Slow network issue

Question

I am here today to ask for some of your precious help! Many users of my Windows Networks are complaining about slow connection (intranet/Internet) but I called my ISP and everything seems to be fine.

We are using a dual cable connection. 2 cable modem DOCSIS (10MB-Down/1MB-UP) connected to 2 Cisco SoHo routeur 800 Series. These are going to a Linksys Switch (Dual WAN) 10/100 8-port VPN Router RV082 (Firmware Version: 1.3.98-tm).

My ping on many websites are ok. Tracert also ok. I've performed a DOS test on my ISP's ftp site (Videotron.ca) and I get between 500k/700k download. (This is a normal home plan speed result) but I have twice a home power!

So basically, when I go on speedtest.net, I am supposed to hit like 18mb Download... right now, I hit only 11mb. My issue is that I am suspecting some users on the network to download torrents or stuff like that. Unfortunately, I have no apps to check that remotely. (If only I could have MS SMS!!!)

My question is the following: Is anybody know how to check the bandwith usage over this linksys switch? An application that can be linked to it to check the bandwith? Or even better, a port scanner over the whole network that I can see what is taking that much of my bandwith.

Thank you very much everyone and sorry if my question isn't clear, my english is kind of poor.

Regards, David.

Answer 1

SNMP might give some statistics off that RV082. Here is a site that might help with some information on gathering information from it.

Answer 2

You can't take two 10Mb links and get a 20Mb link. What you could have is two 10Mb downloads going at the same time. (This is a gross over simplification by the way.)

How are you load-balancing across these two links? Floating static routes or some kind of hardware device? If you have firewalls (please say 'yes'), then they could also be dropping some of your traffic if it is asymmetric.

Answer 3

You could enable SNMP in the Linksys and the Cisco routers to monitor bandwidth usage via software like PRTG or Cacti.

Answer 4

I don't know of an application that can scan your network to see what's using your bandwidth

One option may, or may not, be SNMP - You can graph the throughput of hosts\switchports to see utilization. I would suggest you graph (Cacti, MRTG, etc) your WAN ports to see what traffic you're putting through them

Do you have a firewall at all? A proxy server? If so, what reports are available from those devices? They may paint a clearer picture

Answer 5

You could set up a mirror on your firewall port and send that to a sniffer (ntop is a good open source one) to get a better idea what the traffic is.