this problem is wifi-LAN / WAN
- I can do 300Mb/s over wifi through the Ubiquiti kit I have
- The background traffic on the WAN is around 100-200Kb/s
- I can have multiple plex streams going without issue
- Don't have snort or any other package installed which might be messing with the traffic.
Problem: When the kids start playing Roblox on their tablets the internet dies a death.
Pinging google.com normally gets me sub-20ms. When they start Roblox it jumps to 400-500ms!
Everything goes bad. My Teams calls drop off, internet just grinds to a holt.I've checked:
- CPU load (always around 1.1/1.2/0.9 - sometimes it jumps to 2.something)
- htop shows that there is one core which is sometimes hitting 25% due to ntopng.
- states are low (See below)
- RAM is around 50% used
I did a sniff on the LAN filtered for one of the tablets and see a huge amount of re-transmissions. My fault or the roblox server? DOes not happen with normal traffic such as downloads.
What is interesting, if I get the kids to use my phone (4G) as a hotspot it works brilliantly for them.
Download speed over wifi
During good times:
During bad times it stays around the same. Sadly, I cannot recreate it just now as the kids are sleeping.What could this be? I don't mind buying a new firewall but need to know that it is hardware issue and not just wasting money
Thanks
FB -
Cable connection?
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@FarmerB3d said in Roblox kills my bandwidth:
Gigabyte J1900
Do you have this board, or one similar?
https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/GA-J1900N-D3V-rev-1x
If so, this is from the specs...
2 x Realtek GbE LAN chips (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Jeff
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Yup, that's the one. Are realtek that bad? Why would it handle the normal download though?
Cable connection? Yes, it is. When they playing roblox there are a few spikes as the game loads but the bandwidth drops to 300ish kb/s
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Yes, realtek are bad. Read about it in some threads:
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/148409/pfsense-custom-build-hardware-with-realtek-port-dilemma
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/113742/intel-vs-realtek-what-s-up
https://www.reddit.com/r/PFSENSE/comments/1zt82l/intel_vs_realtek_nics_shoutout_to_the_pfsense_team/
https://forum.netgate.com/topic/135850/official-realtek-driver-binary-1-95-for-2-4-4-release
There's a FreeBSD realtek driver there at the last link, if you're feeling brave...
Jeff
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@FarmerB3d said in Roblox kills my bandwidth:
Cable connection? Yes, it is. When they playing roblox there are a few spikes as the game loads but the bandwidth drops to 300ish kb/s
What model cable modem are you using? Is it on this list? https://badmodems.com/Forum/app.php/badmodems
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Thanks Jeff. I've always known that Realtek are considered bad and always waited for the day it would be found wanting and I would need to upgrade. The part that is confusing me (and making me nervous about spending another £500 on a new kit) is the juxtaposition between the ability of the device to hammer through downloads at full speed (350Mb/s) and this seemingly low usage of Roblox. I mean, my phone can handle two hotspot clients on it playing the game.
Just really confused by that.
As for the dodgy modem; I have the superhub 3 which is on your list. What's the background to that though?
A friend of mine has the same, 3 kids all playing the game and has zero problems. Only issue I have is that he's not using pfsense (hardly knows which way round a keyboard goes
So before shelling out on a new bunch of kit, anything which can point me to some errors or logs to suggest it is the NICs or not
thanks for the help though folks
FB
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How about this, it’s probably the cheapest way out of this Realtek problem. If you’ve still got an open PCI slot on your board, add a multi-port Intel card.
I don’t know what to tell you about the cable modem being on the “naughty list”, however...
Jeff
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@akuma1x well, duh
that's an easy answer and I have a spare 4 port Intel nic.BRB. Swapping out now.
FB
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Try taking your modem out of bridge mode and try it that way with pfsense, yes you will be double natting but this is just for testing, modems that use Intel's Puma chips crap out when in bridge mode .
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I'll take it out and see how the game goes to rule out something weird within vm (virgin media) itself.
Double-natting is an option but might be a ball-ache with the rules I've got. Will take a look though.
Not tried card yet (but have found it) as my wife just literally drove over the dog so I've been at doggie A&E...
FB
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@FarmerB3d said in Roblox kills my bandwidth:
'll take it out and see how the game goes to rule out something weird within vm (virgin media) itself.
Double-natting is an option but might be a ball-ache with the rules I've got. Will take a look though.
Not tried card yet (but have found it) as my wife just literally drove over the dog so I've been at doggie A&E...
FBDude, Hope the dog will be ok .
It might be your friend's work fine cos he has the modem in router mode, just try it out in router mode and see if the problem goes away, if it does then its the modem, many Aris modems using Intel chips crap out when many connections are open while in bridge mode.. -
Not true. If the firmware has not been updated to a fixed version then it will be affected either way.
https://www.dslreports.com/forum/r31122204-SB6190-Puma6-TCP-UDP-Network-Latency-Issue-Discussion
Over 9000 posts on that thread. Lots of info on the badmodems site as well.
