Ethernet to Hopper: Weaker Than WiFi !??

[Mrlewp87]

Previously had new Sagemcom 4320 Gateway in office, about 40 ft. from living room TV stand. Our Hopper, web TV- Netflix, Amazon etc., and Chromecast- all were fed via WiFi. Source was 2 antennae D-Link router set up as a wireless AP, about 33 ft. from the stand, and no wall ! We actually did watch HD TV often, tho' with occasional/ frequent buffering. Then the sometimes message to switch to SD.
Download speeds generally were right on or very close to our paid service- 6 mbps. Tiring of the buffering now, I moved the Sagemcom to right on top of the TV stand, and cabled the TV and Dish Hopper. Lo and behold... After going into Settings, and running the Dish broadband test, the download speed struggles to obtain a range in the upper 4 mbps !? Temporarily, the D-Link AP router is in the office, at least 8-10 ft. further away, and with plenty of wall to cut thru (long glancing path down hall). Yet, any WiFi devices still register great signal, and still at or near the max- 6 mbps !!
Something's amiss here, would you say?


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[JM42]

You tried the same test both wired and wireless and wired was less? If it wasn't the same test back to back, it's hard to compare.

With anything close to a decent wifi signal, your buffering issues are not likely to be related to the wireless, but to only having 6mbps internet.

 

[dare2be]

I agree. Any bottleneck would be caused by the path from the source to your home, not within the home network. Perhaps network traffic was higher with your ISP at the time you did the wired test.

 

[KAB]

Did you disable wireless and Reset Network?

 

[Mrlewp87]

Ok, failed to mention the 6mb DSL matter. It's what we got, and I don't see that changing. The services we subscribe to state 6mbps as minimum to watch HD. I've seen 10mbsp minimum on one occasion, forget where.

**While watching TV, there's often an iPad or 2 in use, sometimes a laptop. I understand the congestion/ bandwidth issue there.

**Ran the Hopper Broadband Test just before, and right after moving the Sgcm4320 to the TV stand and making the wired connections.
It was only me at home, so no other devices were in use to interfere with or use up bandwidth.

**I did turn off the Wireless on the Sgcm 4320, hoping to relieve it of some duties. Although it's still handling all traffic to the D-Link AP, therefore anything on WiFi anyway.

**Reset the Network? I believe you mean in the Dish Hopper settings? Yes t o that, and to rebooting both routers.
Just can't understand how anything can beat the wired connection speed?

 

[ChadT41]

Shot in the dark, and this just a wild guess, could it be from the actual move of the router? Also you said two routers, is this similar to a bridge or dock? If so, just be happy it's working as I have seen many hoppers and other VIP equipment not work unless it is the first router.

 

[JM42]

I understand 6mbps may be as good as you can get, but despite published minimums it is the root of the buffering issues. There just isn't any headroom in 6mbps for an HD stream.

Hard to say on the wired vs wireless issue. Wired/wireless/HIC are all about the same for my HWS - the limiting factor is the broadband.

Swap ports on the router and hopper, try another cable. A wild a** unlikely theory, would be maybe the auto-negotiation isn't working and maybe you are only getting a 10mbps wired connection. Does the router give any indication between a 10/100/1000 connection? If you have one, try putting a switch between the router and Hopper.

 

[Mrlewp87]

"....and maybe you are only getting a 10mbps wired connection. Does the router give any indication between a 10/100/1000 connection?"
This is asking to confirm whether there's an internet connection? There is.
The ISP is Windstream, and the Sagemcom 4320 lists in it's DHCP;
1) the Hopper as, ........ "Hopper_ETH1"
2) our HDTV, as .........."COM-MID1" .......and
3) windstream.net Curiously, it didn't list the D-Link wireless access point. (the 2nd router, to answer another question above)

