pfSense throttling bandwidth
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All,
I have pfSense running on a Protectli Vault 6 Port, Firewall Micro Appliance/Mini PC and I'm running the latest stable release (2.6.0-RELEASE (amd64))
Anyway, for whatever reason, my pfsense router is throttling my Internet connection. If I remove the router and connect it directly to a PC, I get 600mb down and approximately 24mb up. When I connect the router, it is throttled to 140mb down and 10mb up.
When I first moved into my house, that was my Internet speeds provided by Xfinity, my speed was 150mb down and 10mb up. They have since upgraded me several times and most recently to the 600mb down and 20mb up.
That said, my speeds have never changed even running a speed test directly on the router using speedtest-cli.
As noted, if I remove the router and go straight from the PC to the cable modem, I get the speeds provided / advertised by Xfinity. With pfSense in place, I'm throttled to 140mb/10mb.
I've tried resetting and changing the "Speed and Duplex" settings on both the WAN and LAN, but this does not change anything. The speed is still throttled to the 140/10.
It almost seems like pfSense remembers the original speed settings when I first set it up and now that they've changed. It ignores the new speed settings in the cable modem and I cannot seem to reset it.
Does anyone have any idea what else in pfsense could be causing this throttling?
Thanks,
Dave -
@dcbrown73 said in pfSense throttling bandwidth:
Does anyone have any idea what else in pfsense could be causing this throttling?
Had you setup any sort of traffic shaping or limters? That is a common thing that users forget about.
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/trafficshaper/index.html
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FWIW, I run pfSense on the computer described in my sig. I have often seen over 900 Mb down on my 500/20 connection.
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@johnpoz said in pfSense throttling bandwidth:
@dcbrown73 said in pfSense throttling bandwidth:
Does anyone have any idea what else in pfsense could be causing this throttling?
Had you setup any sort of traffic shaping or limters? That is a common thing that users forget about.
https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/trafficshaper/index.html
Funny thing. I never setup anything like that but I just looked at Traffic Shaper and I be damned, it was limited to 210mb down and 12mb up. I adjust them above my paid speeds and the doors are wide open!
While I did find it before I saw your response! Thank you as if I hadn't, you would have solved it!
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@dcbrown73 said in pfSense throttling bandwidth:
I never setup anything like that
Here is the thing - that is not any thing that is default. So while maybe you don't remember setting it up, or did anyone else have access to pfsense?
There is no way that was setup auto, etc.. somebody clicked some stuff to set that up.
Good thing is your issue is sorted ;)
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Nope, I'm the only one who has access to it. I have no idea why I would setup traffic shaping in that manner. The only traffic shaping / QoS I've ever setup on my routers were for dedicated VoIP traffic and egress bandwidth throttling for SFTP / HTTP. (prevent saturation of my 10mb up) Though I've since (years ago) purged the egress throttling when I terminated those servers and when for a externally hosted solution.
I don't suppose there are any "UPNP" type protocols out there where a cable modem can send these types of traffic shaping configurations during negotiation with a router?
I cannot for the life of me figure why I would ever setup overall (LAN/WAN) bandwidth limits on my router when the ISP does a fine job of that on their own via modem configurations.
I have router config change management. Maybe I will go see if I can figure out about when these changes came about.
Anyhow, thanks for responding.
Dave -
@dcbrown73 possible drunk networking ;)
You know how some people order crazy shit on amazon after a few too many drinks. Maybe you were optimizing your network after some over indulgence ;)
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@dcbrown73 said in pfSense throttling bandwidth:
why I would ever setup overall (LAN/WAN) bandwidth limits on my router when the ISP does a fine job of that on their own via modem configurations.
Usually that's done to allow prioritization/QoS, say to prioritize VoIP or video. 140/10 is about right for a 150/10 connection...usually it should be set slightly less than wire speed so pfSense throttles it before it hits the ISP limit. Though, I find Comcast/Xfinity usually sets their limit about 10-20% higher than the rated speed.
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I saw the exact same thing. Throttled my 300-350 Mb/s connection down to 40ish. I even reinstalled the thing from scratch and it repeated a couple days later. This morning would not pass traffic at all, but could ping from the gateway. Rebooted but still throttled. Disabling the shaper on the WAN interface completely fixed it immediately. I'll follow up if repeats the phenomena.
Will be happy to submit logs if you tell me what and where to send. Other than this, no complaints or issues. Running pfSense+ 22.01 "free" on a HP EliteDesk very small PC.
