Craptastic Router Network Congestion

[ChooChooman74]

I am looking for a little advice and probably trying to gain some knowledge. I am still fairly new in the IP Cam installation, having installed regular cameras back in the day. But, I have been tinkering with networks for a while. So, I had a customer install, where I installed 4 Starlights at 10FPS, a Zyxel 8 Port POE+ Switch, and a Dahua 4208-4KS2. The switch and NVR are separated, with a Cat 5E from the customer's Verizon FIOS router to the switch and connected the NVR to the Router. Nearly right away, customer complained of network congestion, not being able to view Netflix or Skype, but cleared up after unplugging the wire to the cameras. Went back, ran a 2nd wire back to the switch for the NVR, and that seems to work fine. Activity lights on the Zyxel show little activity to the router and constant activity to the 4 cams and the NVR. I would have thought that the switch in the router would be able to handle 4 2MP cams running at 10FPS. Has anyone else come across this issue?

 

[fenderman]

I am looking for a little advice and probably trying to gain some knowledge. I am still fairly new in the IP Cam installation, having installed regular cameras back in the day. But, I have been tinkering with networks for a while. So, I had a customer install, where I installed 4 Starlights at 10FPS, a Zyxel 8 Port POE+ Switch, and a Dahua 4208-4KS2. The switch and NVR are separated, with a Cat 5E from the customer's Verizon FIOS router to the switch and connected the NVR to the Router. Nearly right away, customer complained of network congestion, not being able to view Netflix or Skype, but cleared up after unplugging the wire to the cameras. Went back, ran a 2nd wire back to the switch for the NVR, and that seems to work fine. Activity lights on the Zyxel show little activity to the router and constant activity to the 4 cams and the NVR. I would have thought that the switch in the router would be able to handle 4 2MP cams running at 10FPS. Has anyone else come across this issue?

The verizon router is crap...
the proper way to install is to avoid the router as intermediary as you have done the second time which avoids traffic to the router..

 

[alastairstevenson]

I would have thought that the switch in the router would be able to handle 4 2MP cams running at 10FPS. Has anyone else come across this issue?

It's actually quite a common problem with ISP-supplied routers, which do tend to be at the lower end of the price range.
The overhead of the CPU managing the switch traffic impacts it's primary task - routing and firewall.
Did the customer router have 10/100Mbps switch ports, or Gigabit?
But in my experience even low-end switches have the backplane capacity to do full non-blocking wire-speed switching on all ports.

As @fenderman notes - best to avoid burdening a router with steady heavy video traffic, unless it's a higher-end router with Gigabit ports and a fast CPU.

 

[bp2008]

I never had a problem like this. It must have been a shitty router indeed.

 

[ChooChooman74]

Did the customer router have 10/100Mbps switch ports, or Gigabit?

This was a fairly new gigabit router all-in-one unit. Official name is the Verizon Quantum Gateway. Link for more Info: Fios Quantum Gateway Wi-Fi Router | Verizon®

 

[Mike A.]

This was a fairly new gigabit router all-in-one unit. Official name is the Verizon Quantum Gateway. Link for more Info: Fios Quantum Gateway Wi-Fi Router | Verizon®

I have/had that same router. I don't normally run it as my primary router in the same way now but I have at times. I don't recall any issues like that but can't say for sure that they weren't there and I just didn't notice because I wasn't doing anything where I would have at the time. I'd be a little surprised. Not even that heavy of a load really. It's not the greatest router but as you say it is a relatively newer dual-core router that's capable of running @ 1 gig rates and bridging the MoCA side as well without any problems. I guess they could have cheaped out on the switching side but that's all relying on the same Broadcom/Qualcomm/whatever integrated chip that's in it and used by many others. I'd have to rearrange things too much to try to test it now but if I get a chance at some point I will and let you know if I see the same effect.