SamKnows Whitebox shows download speed reduced by more than 50% when Traffic Shaper is enabled
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Hi everyone
I've had a SamKnows Whitebox for a number of years now, and it has been extremely useful for identifying issues with my internet connection, whether they be external issues with my ISP, or internal issues with my own equipment.
I have recently installed the 2.7.2 release of pfSense on a silent PC which has a large metal heatsink as part of the body of the machine, as the previous tower PC running pfSense had fans which were too noisy. I have been exploring pfSense in conjunction with the book by Christopher M. Buechler and Jim Pingle which I bought from Amazon, and I was keen to explore traffic shaping as unfortunately I need to downgrade my broadband connection due to a change in circumstances. I want to ensure that VoIP is prioritised when my partner is working from home, so I can be confident of good call quality, with less important traffic receiving a lower priority.
I have followed the instructions in the book to configure and enable Traffic Shaper, and it appears to be working in the broadest sense. However, when I ran an instant speed test on the SamKnows Whitebox after enabling Traffic Shaper, I noticed that the download speed had dropped from the current maximum of 380Mbps to around 150Mbps at best. The upload speed doesn't appear to be affected.
I've tried changing the maximum download speed specified earlier in the wizard from 380 to 500Mbps, however this made no difference. I've tried running both wizards and different combinations of settings, such as prioritising VoIP and increasing the priority of some applications, to increasing the priority of online games (even though I don't currently do online gaming), to only enabling the shaper on the first page and leaving everything else disabled. However, nothing seems to improve the download speed when any shaper is enabled, regardless of settings may or may not have been applied.
I have been resetting the states table immediately after enabling and disabling the shaper as suggested in the book and wizards to ensure the state table is up to date. As soon as a shaper is removed and the states table is reset, the download speed returns to normal.
At first I thought that perhaps the speed test traffic was being classed as P2P. However, despite tinkering with the various P2P shaping settings and even leaving the P2P option unselected, this has also made no difference.
I would really like to get to the bottom of this issue before my broadband is downgraded in several weeks time, as when my other half is working from home, VoIP traffic will be more important than anything else. I'm aware that it's entirely possible that the call quality could be absolutely fine without any effort on my part. I'm also aware that VoIP call quality is about more than just the download speed.
However, I'm trying to be proactive and looking into enabling traffic shaping to ensure good call quality, preferably without causing any other issues in the process.I hope all of the above makes sense and that I've been able to provide all of the required information without digressing too much. Please let me know if I have inadvertently neglected to include any required information and I will endeavour to update accordingly.
If anyone else has experienced any similar issues previously, I'd be most grateful if you could share your resolution to the problem, please.
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@nottstrekkie Which shaper type are you using? I found PRIQ to be relatively simple to set up, and CBQ a bit buggy/unexpected in places.
Status/Queues will show where active connections are going.