New router required

[Iankath1]

HI,
I am looking to improve my network and have read many reviews, but now retired after a life time in IT at 62 It’s getting all too much. The wife is losing patience with buffering on the videos, so it’s must be time to upgrade and she has given me the approval (it will be death if not fixed).
Below is listed the devices we use and I would appreciate recommendations for a router.
We live in an old single story house with very thick brick walls. The ISP point is in the centre but the signal has to travel through these thick walls.

1 Samsung Smart TV (on broadband)
3 Chromecast Dongles on dumb TV's
1 I7 Desk PC, Windows 7 (Netgear N USB Dongle)
2 Laptops, Windows 7 & 8.1
1 Samsung Smart Phone
1 Android Nexus 7 2013 Tablet
Sky+HD PVR (on broadband)
Humax HD PVR (on broadband)

ADSL2+ Broadband 10Meg with a router supplied by the ISP.

Visitors with at least 2 smart phones and 2 laptops.

The Desk PC holds all the video and music in a Plex library which is viewed by the other devices with Plex clients or we use the IPlayer applications.

I have a UNO TV account (use’s DNS servers in UK) to view UK TV IPlayer’s on any of the devices.

The normal maximum work load is 2 or 3 video’s streaming between devices.

Please help with a suggestion, thanks.

 

[azazel1024]

What are you actually getting over the DSL line? Also, what video services?

A router isn't likely to improve anything unless it is a very old router, and even then. A 10Mbps line isn't much. Now, QoS features to better divy up the bandwidth might help some, but if the fundemental problem is that the internet connection is too slow, nothing is going to help with that.

2-3 video streams, depending on quality, says probably at least 2-3Mbps per device, which is likely at around the maximum your internet connection is capable of. More likely, if these are even low quality HD streams, that is 5-7Mbps each...which is well beyond what your internet connection is capable of.

Thus, buffering constantly.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Is the buffering occurring when you are streaming videos from your Plex server or when streaming on line video or some combination of both?

 

[Iankath1]

Hi,
The 10 meg is the fastest available here, so stuck with it. Most of what we watch is from the I7 desk PC, occasionally 1 external IPlayer.

A typical use is:
I use the Plex software on the Laptop, in one room, to display a film from the I7 desk PC (different room) on the Chromecast TV dongle.
The wife will use an Iplayer on another laptop and again google cast to a chromecast dongle in another room.
All the other devices are on but not doing a lot.

I thought the problem may be not with the ISP speed but possibly the amount of data passing around the house via the router.

 

[Iankath1]

The buffering is a combination of both Iplayer and Plex server video.

 

[sinshiva]

sounds like OP desperately needs multiple 2.4ghz APs

 

[CaptainSTX]

Before throwing money at the problem you need to do some systematic testing.

1. Is the box running the servers powerful enough to stream multiple sessions simultaneously without buffering? Connect the server and several devices to the router using Ethernet cable and see what happens.

2. If the server can handle the load then see if you can connect some of the devices using Ethernet, MOCA or powerline.

3. If that isn't possible then borrow a couple routers of any type and set them up as APs and see if adding additional radios resolves the problem. If it does and if any of your devices support 5 Ghz connections consider purchasing a dual band router. If you can't divide the traffic between dual bands then add one or more 2.4 Ghz APs. This will be an unsatisfactory solution if you try to utilize repeaters. You need to hardwire the additional APs using Ethernet, MOCA or powerline. Setting up a router as a bridge might help as you won't incur the 50% speed penalty of using a repeater.

 

[Iankath1]

Hi, Have to go out but will try tomorrow and get back, thanks

 

[Iankath1]

Problem fixed

To Captainstx and Sinshiva and azazel1024 I say thanks for your advise.
The problem was 2 fold.

I use a Netgear WN111 USB adapter on the main server PC and when it installs it produces a 'virtual profile' (this only runs at 54meg) along side the real Netgear profile (upto 300meg). Occasionally for no reason the PC was dropping the Netgear link and connecting to the virtual profile, unknown to me, slowing everything from the server. Got instructions on how to remove it and now PC is great.
The second problem was the HP laptop used by wife to watch TV had a Windows video driver and not an Intel driver. Found out she could only watch TV with the power cord in. The Intel driver allows you to adjust the power v video output. This had to be loaded by an HP techy as the normal driver update failed every time it tried to load, New laptop as well ?.

So now we seem to be racing, and thanks for your help it made me think harder.