In the Broadband section, was the D-Link wireless network. Signal reported as "Good", both here and in the "Whole Home" section when viewing the connected Joeys.
I decided to see if removing the long LAN connectiion to the D-Link would have any effect on the download speed test, under the DISH Broadband section. I was thoroughly confused for a while, as the Hopper continued to connect to the D-Link and show the same signal strength as before. My simple explanation is that it's still finding the wireless signal, despite not having access to the internet. So I unplugged the D-Link's power.
Finally, the DISH has no wireless signal to report. If my memory serves me, I think it was "Bridging" that I chose to try. Whatever, I'm watching as the Hopper goes thru the motions - something to do with the home network. In the end, it stated Success!, and now the Joeys are again linked to the Hopper, .... I suppose via the SLING ?
And this is a first ; the Sgm4320 now shows all the Joeys in it's DHCP client list ! So, does the Hopper/ Joey setup need a WiFi network or not. I'm still confused. In addition, also listed is "Hopper_br" ?
Now after the changes made, the download speed began hitting numbers even higher than 6 mbps. Interestingly enough, after re-connecting the Dlink AP, the average speeds still remained higher than before. That is until I just now checked again, and they've fallen below 6mbps again.
(not to heighten the confusion, but also just found that the Joeys showed as FAILED under the MoCA red-button menu option. I selected "Bridging" again, and they found the re-established D-Link wireless)

Finally, to the point about using a switch, between the Sgm4320 and the Hopper. This actually lends itself to another forum post I have related to setting up dedicated devices. If the Sagemcom is left to do routing only, then a switch connected to one of it's LAN ports would then be cabled (wired) to the Hopper and our TV? Could I then run another Lan to Lan to a "switch" in the office, where there's a desktop, and a BluRay player w/ internet streaming services. both requiring a wired connection?

 

[lucky86]

I recall issues in the past with sage Com gateways. Maybe not this specifically, but problems staying connected.

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[davepo]

I don't know why Dish doesn't tell people to set static IPs for the hopper and joey. Better yet, make IP assignable in the hopper and joey itself, then the installer could do it. I just upgraded from a 622 and two 211ks to two hoppers and a joey. The hoppers were wreaking havoc on my network, holding an IP for a few minutes, then dropping and aquiring the same freaking address (didn't matter if it was the ethernet connected hopper or the moca). Every device in the house was getting knocked off the network. My dhcp server was a dlink ebr2310 that I had been meaning to replace. It couldn't assign static IPs to a specific mac. I had a dlink dir 655 sitting around that I was planning on installing, well that got expedited. Download speeds were erratic, .1 to 6 mbps with the 2310, when they held an address. The moca connected devices couldn't hold a connection for more than a few minutes. I got the 655 installed and assigned static ips for the hoppers and joeys and a whole new world emerged. 18+ mbps and no more dropped connections. Dish anywhere started working, on demand started working, and all the other devices on the network were happy.

The hoppers are awesome, and the moca technology is amazing. I'm no IT guy, but made myself learn about home networking. The best solution would be to make the static ip assignable in the hoppers and joeys, provide a list of routers and recommended static ips, and have the installer make the settings.

 

[JM42]

Sounds like you have both hoppers cat 5 connected with bridging enabled? What you describe should not be a problem, and hasn't been in my experience.

 

[davepo]

Nope, 1 ethernet, the rest moca and bridging enabled on the ethernet connected hopper only.

 

[Mrlewp87]

