HW acceleration on RT-N66U

[tritius]

Hi All,
just a quick question...
On my RT-N66U running Merlin's 3.0.0.4.270.24 firmware release (Feb 10, 2013) on the TOOLS\SYSIFO page I can read that the HW acceleration is "Disabled (incompatible feature enabled)".

Could anybody address me some hints to discover the feature that prevents the acceleration to be enabled ?

Is the HW accelaration related to the routing between ETH ports ?
In my usage it's important to maximize it since I'm using heavily the NAS ...

Thanks and regards.

 

[Bagman]

Hi All,
just a quick question...
On my RT-N66U running Merlin's 3.0.0.4.270.24 firmware release (Feb 10, 2013) on the TOOLS\SYSIFO page I can read that the HW acceleration is "Disabled (incompatible feature enabled)".

Could anybody address me some hints to discover the feature that prevents the acceleration to be enabled ?

Is the HW accelaration related to the routing between ETH ports ?
In my usage it's important to maximize it since I'm using heavily the NAS ...

Thanks and regards.

Per IP traffic monitoring and QoS turns hardware acceleration off. Most people don't notice the difference as the router is quite powerful for the work it's doing most of the time.

 

[tritius]

Per IP traffic monitoring and QoS turns hardware acceleration off. Most people don't notice the difference as the router is quite powerful for the work it's doing most of the time.

Thanks for your answer.
QoS is off, but I'm not sure about the "per IP traffic monitoring" ... please could you provide me more information?
I'm learning, so please excuse me if I bother you with some obvious questions ...

Thanks

Luca

 

[Bagman]

Per IP traffic monitoring is turned off by default, so if you didn't enable it, you aren't using it. It allows traffic for each client on your network to be logged separately on a per-IP basis.

It is enabled/disabled from Tools -> other settings -> traffic monitoring.

 

[RogerSC]

Per IP traffic monitoring is turned off by default, so if you didn't enable it, you aren't using it. It allows traffic for each client on your network to be logged separately on a per-IP basis.

It is enabled/disabled from Tools -> other settings -> traffic monitoring.

One more thing, you have to reboot the router after turning off per-IP traffic monitoring or QOS before HW acceleration is shown as re-enabled. Just hitting "Apply" isn't enough in this case.

 

[tritius]

One more thing, you have to reboot the router after turning off per-IP traffic monitoring or QOS before HW acceleration is shown as re-enabled. Just hitting "Apply" isn't enough in this case.

Hi Guys,
thanks for the explanations ...
Still I can't enable HW acceleration even if QoS and per-IP monitoring are both disabled ... and reboot happened.

Cheers
Luca

 

[RMerlin]

Hi Guys,
thanks for the explanations ...
Still I can't enable HW acceleration even if QoS and per-IP monitoring are both disabled ... and reboot happened.

Cheers
Luca

Make sure you didn't disable it. The option on the LAN page is to force disable it, not to enable it.

 

[RogerSC]

Make sure you didn't disable it. The option on the LAN page is to force disable it, not to enable it.

Yes, the options in the GUI are interesting. For the NAT passthrough page, for example, "Enable" doesn't mean to push the button to enable it, it means that it is enabled now. I actually asked an Asus support person about this one, since I wasn't sure if "Enable" was showing if that meant it was enabled, or if that meant to push the button to enable it. I still find it odd when I see it.

 

[tritius]

Make sure you didn't disable it. The option on the LAN page is to force disable it, not to enable it.

Good point Merlin.
In fact this radio button is a little bit tricky and can generate confusion.

I tried to toggle it and now if I peek at the TOOLS\SYSINFO page I can see "Disabled (by user)" instead of "Disabled (incompatible feature enabled)"

Now I'm getting really curious to discover the feature that prevents me to enable HW acceleration ...

 

[RMerlin]

The complete list of things that can cause it to be disabled:

if(nvram_get_int("cstats_enable") || nvram_get_int("qos_enable") || 
nvram_get_int("url_enable_x") || nvram_get_int("keyword_enable_x") || nvram_get_int("ctf_disable_force")

Plus add being in Repeater mode.

