>>>>>Happy Christmas
>>>>>
>>>>>here's an at home problem.
>>>>>
>>>>>At home I have a Netgear Router with 4 Pcs (and an occasional MAC) and an on demand video service connected via devolo dlan mains networking. My broadband connection speed is generally about 5 Mbps (checked at speedtest.net)
>>>>>
>>>>>Something is causing my broadband to occasionally grind to a halt. If I restart the router it speeds up How can I monitor who is using the bandwith and whats being usedto see if its one of the connected machines.
>>>>>
>>>>>I'd like to be able to this centrally to save running round the house banging in doors asking if I can come in.
>>>>
>>>>The free WireShark program can do this e.g. http://sysadminhell.blogspot.com/2008/04/using-wireshark-to-determine-bandwidth.html (article is a bit dated)
>>>>
>>>>Consumer routers generally don't have the power or features to do real time bandwidth monitoring/reporting. However, some support various levels of "Quality of Service" ( QoS - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_of_service ). If your router supports it, you'll find it in its configuration settings. The idea behind QoS is to make sure "critical" users don't get interrupted by high-volume, lower-priority processes. For example, someone using Skype may not need a lot of bandwidth (especially voice-only), and not very often, but when they're using it you can't have packet delay or loss because the effect is so noticeable. So, if someone else is watching a video or downloading a movie at the same time, in theory QoS can be configured to slow down their downloads a little while Skype is being used by someone else.
>>>>
>>>>QoS hasn't really caught on because it's tricky to implement and protocols being used are changing all the time. But, if your equipment supports it you could at least give it a try - it might be a way to make smarter use of your total bandwidth.
>>>
>>>Looks like my netgear dg834 V4 does not support QOS
>>
>>A little Googling seems to show it might. A rudimentary level of QoS may be enabled by default (and not appear in configuration settings): http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/826510
>>
>>That post is a few years old, the current firmware may have improved QoS support: http://kb.netgear.com/app/products/model/a_id/2322 . If you're not already running that latest up-to-date firmware you should upgrade to it. Be sure to back up any custom configuration settings before you do so - screen shots of all the configuration pages is a useful way to do this, there may also be a way to back the settings up to a file and restore them after updating (if updating doesn't preserve them).
>
>Hi Al
>
>I'll follow those links (I did a bit of googling myself and seemed to find the opposite.)
>
>Any recommendations about routers for this sort of home use that would help resolve my problem ?
>
>what router would you recommend for this sort of miced home use

I have a number of business clients I've set up with dd-WRT firmware running on Linksys WRT54GL routers. I don't use many of its advanced features but I've been impressed with its stability.

I've heard Tomato firmware ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_%28firmware%29 ) is another strong contender for these consumer routers, although I've never used it. It looks like it is particularly strong in QoS, and even has some real-time bandwidth monitoring.

One thing to note is your Netgear DG834 V4 is a combined ADSL modem and router. If you purchase another router, you have a choice:

- Continue using your existing Netgear unit for its modem functionality
- Purchase (or lease) a plain ADSL modem (supported by your ISP)

Keeping your Netgear unit is the least expensive option but it adds some complication. You can't disable its internal router and get output straight from the modem, so you'd be cascading 2 routers:

- Public Internet
- connected through ADSL modem portion of Netgear to WAN IP address of Netgear internal router (you can determine this address by going to whatismyip.org)
- routed through Netgear internal router to Netgear LAN IP address (a private address such as 192.168.1.1)
- connected to WAN port on new Linksys router (probably receives an address via DHCP such as 192.168.1.100)
- routed through Linksys router to Linksys LAN IP address. This is where it gets a bit tricky - the Linksys LAN subnet must not be the same as the Netgear's, but it may default to the same. Unless you want to mess with subnet masks I'd use a completely different private subnet such as 10.0.0.xxx. You can either change the LAN IP of the Netgear unit to (say) 10.0.0.1, or change the Linksys'.
- you then attach your client computers to the LAN ports of the Linksys router (or you could connect wirelessly). If you don't like wireless, that can be disabled in the Linksys firmware. If you do use wireless, be sure to secure it with WPA2 Personal/AES or better, with a strong (15+ characters) password. Also be sure to set a user name and password for accessing the Linksys router configuration.

If you go this route, you should probably remove as many router customizations in the Netgear unit as you can, to reduce possible complications. Still, having 2 routers cascaded is unnecessary complication and there are more points of possible failure. Conceptually it would be simpler to get a plain ADSL modem, but that involves extra expense, and setting it up with your ISP (which can be non-trivial).

If you buy a Linksys WRT54GL (be sure to get the "GL" version, not just the "G") it will come with stock Linksys/Cisco firmware. You will need to update the device with Tomato, dd-WRT or whatever 3rd party firmware you'd like to use. The firmware websites have good instructions on how to do this.

You will then need to do basic configuration such as turning off the wireless radio and setting up a router user name/password. After that you can delve into the wonderful world of QoS ;-)