PC running slow with TV v6

[MikeCrackle]

Since having the new V6 TV box it seems to have made our laptop run slow and websites time out.

If the V6 box is switched off from the mains things seem to run better.

Mike

[japitts]

Extremely unlikely this is directly caused by your V6, but all the same... what did you have before the V6?

What internet speeds are you getting from a laptop/PC connected to your hub by a wired Ethernet cable? Remember speeds over WiFi aren't guaranteed.

[Roger_Gooner]

Is the laptop running on mains or battery power?

[MikeCrackle]

Sorry I made mistake it is a desktop PC that is running slow and timing out. The PC uses wifi to connect to the Hub 3 box.

Looking at the connected devices on the hub 3 the tivo box is connected at nearly 1Gb on the hub 3, I suspect this is taking most of the bandwidth of the wifi leaving the PC struggling for bandwidth.

Can someone please explain to me why the TV V6 box has to connect to the wifi when it has its own coax cable connector.

What does the V6 box use the wifi for.

Please can someone tell be the capabilities of the hub3 with regard to available bandwidth on wifi.

It will be very inconvenient if I have to resort to connecting the V6 box to the hub3 with an Ethernet cable.

thanks

Mike

[japitts]

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@MikeCrackle wrote:
Can someone please explain to me why the TV V6 box has to connect to the wifi when it has its own coax cable connector.

What does the V6 box use the wifi for.

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All VM TV boxes need two connections.

1: Coax cable carries the live TV signals.

2: Internet connection (either wired or wireless) for OnDemand, streaming & EPG/software updates.

I would be quite surprised if your V6 is taking anywhere near all the bandwidth on a 1Gig connection.

What speeds are you getting over a wired connection?

[MikeCrackle]

Another PC with a wired ethernet connection at 1Gb is working fine.

I the issue is with the wifi connected PC.

This problem always seems to happen in the morning about 7am.

We have since found that the wifi connection on the PC was only 2.4G and was quite slow at around 60Mb.

No problems were noticed until we had the V6 box installed.

I am not very impressed if we have now got to share our internet connection with the tivo box, that seems like a downgrade on the internet capability on our connected PC's

Mike

[newapollo]

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@MikeCrackle wrote:

 The PC uses wifi to connect to the Hub 3 box.

Looking at the connected devices on the hub 3 the tivo box is connected at nearly 1Gb on the hub 3, I suspect this is taking most of the bandwidth of the wifi leaving the PC struggling for bandwidth.

Mike

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Hi Mike,

Sorry but I'm a little bit puzzled by your post. The hub 3 doesn't support the 1GB connection. If you have 1Gb broadband you should have been upgraded to a hub 4. 

The V6 box calls home every 5 hours or so to update the EPG. it won't be connecting to the internet unless you are using one of the apps, or On Demand, so shouldn't really affect any of your bandwidth.

What type of NIC card do you have in the PC connected by wireless? 

When you  log into to the hub settings,  what is the reported connection speed for the PC  on the Connected Devices page ?

Check all your drivers are updated by going to the manufacturers website, don't rely on Windows Update to update them.

You might want to look at splitting the Wi-Fi SSID’s for the 2.4Ghz  and the 5Ghz bands.

2.4GHz is a stronger signal but slower than 5GHz so if you have problems on 5GHz change to 2.4GHz.

Open a browser and log into your hub 192.168.0.1 - then navigate to the following settings so you can differentiate between the signals.

Advanced Settings > Wireless Signal > click on Disable Channel Optimization  then scroll down and  click on Apply Changes. 

Now go to Advanced Settings > Wireless > Security > Add a 5 to the 5 GHz Channel name so you can differentiate it from the 2.4Ghz signal  and click on Apply Changes.

You can leave the passwords the same as they are.  Then log out of the hub at the top of the page

You will need to reconnect all you Wi-Fi devices some will want to connect to 5Ghz and some to 2.4GHz and some will connect to either.

You could also do a search for an app such as wifi analyzer which tells you the strength of the channel you are connected on, and also shows other channels so you can decide if you want to change the channel number on your hub

Advanced Settings > Wireless > Wireless Signal >  beneath both the 5Ghz and  2.4GHz sections click on the manual button, and in the drop down box click on the channel number you want to change it to, then scroll down and  click on Apply Changes.

After that if your PC speeds don't improve you may want to create a post in the Networking-and-WiFi forum  using a wired connection.

Open the Router Status” page and copy/paste 3 FULL sets of data into your post there – from the Downstream, Upstream, & Network Logs pages. 

You could also set up a BQM monitor  at thinkbroadband.com - this will give you an insight into what is happening with the signal at the other side of the Hub, it will take a few hours to get any kind of trend showing although you can post the link straight away.

Then the tech boffins can get on your case.

[japitts]

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@MikeCrackle wrote:

No problems were noticed until we had the V6 box installed

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What did you have prior to the V6 being installed?

New TV customers don't get a V6, so I presume you had TiVo.

Can you confirm? Check here If you're not sure.

[MikeCrackle]

japitts
The previous TV box was a Tivo which did not use up our PC and data bandwidth.

Thanks newapollo for your comprehensive answer, I will read through them again tomorrow.

When I said 1Gb connection I am referring to the WiFi and home network connections, not the broadband speed.

So what is the best simultaneous through put of the Hub 3 on wifi. ?
If the V6 box is connected at upto 900Mb and other wifi devices are substantially slower is the V6 box not going to hog all of the available WiFi and Broadband bandwidth?

We have managed to get the PC that was connecting using 2.4G to now connect with 5G which has improved the connection speed to around 400Mb.
So we will check tomorrow morning how things go and if web sites still time out when using the PC.

I still find it wrong that Virgin are delivering the TV data over our 100Mb broadband, it seems like we are paying for something we can never use fully because the TV is sucking the guts out of the broadband.

Thanks

Mike

[japitts]

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@MikeCrackle wrote:

If the V6 box is connected at upto 900Mb

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I'm far from convinced it will be, and so your comment about the "TV sucking the guts out of the broadband" is equally questionable, IMO.

I've taken the most extreme example, that you're streaming UHD content from OnDemand and/or a streaming app, that's the most extreme use the V6 is likely to make of your home broadband. https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 quotes this as taking 25Mb/s, I doubt other similar services are much different.

What is your contracted broadband speed? You've mentioned 100Mb/s below, so where is the 1Gig reference coming from? WiFi & Ethernet just refer to the connection between individual devices and your homehub.

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@MikeCrackle wrote:

I still find it wrong that Virgin are delivering the TV data over our 100Mb broadband

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They're not. Video OnDemand & internet streaming services (Netflix, Prime, YouTube, iPlayer etc) all use the internet, and that's the same regardless of platform. Live TV channels do not use the internet.

It strikes me that your issues seem to only be on your WiFi-connected PC/laptop, and your V6 connection will be having very little (if any) impact on that.