Setting up a Router & PC to a WAN port for Router bandwidth testing

I need to test the bandwidth capability of a Router for troubleshooting reasons. It appears the Router is chocking on higher bandwidth downloads as this was suggested for me to try this. I never had need to do this before and have little idea other than the basic re-cabling connections.

Situation;
Two Towers, both running Win 7 Pro; I'll call the WAN side PC A, the LAN side PC B
MB's have the same AMD 970 chipset, one tower has a AMD FX8350, the other has a AMD FX6300
Router is a TP-Link TL-WDM3600 (Gigabyte) running openwrt firmware
Both are in the same room (for convenience) with 6' Cat5 (or 5e) cables.

Other than setting 'Network Properties' of the PC B to Auto, what addresses do I set PC A to?
What and where do I change in the Router as to addresses and DHCP settings?
Should this be a DHCP Client or a Static address?
What else do I have to address oin the Router?

Lastly; am I accessing each PC via a web browser or just by 'Explorer' like I would normally?

You are making mountains out of molehills, my friend.

If you are just checking the router to see if it's the culprit for a bottleneck, why not just test file downloads with it installed, and one without it installed (just connect your PC directly to modem).

What data are you trying to generate, and what point are you trying to prove?

You got that reversed.
I have tried that, two different f/w's installed in the router no problem, one other installed; problem. That type of f/w I have run since I have owned this (around 2 years) and it only became a problem a couple of months ago. Period.

I'm not trying to prove anything nor am I trying to generate "data". I want to "test" the Routers throughput as one tests video cards, processors etc. for it's capibility using a host far faster then my ISP.

My apologies, videobruce - I didn't mean to sound flip or attack you in any way. Just curious on exactly we're looking to do to simplify your efforts.

For WAN Side (PC A) you need to set it to a static IP address, on a different subnet than is on the LAN side (PC B).

Then what I would do is set up a Filezilla FTP server on the WAN side PC, and drop a huge file on it (a couple GB), then connect to the IP address of the WAN PC from the LAN PC via Filezille FTP client and download it to see how fast it goes.

The default gateway of the WAN PC would be the WAN IP address of the router.

The potential skew for data would be disk read/write both on the host and server computer.

Alternatively, you could poke around and try iperf.

Understood, I'm just so frustrated, this has been going on actually for months starting with VoIP issues (very different story).

If I ever get this setup, I assume I would be using a 'browser' as opposed to 'Explorer' as one would if both of these are on the LAN side (Client's)?? I didn't think of how it would be done within a browser. I have no idea about setting up a 'FTP', no more than the reason for this thread. This looks doomed from the start.

iperf is a command line program is it not? If so, that is a no go.

videobruce said:

Understood, I'm just so frustrated, this has been going on actually for months starting with VoIP issues (very different story).

If I ever get this setup, I assume I would be using a 'browser' as opposed to 'Explorer' as one would if both of these are on the LAN side (Client's)?? I didn't think of how it would be done within a browser. I have no idea about setting up a 'FTP', no more than the reason for this thread. This looks doomed from the start.

iperf is a command line program is it not? If so, that is a no go.

Click to expand...

Ok - I'm more confused now. What you are describing is a problem statement, which is what I was trying to get out of you from the get go.

If you just connect both of these clients on the LAN side, you aren't testing the NAT or routing throughput of the device, you would only be using the switch that's built into the router.

What is the problem you are having, and what information are you trying to glean from doing this test?

From the TP-LINK website the advertised NAT throughput is 800Mbps. for the TP-Link TL-WDM3600.

I don't know where you got the LAN to LAN, I never stated that.
The problem is gradual loss of Internet as a sink drain gets gradually more plugged, then stops completely. I didn't post the problem is that is not what the thread is about. Just a 'how do I do this'.

What this is suppose to do and what this exact one CAN do under these circumstances is a another thing. Ever benchmark or stress test computer components? More or less the same thing. Oh, the only possibly way I can get even close to the 800Mbps is to have something other than a 100Mbps ISP service.

videobruce said:

I don't know where you got the LAN to LAN, I never stated that.
The problem is gradual loss of Internet as a sink drain gets gradually more plugged, then stops completely. I didn't post the problem is that is not what the thread is about. Just a 'how do I do this'.

What this is suppose to do and what this exact one CAN do under these circumstances is a another thing. Ever benchmark or stress test computer components? More or less the same thing. Oh, the only possibly way I can get even close to the 800Mbps is to have something other than a 100Mbps ISP service.

Click to expand...

Well, then you already have your answer. Have one computer on the WAN side, and another in the LAN side. Static IP address the WAN side PC and access files through something simple like FTP with Filezilla if you aren't comfortable with iperf. And yes, I know you can't test the 800mbps without a higher internet service...