Dsl or cable?

[rilzic]

ok here is the story. I live in a house with 4 housemates and we all use the internet quite a bit (music/games/random stuff) and our Dsl is always getting disconnected. I thought that with Dsl it wouldn't do that due to so many people using it but you would just get less Bandwith. my signal to the modem is always very strong and the connection status is connected but nothing works until i disable the renable the connection. i get randomly anywhere from 150/kbps to 10 or less. the kicker is that i can only DL something for 10 mins the i get disconnected. same when i play civ 4 online and when i play wow.

is this cause we have Dsl? would cable work better? anyother ideas?

,Thanks

P.S. in the time it took to write this my internet pooped out once again.

 

[Zydor]

How is the DSL being used? With 4 in the house, are you taking turns (doubt it!), sharing the link, probably that, if so how? Do you have an internal network, router etc ?? Is it a wireless link or cable to the PC / modem / Router from other PCs ?

Adsl is usually very stable - given that we all get periods everynow and then when BT Adsl goes down a few times in a short period, but usually it can be weeks between hassles. That frequent disconnect seems to point to how you are sharing the link in the house.

Regards
Zy

 

[rilzic]

Sorry for the lack of info.

lets see we have all wireless modems with a linksys router and it is 802.11 B broadband router ... and we have two routers hooked up to the internetand i think different people are using different routers. Don't know what a internal network is. don't know what Adsl is ... is that normal dsl just the proper name?

no we don't take turns or tell each other when someone is going to D/l something. but my connection always seems to crash from 8 in the morning when i wake up till all hours of the night.

 

[Zydor]

I suspect that using 2 routers may well be the problem,but be cautious of my words there, we need a Network guy in here, I am not a network specialist.

Hopefully one of the network guys will see this and respond

I would repost with a title along the lines "Network / Router Configuration Problem" that will attract the right guy if they are around. I am sure Thunderfall (the board admin) will not mind the duplicate post in this instance.

You are probably better off posting this in the Multiplayer Forum see:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=160

Much more likely to get the relevant network guy in there

Regards
Zy

 

[Lahdoz]

If you have a standard connection you will only get 1 IP address, and that means only 1 conection or router. The only way to use 2 routers would be to plug 1 into the other, or pay for multiple IPs.

ADSL is outdated, so you probable have DSL, but either way, you probably only get 1 IP address.

 

[gunnergoz]

Now that I'm forced to use DSL, I sure miss my old cable connection! DSL is better than nothing, but just.

 

[Zydor]

I have a sneeky suspicion that the two routers are plugged into different extension sockets in the house, leading to conflict between them. Its a case of some kind soul advising the best way to connect them up.

Regards
Zy

 

[Lahdoz]

Why 2 routers, how many ports, is therre network wiring in the house, are the computers and routers in the same area of the house, and are either wireless? A few more details about the network, and the goals, then the answers will come.

 

[rilzic]

Ok, we had one router hooked up and it was weak and the connectivity wouldn't reach my room in the back of the house but it worked fine for the one guy in the front of the house. then a another peoson moved in and he had the same kind of router as the other but it had better connectivity then the other so we did hooked the strong one up as well. i have very good connectivity at all times. they are both 802.11 B broadband wireless routers from linksys.

Lahdoz- "is therre network wiring in the house" --- not that i know of just all the normal basic stuff

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Lahdoz - "Why 2 routers" --- well i think we did it out of ignorence of how computer networks work (were nOObs) and yes the second router is on the desk right next to the other and both are wireless.

would this cause confusion in there radio waves (or whatever they use)?

Yes the goal is so i can play civ damnit. just kidding the goal is to have a the ability to download/play civ and other online games for more then ten min without a disconnection though i know disconnection is the wrong word because i always have strong connectivity.
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Zydor - Yes they are both hooked up directly to the modem is different slots by what i think is USB cables and i don't know what soul advising is

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So we should take the weak router out of the sysem and use just the one? using two modems each pluged into the modem would cause IP address confusion? right, just making sure i understand i am not a computer person.

 

[rilzic]

Another question, so is it generally ok to use two routers from one modem as long as the second router is going through the first and not having them both connected to themodem?

 

[Lahdoz]

1 modem only is a must. You can use 2 routers with 1 plugged into the other, but I suggest using only 1 router. You don't get any significant benefit using 2 right next to each other, then you also may have LAN addressing issues if you are using 2 routers.

I would cut it down to 1 router and 1 modem. Having 2 modems is most likely what is causing the problems.

 

[tao]

You should use one and only one router. Look for a central place to have good coverage in the house and ran a cable from your modem to the router. Never ever place 2 WLAN routers close to each other this will cause interference.

If you are close to the router, using a cable instead of WLAN is preferable.

(The router has 1 IP address to the outside world and manages several connections to the inside computers giving each of you an internal IP address. Thus outside attackers cannot reach you, because they don't see your IP address. As long as you don't download malware and don't click on suspicious links, etc., you are pretty secure. At least you know it was your own action that caused you trouble. )

Your WLAN devices use different channels to connect to the router, usually assigned dynamically. It might be a good idea to allocate them statically (i.e. 1, 4, 7, 10) to your computers, unless you have some interference from the neighbourhood.

ADSL: A is for asymmetric, i.e. higher download then upload bandwidth. The "A" is often dropped, but unless you have a very expensive link, you have ADSL.

Please note: your bandwidth (i.e. 768k/128k down/upload) is a combined limit. You cannot download 768k and at the same time upload 128k. If one of you is uploading data, downloads will crawl as upload consumes more of the overall connection capacity.