As to why it happens only with the billion - I have no idea. It may be something as simple as the higher sync making things different.

Still happens when I force a lower sync by using ADSL1 or vanilla ADSL2 on the Billion.

What is the Window full you refer to ( I am not using wireshark so haven't seen that).

In Wireshark on a download I did today there were a couple of TCP.Analysis.Window.Full packets. But looking at the dump you are looking at there are NONE. This, I'm thinking maybe a complete red herring.

Here's a screenshot of the tcptrace throughput graph - note the scale doesn't go down to 0. You can see that it is getting full speed then gets knocked back (by multiple loss) recovers and repeats. This is sort of normal, but in this case it seems there is too much loss/backoff. The large window you set probably doesn't help, but then you may need it for distant servers.

Useful graph, I would never see most of those slowdowns on DU Meter except maybe the two almost pauses at the end. I have tried smaller Windows, while reducing the amount of pauses I see in the app. there came a point where line speed was limited by the small window size but pauses still appeared and again even on lower sync. of ADSL1. Did you see the link to the capture of the speedtouch on the same file, maybe you could run that through tcptrace and compare. Many thanks for looking at the dumps.

Been playing a bit more with Wireshark and I have found the I/O grapher which produces graphs down to ms granularity similar to the linux equivalent and has its own tcp trace. Some more playing needed.

Edit: Billion did advise turning of Jumbo Packet and this has improved things slightly and I also downloaded tcping.exe but that's not showing any loss on the TCP path to TBB.

Looking at the capture of the Billion when the pause happens there seems to be a slew of re-transmissions and lost segments. But as suggested earlier it could be that the Billion is just being a bit harsh with speeds and backing off way too much and stopping flow.

Edited by Banger (Sun 12-Feb-12 02:15:28)

and as if by magic tried a download tonight of SP3 and NO pauses with a single stream, talk about random.

http://flic.kr/p/bsLSGe

In reply to a post by Banger:

and as if by magic tried a download tonight of SP3 and NO pauses with a single stream, talk about random.

Yea, it's strange.

I looked harder at the last low trough in your first pcap and after a bunch of loss there is actually a delay where windows receives a packet and doesn't ack it for 200ms. I guess it's passing full buffers to the app - I wonder if a different os/more recent windows would do that.

I did get your other dump and it has just as many loss events but with less dramatic results - I haven't had time to look properly.

FWIW setting wireshark to just cap the first 100 bytes of each packet would be enough for this analysis and makes for much smaller pcaps.

In reply to a post by legume:

In reply to a post by Banger:

and as if by magic tried a download tonight of SP3 and NO pauses with a single stream, talk about random.

Yea, it's strange.

I looked harder at the last low trough in your first pcap and after a bunch of loss there is actually a delay where windows receives a packet and doesn't ack it for 200ms. I guess it's passing full buffers to the app - I wonder if a different os/more recent windows would do that.

I did get your other dump and it has just as many loss events but with less dramatic results - I haven't had time to look properly.

FWIW setting wireshark to just cap the first 100 bytes of each packet would be enough for this analysis and makes for much smaller pcaps.

Noted about small pcaps will dig into Wireshark later.

Billion have all but given up saying it is probably and incompatibility with my exchange equipment and my router, guess I will just have to live with it. I have Win 7 as a Guest OS using Microsoft Virtual PC and that does the same, it's looking more and more like the router.

And there is another anomily, small files eg 20mb dont pause at all just large ones around 50mb or bigger.

Edited by Banger (Mon 13-Feb-12 17:51:01)

Some simple ideas to maybe try:

1. Test downloads from another PC on the WAN port of the Billion
2. Test internet downloads using a different modem on the WAN port of the Billion
3. Try a new gigabit LAN card on the PC (sounds an odd idea in theory, but in practice not quite so daft)

In reply to a post by vimto_girl:

Some simple ideas to maybe try:

1. Test downloads from another PC on the WAN port of the Billion
2. Test internet downloads using a different modem on the WAN port of the Billion
3. Try a new gigabit LAN card on the PC (sounds an odd idea in theory, but in practice not quite so daft)

1. Done Same problem, different PC different LAN card.
2. Done Problem cured. Used speedtouch modem on Ewan port problem gone.
3. No spare slots.

In reply to a post by Banger:

In reply to a post by vimto_girl:

Some simple ideas to maybe try:

1. Test downloads from another PC on the WAN port of the Billion
2. Test internet downloads using a different modem on the WAN port of the Billion
3. Try a new gigabit LAN card on the PC (sounds an odd idea in theory, but in practice not quite so daft)

1. Done Same problem, different PC different LAN card.
2. Done Problem cured. Used speedtouch modem on Ewan port problem gone.
3. No spare slots.

Given 1, it's obviously not an ADSL or ISP issue as you wondered.

I would suggest if you cant get your router to function properly as a plain router on a home network, there's little point using internet testing to troubleshoot. Can it function properly as a plain switch...?

reading posts it appears situation is resolved, and is some conflict/bug with WAN ports and the modem. Where these lay will be difficult to figure out

In reply to a post by vimto_girl:

In reply to a post by Banger:

In reply to a post by vimto_girl:

Some simple ideas to maybe try:

1. Test downloads from another PC on the WAN port of the Billion
2. Test internet downloads using a different modem on the WAN port of the Billion
3. Try a new gigabit LAN card on the PC (sounds an odd idea in theory, but in practice not quite so daft)

1. Done Same problem, different PC different LAN card.
2. Done Problem cured. Used speedtouch modem on Ewan port problem gone.
3. No spare slots.

Given 1, it's obviously not an ADSL or ISP issue as you wondered.

I would suggest if you cant get your router to function properly as a plain router on a home network, there's little point using internet testing to troubleshoot. Can it function properly as a plain switch...?

If you mean is there any problem transfering files between PCs the answer is no, so yes it appears to function as a switch correctly.

What I don't understand is if two downloads are running only 1 will stall the other keeps running and vice versa, same with multiple streams.

Edited by Banger (Tue 14-Feb-12 20:59:32)