DD-WRT OpenVPN Speed on Linksys E2000

[superman9 0]

Hi,

I've made some speed tests with my dd-wrt router and I get quite low speeds compared to what other people talk about in the forum:

Tauri: 5.44 Mbps down / 3.58 Mbps up

Bootis: 2.11 Mbps down / 3.34 Mbps up

I've also tried other servers but ~5 Mbps down is the maximum I get.

I tried different UPD and TCP, different ports etc. but still 5 Mbps is maximum.

Any ideas what might be the probleme here?

Thanks and best regards!

[Staff 9972]

Hi,

I've made some speed tests with my dd-wrt router and I get quite low speeds compared to what other people talk about in the forum:

Tauri: 5.44 Mbps down / 3.58 Mbps up

Bootis: 2.11 Mbps down / 3.34 Mbps up

I've also tried other servers but ~5 Mbps down is the maximum I get.

I tried different UPD and TCP, different ports etc. but still 5 Mbps is maximum.

Any ideas what might be the probleme here?

Thanks and best regards!

Hello!

As far as we can see, the maximum supported throughput (to encrypt and decrypt AES-256 on the fly) by the E2000 CPU is 7 Mbit/s. So the performance you detect is probably fine for the routers capabilities. You can try a connection directly from your computer to make a comparison.

Kind regards

[superman9 0]

Alright, thanks - I just tried messing around with the CPU clock speed and it seems that I can increase the speed by ~1 Mbps if I overclock from 300 to 400 MHz.

Not sure if it's worth it...

When I connect directly from my computer, the speed doubles. So, unfortunately I'd need to buy a now router if I would like to increase speeds.

Best regards

[mikegeek 0]

Any recommendations on a home router so one can avoid this issue?

m

[jdubau55 0]

What is your connection speed? Even the fastest consumer routers are going to struggle.

You could build your own router using an old desktop. I have an old P4 I am thinking of using. The DD-WRT license is $20 though. I mean most routers are around 500 mhz and maybe 64 mb of RAM. Think about an old P4 running at 3 ghz and even with just 1-2 GB of RAM. You get the drift.

[PsychoWolf 16]

I highly recommend AGAINST overclocking the E2000. From the factory it is already overclocked to 354MHz, and it runs fairly hot...going much beyond that and you'll see a pile of packet loss and other weird problems.

This unit (and it's big brother E3000) have known issues with cooling as well, which just exacerbates the problem. I recommend mounting it in such a way that it gets more air flow underneath the unit as well, to eliminate some of the problems with heating.

HTH

[superman9 0]

Because of the problems you mention, PsychoWolf, I even "underlocked" my E2000 from 354MHz (factory default) to 300MHz.

At the moment, I'm fine with the 5MBit connection - but it would've saved me quite some time if I had known earlier.

[PsychoWolf 16]

Actually, that chip is supposed to be clocked at 300MHz from factory, and Linksys is overclocking it...so setting it to 300 is actually better for the long-term health of the router. I believe I read that on the DD-WRT wiki. As for transfer rates, it stands to reason that a 300MHz single core embedded processor would have trouble encrypting and compressing data at a substantial rate. My connection is 5mbps at home, so my E3000 has no trouble with it...if I upgrade to anything faster and still wish to use the VPN for all traffic I'll be in the same position as you.

The alternative would be to set up a dedicated server to handle this, or run the VPN on Windows with ICS for your LAN, both options being a lot more complicated than a DD-WRT router.