Optomizing SOHO network

[Joel_R]

I know there are tons of basic networking questions, so hopefully I did not miss answers to anything that I am asking.

I'm trying to rework my network to get the best performance from all devices and I'm not feeling I am doing very well. My network consists of a Unifi EdgeRouter 4 connected directly to my ONT on port 0. Port 1 connects to a Netgear ProSafe 5160PE switch. Feeding WiFi is a TP-Link AC2300 which exposes 2 access points. Devices connected to these are what I consider critical for happy family life: Computers, streaming devices that cant be hard wired, cell phones, tablets. I also have a Unifi AP-Pro wired to the switch. It also exposes 2 access points for non-critical devices, IOT devices, and camera feeds. I am not using ports 2 or 3 of the EdgeRouter. All 16 ports are occupied and used on the switch, and only 3 are IOT devices (hubs for various vendors). I run a Plex server and Home Assistant server (HA is a virtual machine on the windows environment) on a Dell micro pc with a i7 - 7th gen processor connected via lan.

I do not have any vlans set up, everything sits on the same IP range and I have about 12 ports forwarded for external access.

My issue is streaming video content from my library is choppy on devices that don't have a lot of buffer (smart Tv's, dongles) even if hard-wired. Streaming to my older Nvidia Shield never seems to have an issue. WiFi streaming usually requires transcoding for smooth play.

Do I gain anything in segregating the AP-Pro which contains 5 video feeds from my cameras into a QNap NAS into a vlan or directly to port 2 on the EdgeRouter? How about isolating the switch to one port, TP-Link to another port, and the AP-Pro to the third? Any advice?


-- Joel

 

[RMinNJ]

Seems like a sound setup.. you could try a new router or access point to replace the tplink.. Try a streaming device right next to the TPLink to see if it's choppy to see ?

 

[ChatmanR]

Sounds like you need a need router that supports better stream at a distance? That router is know for it's weak long-range throughput performance and file transfer speeds.

 

[Joel_R]

What dB should I be looking for at 2.4g and 5g for decent wifi streaming?

 

[RMinNJ]

dB? I don't know...50 to 60dB? But some devices and routers can do better with distance and low signal..

Did you place a streaming device close to the router and see if that is not choppy?

 

[tgl]

My issue is streaming video content from my library is choppy on devices that don't have a lot of buffer (smart Tv's, dongles) even if hard-wired. Streaming to my older Nvidia Shield never seems to have an issue. WiFi streaming usually requires transcoding for smooth play.

Normally I'd blame choppy playback on wifi issues, but if you're seeing it even on a wired playback device, you've got something else going on. (Maybe you have wifi issues too ... but first resolve the problem for a wired device.) It's conceivable that there's some problem in your wired-LAN infrastructure, but what seems more probable is that your Plex server isn't up to snuff. Exactly which components are sitting between your Plex server and your wired playback device, and can you remove any of them for test purposes? Ideally plug the Plex server and the playback device into the same switch, and see if you still see a problem. (Also, exactly what is the wired playback device you're testing with? We shouldn't ignore the possibility that that device itself sucks.)

 

[L&LD]

Try doing an electrical reset on the entire network.

Troubleshooting 101 for Asus/RMerlin Routers 2020 https://www.snbforums.com/threads/troubleshooting-101-asus-rmerlin-routers-2020.65438/post-605773

Particularly steps 8, 9 and 10. If the issue persists, try the first 7 suggestions too, as needed.

 

[Joel_R]

Multiple resets have been performed over the last few months, so that is not an issue.

The Plex server is on a Dell Optiplex 7040m. Media is housed in a 16tb MediaSonic raid box with Raid 5 and is connected via an eSATA to SATA cable. The only switch currently in use is the Netgear. Understandably, the Dell is not ideal as the hardware encoding is limited but much cheaper to run than the R710 server that housed it originally. I do have an old gaming laptop with advanced graphics that I am researching converting to, but the raid controller may be limited to USB on that device reintroducing other playback issues that resulted in the eSATA to SATA interface being used now.

Playback devices vary: Hitachi Smart TV (hard wired), Samsung Freestyle projector (wireless), Roku Ultra (wireless), two different Chromecast TV dongles (wireless), PLEX TV via web browser (wireless), NVIDIA Shield 2017 (hard wared and wireless). The only device that is consistent with playback is the Shield but it has other issues due to its age (Bluetooth died so I need to reconfigure my Logitech Harmony interface to send direct commands via Home Assistant and haven't gotten around to it yet) so it is the least used device. Live TV is fed via a Silicone Dust Prime (cable card) network tuner. Live TV is mostly stable due to smaller bandwidth but still shows congestion/speed issues with buffering pauses here-and-there which really should not exist.

Thank you everyone for your input and questions. This is very helpful so far.

 

[tgl]

The Plex server is on a Dell Optiplex 7040m. Media is housed in a 16tb MediaSonic raid box with Raid 5 and is connected via an eSATA to SATA cable. The only switch currently in use is the Netgear. Understandably, the Dell is not ideal as the hardware encoding is limited but much cheaper to run than the R710 server that housed it originally.

Ah-hah. After doing a little bit of googling, I learned that the 7040m has a 6th-generation Intel Core processor, but Plex requires at least 7th-generation for full hardware transcoding support. It seems likely that your streaming problems boil down to that server being unable to do software transcoding fast enough. You might try to find some files in your library that don't require transcoding for the device you're watching on, and see if there's still glitches with them.

 

[sfx2000]

I'm trying to rework my network to get the best performance from all devices and I'm not feeling I am doing very well. My network consists of a Unifi EdgeRouter 4 connected directly to my ONT on port 0. Port 1 connects to a Netgear ProSafe 5160PE switch. Feeding WiFi is a TP-Link AC2300 which exposes 2 access points. Devices connected to these are what I consider critical for happy family life: Computers, streaming devices that cant be hard wired, cell phones, tablets. I also have a Unifi AP-Pro wired to the switch. It also exposes 2 access points for non-critical devices, IOT devices, and camera feeds. I am not using ports 2 or 3 of the EdgeRouter. All 16 ports are occupied and used on the switch, and only 3 are IOT devices (hubs for various vendors). I run a Plex server and Home Assistant server (HA is a virtual machine on the windows environment) on a Dell micro pc with a i7 - 7th gen processor connected via lan.

Pictures are worth 1000 words - I know you're trying to be as descriptive as possible, but with words, evenyone is going to draw a mental diagram based on their own experience...

This might be helpful to draw the network diagram...

Flowchart Maker & Online Diagram Software

app.diagrams.net

 

[Joel_R]

The 7040m I have has a 7th gen l7 processor (hence the 7xxxx modle numbering).

I get the visual need. I'll see if I can put a Visio for together this week: Edgerouter IO to FIOS ONT. Edgerouter IO to Netgear switch (8 POE+, 8 100/1000). AP-Pro AP IO hard-wired to Netgear, wifi IO to IOT devices. TP-Link AP IO hard wired to Netgear, wifi IO to critical devices.