Router Problems

What could make a Netgear WGT624 constantly lose speed? It starts out at 54mbps as it should, but constantly loses speed until I reboot it. Usually drops to 48mbps, then to 36 mbps, and so on, and as far down as 18 mbps. It usually then fluctuates between 18 to 36 and once dropped out completely. This is all with the laptop sitting within feet of the router and showing excellent signal strength.

Also it isn't interference as far as I can tell. My signal shows to be "excellent" on my laptop and there is no "noise" showing up in my monitoring utility either. I got this Netgear router recently after returning a Linksys WRT54GS which got to where it wouldn't let me change it's settings for some reason (they would change then immediately revert back to defaults before I could hit apply). I am beginning to think I traded one problem for another. Can't anyone make a router that actually works

 

Turn off logging, specially for rules created, also firewall, your NAT tables are probably getting full.

 

I have only had this router a few days so I wouldn't think even without clearing the logs that they could be a problem. I did clear the logs once already though in my quest to find my problem but didn't notice an improvement. I have not found a place where I can stop the logging from taking place in the routers settings though. I can only clear the logs. The last time I cleared the logs didn't seem to make any difference.

I read last night on Netgear's site that turning off the SSID broadcast may help with speed issues since any other nearby wireless computers might be trying to connect to my network automatically every few seconds. I have turned it off and will see if it makes any difference. Other sites have said that turning off the SSID actually increases the router's overhead and slows things down. Here is the Netgear site where I read about the SSID. http://kbserver.netgear.com/kb_web_files/n101374.asp Scroll down to "Reducing Wireless Network Traffic" near the bottom of the page.

*edit* I checked the Netgear manual and only the last 128 websites visited ever get logged anyway. Also, it mentions no way to stop the website logging. It mentioned no logging of firewall or rule creation. Maybe I am missing something or didn't understand your post correctly.

 

OK, maybe I found what you are talking about. If you make a list of websites or services that you want the router to block it will log attempts to access those sites or services. I made no block list so it never logged anything there.

 

Have you created a rule-set for the router's-f/w, or is there a default-set used? (A conflict in custom rules maybe?)

 

I have created no custom firewall rules for the router. Whatever rules the hardware firewall came with is what it still uses.

I did disable the SSID broadcast as instructed on Netgear's website and while it hasn't been long enough to tell for sure, I believe it may have helped. So far today I have been at 54mbps almost the entire time. It did drop to 48mbps once but only briefly. I will continue to watch it and see if it has any of the same problems it had before when more neighbors get home this evening and fire up their wireless networks.

 

Welll, it's been two days since I tried turning off the SSID broadcast from my router to see if it would solve my speed problem. I am happy to say that in the last two days my speed has remained at 54mbps almost the entire time. It occasionally still drops to 48mbps but that small fluctuation is to be expected I would think. Gone are the frequent and long lasting drops to 11 - 18mbps; hopefully forever.

Thanks for your attempts to help Arup and 19monty64.

 

You are quite welcome, glad to see you back on speed, it can be quite frustrating not to get your rated speed.