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@chpalmer said in Roblox kills my bandwidth:
Not true. If the firmware has not been updated to a fixed version then it will be affected either way.
Oh it is True. I had the same issue with my Aris modem, in router mode it worked fine but in bridge it craped out, My ISP also tested and found the same problem so they changed my Modem model and on My same Network now everything works fine. I am not talking about the Latency issue, a problem I had and also read about is when in bridge mode going over 500 connections the modem drops its speed drastically.
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@Chrismallia said in Roblox kills my bandwidth:
@chpalmer said in Roblox kills my bandwidth:
Not true. If the firmware has not been updated to a fixed version then it will be affected either way.
Oh it is True. I had the same issue with my Aris modem, in router mode it worked fine but in bridge it craped out, My ISP also tested and found the same problem so they changed my Modem model and on My same Network everything works fine
I believe you might have had something change that would mask it. Probably a funnel slowing down the rate of UPD..?? But the problem with that chipset is in the "modem" section of the device. That never gets disabled. And when you go through that whole thread plus about a dozen other threads from Europe with those using Fritzbox modems you will see that many- many people were/are having issues with router mode just the same. We at our company changed out about a dozen Hitron models for other types due to issues with VOIP traffic that the ISP could not/would not explain.
Because several of the issues still exist even after firmware updates (only a couple of issues can be called patched) it really is better to replace any Puma6 equipped modem with a Broadcom equipped model. Get involved in the class action lawsuit if you are out money over it.
Several new models coming out will have a 2.5t-base Ethernet port on them. I imagine with these new models the older d3.1 models will come down in price soon.
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@chpalmer
Thanks for your detailed info. I had the Aris tg2492 and also know some guys who have the same modem with the same problem, all we know is when downloading, for example, a torrent and the client goes over 500 connections the modem drops to 2mbps and stays that way till the connections drop or download stops, when putting the aris back to router mode this did not happen, My ISP replaced the modem with a different model can't remember the new model right now and I can download with over a thousand connections with no problems. -
@chpalmer
mmmmm new modem is TM3402B, I think these are also in the list but this is not giving me the over 500 connections problem:). Well confusing what can I say lol -
Torrents are not UDP.
UDP traffic shuts these down like a worn out Ford Pinto.
Case in point- You could be connected to 20 different servers pulling close to your subscribed download speed just fine and then someone makes a VOIP call out the same connection and the bandwidth slows to a crawl and even unusable.. Well.. took a little more traffic than one call but in an office with a few phones the problem was very evident at times.
In the OP's case Roblox does in fact use UDP. Thus his symptoms are very much inline with the problems the Puma6 victims encountered.
In your case Id wonder if you had any kind of camera system on your network?? Your primary router may have been set to allow UPnP. Many cameras come from the factory with UPnP enabled. So you then have a camera online and publicly available without any knowledge of this. Suddenly you cam is on one of those "open camera" search engines and people from around the world are trying to access it creating the UDP traffic that brings down your network. Since your modems router does not have UPnp enabled those connections now disappear. Not saying this was your issue but it is an example of what we found at one customer site. Just saying that there are more than one reason that you had that experience. But I can guarantee you that the affected modems are still "broke" in router mode.
If the ISP has not upgraded the firmware by now to fix the UDP issue.. they will likely never do so.. IMHO.
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well, dang. I thought your "PCI" was s mis-print of PCI-E and thought nothing of it. It seems though the MB only has the PCI and mini-PCI-E slot on it.
A 1GB PCI Intel card has to be, from what I can see, PCI-X (now there's throwing your mind back. Next-stop: ISA :) )So if I get a 10/100 PCI card to test on it's effort t get, setup etc and then I'm limited to 100. Yes, the test cost me £15 from fleabay rather than new PC....
I'll read the threads following my last one and catch up on the chat about UDP (which Roblox is, I can see in the sniff)
I do have a spare i7 desktop thingy which I've not used in a couple of years. I can put my spare PCI-E Intel NIC in that and use that as a test for a week. Will look into that.
FB
p.s.
Dog seems ok. No broken bones they say but he's staying in over night at least. That utterly blows any budget I might have had for a new firewall. New Firewall, fix pooch - the wife says it's an easy decision :) -
So question:
Is something like this best:
https://www.mini-itx.com/~Z390-I-AORUS
With i3 8100T + 8GB RAM you're looking at sub-500 all-in.
orhttps://www.amazon.co.uk/Perfect-Untangle-Monowall-Firewall-Appliance/dp/B071GD2LDY/ref=psdc_428651031_t3_B076B6SWG5?th=1
Half the price but is an atom @ 1.9GHzor
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B076B6SWG5/ref=crt_ewc_title_dp_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=AR9G6BN98G2V1
Dual core i5 @ 2.5GHz (burst 3.1GHz)First and third are comparable in price. Middle one is atom and "slow" so might that not work in the long run,
My current kit I've had for around 6ish years (found invoice - June 2014) so I'm not saying I feel hard done by....