 

[tritius]

The complete list of things that can cause it to be disabled:

if(nvram_get_int("cstats_enable") || nvram_get_int("qos_enable") || 
nvram_get_int("url_enable_x") || nvram_get_int("keyword_enable_x") || nvram_get_int("ctf_disable_force")

Plus add being in Repeater mode.

Thanks Merlin,
I use both FIREWALL\URL FILTER and FIREWALL\KEYWORD FILTER to prevent users to visit bad and unsafe websites.
By disable both options, I can enjoy HW acceleration and I can appreciate a performance increase. Such a pity that I've to go back.

Do you think it will worth a try to allow both firewall filtering and acceleration at the same time ?

 

[RMerlin]

Thanks Merlin,
I use both FIREWALL\URL FILTER and FIREWALL\KEYWORD FILTER to prevent users to visit bad and unsafe websites.
By disable both options, I can enjoy HW acceleration and I can appreciate a performance increase. Such a pity that I've to go back.

Do you think it will worth a try to allow both firewall filtering and acceleration at the same time ?

HW acceleration mostly matter for people with very fast Internet access (over 100 Mbits).

 

[chamberc]

HW acceleration mostly matter for people with very fast Internet access (over 100 Mbits).

I would agree with that... I have 75 Mbits down and see no difference in performance with it enabled or disabled.

 

[tritius]

I would agree with that... I have 75 Mbits down and see no difference in performance with it enabled or disabled.

Ok, this is WAN <---> LAN ... and what about LAN routing performances ?

 

[lilstone87]

Well I have a 105/20 connection, and speed is just fine with HW acceleration disabled. This may be a problem with 150mbps+, but I have seen burst of over 130mbps on my connection due to a powerboost feature my ISP uses. So unless your using a super fast fiber, or such connection. Having HW acceleration disabled shouldn't matter much.

 

[tritius]

Well I have a 105/20 connection, and speed is just fine with HW acceleration disabled. This may be a problem with 150mbps+, but I have seen burst of over 130mbps on my connection due to a powerboost feature my ISP uses. So unless your using a super fast fiber, or such connection. Having HW acceleration disabled shouldn't matter much.

Thank you so much for your interesting explanation. What amazes me it's your 105/20 connection ! Here in Italy I'm quite lucky to have a 20/1 ... that performs at a maximum of 13/0.6

So there is no meaning to accelerate the router unless this feature affects the LAN routing too ...

 

[got_milk]

Ok, this is WAN <---> LAN ... and what about LAN routing performances ?

'Routing' doesn't actually happen over LAN, that would be switching, so hardware acceleration wouldn't affect LAN traffic.

 

[seth_space]

HW acceleration disabled incompatible settings. Turned of the incompatble settings. ( per ip monitoring) but status did not change.
Had to manually disable HW acceleration ( status setting still was enabled) and re-enable again to get the hardware setting correct.

Feature req: link on sysinfo hardware settings to lan switch controle:
http://192.168.1.1/Advanced_SwitchCtrl_Content.asp

 

[RMerlin]

HW acceleration disabled incompatible settings. Turned of the incompatble settings. ( per ip monitoring) but status did not change.
Had to manually disable HW acceleration ( status setting still was enabled) and re-enable again to get the hardware setting correct.

Feature req: link on sysinfo hardware settings to lan switch controle:
http://192.168.1.1/Advanced_SwitchCtrl_Content.asp

You need to reboot after disabling Per IP monitoring. I didn't make the router automatically reboot when you disable it because I felt it wasn't justified to bring down the whole Internet for 2 minutes just to re-enable HW acceleration.

Adding the link on the Sysinfo page seem redundant to me as it is already available in the left menu.

 

[M.T.Field]

Per IP traffic monitoring and QoS turns hardware acceleration off. Most people don't notice the difference as the router is quite powerful for the work it's doing most of the time.

...Having HW acceleration disabled shouldn't matter much.

Anybody have any actual data on this? Like how latency and throughput are effected, WAN and/or LAN impact, wireless, etc. I've got medium-speed internet (35-50 Mbps down and 3-6 Mbps up) I'd like to make an informed decision whether or not per-IP monitoring is worth the cost.

BTW, I've got two routers (RT-AC66U as primary, and RT-N66U in AP mode) to cover both ends of a large house - the "AC", which does the per-IP traffic monitoring, has hardware acceleration disabled, while the "N" has hardware acceleration enabled.