"davepo", some clarifications please. You "got the 655 installed...."? You made the changes, or had the "installer" do it? I'm not ready to pay a Windstream tech, if I'm reading correctly? I've done some static IP stuff myself, but am I to understand that the customer can't perform these settings changes?
Regardless, normally (?) the static IP has to be set within the device's settings, then entered into the router's applicable settings, is this right? So, would the user need to access each Joey's settings and assign it the static IP, or is this done just within the primary router (in my case, the Sage4320)- perhaps using each Joey's MAC ID? Our 3 Joey's are seen in the Sagemcom's DHCP list, I think since I enabled "Bridging" in the Hopper's Broadband section.
UPDATE; I don't know how I could have presented my concerns any differently, but somewhat by chance, I've figured out a couple things on my own. The *download speed* issue- Ethernet slower than WiFi?- was based on my mis-reading of info presented by the Hopper's utilities. Under the "Broadband" heading, is Ethernet, Wireless, and MoCA. It stands to reason that the wireless speed would suffer, since I temporarily had moved the D-Link AP router further from the Hopper, and behind a long wall. What I should have been looking at was the Ethernet connection status, not the wireless.
Our Netflix and Amazon internet TV seemed to be going as well as before, so I decided to check out some movies using the DISH ON DEMAND button.(not the guide menu) AT first I was really bummed, when after "renting" a FREE movie, in SD quality, the message appeared "downloading at 2.xxx mbps ! I realized later on that this was due to the resolutioin of the movie. When I selected an HD movie, the message appearing now said "downloading at 6.3xx mbps"! I'd not seen this speed, ever. (remember, we're DSL. I have to get excited about 6 mbps. Ha) This proved to me that the Ethernet was doing fine, as expected.
I'm always going long here, but would you or someone clarify this for me. The Joey's need your WiFi for what? Does it matter whether it's your primary router doing the wireless, or another set up as a wireless AP?

 

[JM42]

Results are very odd. Static IPs shouldn't be required, and haven't been in my experience. Expecting a tech to set that up would be a support nightmare. Most likely some compatibility issue between the Hopper and the router. Everything normally just works, but you did mention d-link, so all bets are off.

 

[davepo]

"davepo", some clarifications please. You "got the 655 installed...."? You made the changes, or had the "installer" do it? I'm not ready to pay a Windstream tech, if I'm reading correctly? I've done some static IP stuff myself, but am I to understand that the customer can't perform these settings changes?
Regardless, normally (?) the static IP has to be set within the device's settings, then entered into the router's applicable settings, is this right? So, would the user need to access each Joey's settings and assign it the static IP, or is this done just within the primary router (in my case, the Sage4320)- perhaps using each Joey's MAC ID? Our 3 Joey's are seen in the Sagemcom's DHCP list, I think since I enabled "Bridging" in the Hopper's Broadband section.
UPDATE; I don't know how I could have presented my concerns any differently, but somewhat by chance, I've figured out a couple things on my own. The *download speed* issue- Ethernet slower than WiFi?- was based on my mis-reading of info presented by the Hopper's utilities. Under the "Broadband" heading, is Ethernet, Wireless, and MoCA. It stands to reason that the wireless speed would suffer, since I temporarily had moved the D-Link AP router further from the Hopper, and behind a long wall. What I should have been looking at was the Ethernet connection status, not the wireless.
Our Netflix and Amazon internet TV seemed to be going as well as before, so I decided to check out some movies using the DISH ON DEMAND button.(not the guide menu) AT first I was really bummed, when after "renting" a FREE movie, in SD quality, the message appeared "downloading at 2.xxx mbps ! I realized later on that this was due to the resolutioin of the movie. When I selected an HD movie, the message appearing now said "downloading at 6.3xx mbps"! I'd not seen this speed, ever. (remember, we're DSL. I have to get excited about 6 mbps. Ha) This proved to me that the Ethernet was doing fine, as expected.
I'm always going long here, but would you or someone clarify this for me. The Joey's need your WiFi for what? Does it matter whether it's your primary router doing the wireless, or another set up as a wireless AP?

You can set static ips in your router if your router supports that feature. I installed and setup the router myself. I set an ip for each hopper and joey for their mac addresses. Once they try to connect to the network, they get the address you assigned to them. Some of my devices like my printer and wireless access point can assign themselves a static ip, and when they connect to the network, that's the ip they get. You don't have to do it in both places. I guess you could, but it's not necessary.

Your joey does not need your wifi. It should get connection through your hopper via the moca network. Enable bridging on the hopper that is connected to your router. Your primary router should have dhcp enabled. Your access point should have dhcp disabled. You don't need two devices giving out addresses.

It sounds like you have everything set up right. Sorry it took so long to respond, we were outside all day yesterday and the dew point was around 75, brutal day for football.

 

[charlesrshell]

I think it is easier to use the router's DHCP reservations. In my router I have setup all my Hoppers, Joeys, printers, Xbox One, and Slingbox 500 in the DHCP reservations so they always have the same IP address.