slow/no network on PS3?

arcane93

arcane93

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I recently moved, and decided to get Verizon FiOS for my internet at the new place. It's great -- really fast and reliable. Except, that is, for my PS3.

The PS3 has a wired connection directly to the Actiontec router (latest revision) that Verizon provided. Yet frequently it claims to be unable to connect to the internet at all, and when it does manage to connect, the connection is ridiculously slow compared to what I get with every other device. Nothing else that I have that connects to the internet (including my computer, my XBox 360, my iPhone, and even my TV) has any problem.

For example, I just got it to connect (after several tries), and ran the test at speedtest.net on three devices. The results were as follows:

PS3 -- Ping: 19ms, Download: 2.65 Mb/s, Upload: 4.73Mb/s

iPhone -- Ping: 42ms, Download: 15.44 Mb/s, Upload: 5.09Mb/s

Laptop -- Ping: 24ms, Download: 19.28 Mb/s, Upload: 4.92Mb/s

The iPhone and the laptop are even using a wireless (N) connection with those results. While the ping time and the upload speed aren't too far off what I'd expect, the download speed is just pathetic compared to what it should be. And honestly, the reported results for the PS3 seem faster than it's actually running -- I started to download the Lara Croft demo ten minutes ago, and it has only downloaded 31mb in that entire time.

The weird thing is that before the move, the PS3 was previously on FiOS at my girlfriend's house, and it had none of these issues there. It was able to connect to the network without difficulty the majority of the time, and the speed seemed, at the least, reasonable (I never tested it there, but I also never had issues that made me want to test it).

I've tried multiple network cables, and I've tried the cables that I'm using on other devices, where they've worked without difficulty. I've tried different ports on the router, and just swapping cables with my XBox 360 (which connects to Live without a problem). I've forwarded ports that I've found suggested on the internet (TCP: 80, 443; UDP: 5223, 3478-3479, 3658) with no noticeable change. Nothing that I've tried seems to consistently help.

So, any idea what's up? Any suggestions for what I might do to make it work faster and more reliably? Anyone else have issues like this?

Edit: And . . . over two hours later, the Lara Croft download is at 383mb (out of 2358mb). My PC would have been done with this download in no more than a few minutes with this connection. And that's definitely not even the reported 2.65 Mb/s. WTF?
 
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It happens to my PS3 too even if it was connect with wire. My dl is 12mb and upload is 5mb but on my ps3 I only get 3-4 mb download and 3-4mb upload. Haven't tested it in wireless mode yet but I downloaded some demo a few days ago and it was buttslow on wireless. My modem has the PS3 port free too cuz in MW2 my NAT is open.
 
Your upload speeds are comparable to your other devices but your download speeds are really bad.

Seems like there might have been an issue during the test. Speedtest.net sometimes gives odd results... I would try it again during the early morning (before 9AM) or late at night (past 10PM) and see if you get the same results. If you didn't have trouble before but are having trouble now, there might be some other issue at fault here.
 
PS3 networking protocols suck. You can try using a proxy, which speeds stuff up a ton and you can also DMZ your PS3. Nothing will ever really get you your full speed from the PS3 but with a proxy I get the most I can I believe with the same router as you.
 
[quote name='Vinny']Seems like there might have been an issue during the test. Speedtest.net sometimes gives odd results... I would try it again during the early morning (before 9AM) or late at night (past 10PM) and see if you get the same results. If you didn't have trouble before but are having trouble now, there might be some other issue at fault here.[/QUOTE]

Well, the thing is, the speedtest.net results actually seem considerably faster than the speed that I'm getting in real-world applications. It took it literally all night, and well into the next morning, to download that Lara Croft demo. Like I said, that would have happened in a matter of minutes on any other piece of hardware that I have connected to my network. Also, those other speedtest results that I quoted were run literally seconds after the PS3 results. There's definitely a problem, I'm just not sure what else I can do to diagnose/fix it.

[quote name='Mad39er']PS3 networking protocols suck. You can try using a proxy, which speeds stuff up a ton and you can also DMZ your PS3. Nothing will ever really get you your full speed from the PS3 but with a proxy I get the most I can I believe with the same router as you.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I mean honestly, it's not even so much the speed that bothers me (though the fact that it's so slow isn't good). It's more its failure to connect at all a large portion of the time. It never had this problem previously, and then developed it immediately when I moved it onto the new network. That makes me believe that it's something to do with the network rather than the PS3 itself, but I'm at a loss as to what the problem could be.
 
Wow... what service do you guys have? I thought my speeds were middle of the road, but compared to those, I'm blazing fast.

Here's what my results are:
Ping: 25 ms
Down: 5.86 Mb/s
Up: 4.37 Mb/s
 
[quote name='iKilledChewbacca']yours is still a hell of a lot faster than my internet.[/QUOTE]

Well, like I said, that's when I can get it to connect at all. It's the fact that it won't connect at all most of the time that's the problem I'm really trying to fgiure out.
 
Check the router firewall. I had problems connecting when had the setting too high on the firewall, it'd connect but it'd be intermittent until I changed them back. It should be set to Typical, I haven't had issues with it once it was set back to Typical. 25/25 up/down nets me about 16/4 accord to my PS3 after being proxied.
 
I have the same exact problem. I have a 15mb connection download, and all of my computers and other equipment run right around that speed except for my PS3. Heck, even my PSP downloads faster than the PS3. My PS3 reports 3Mb/s, but I am lucky to get 1/2-1mb/s in actual download speed. It has been like this for the past year, and nothing I have done has changed this. If I download a PSP game through Media Go, it will take minutes. If I download that same game through the PS3 it will take hours.

On the bright side, I have never had any problems connecting. I should also note that my PS3 Slim downloads significantly faster than my old 80GB PS3, but still slower than any of my other equipment. I'm honestly not sure if it is a problem with the PS3 or ISPs throttling data to insanely slow speeds. I feel it is the ISPs doing the throttling though, as my PS3 used to download the same speed as my other equipment before I moved, but once I moved and switched providers it has never been the same.
 
[quote name='Mad39er']Check the router firewall. I had problems connecting when had the setting too high on the firewall, it'd connect but it'd be intermittent until I changed them back. It should be set to Typical, I haven't had issues with it once it was set back to Typical. 25/25 up/down nets me about 16/4 accord to my PS3 after being proxied.[/QUOTE]

Nope, it's set to "Typical" already. It's probably worth noting that the PS3 has a problem even getting an IP address from the router a lot of the time when DHCP is enabled, let alone getting any further than that. Really, it would almost seem like the network card in the PS3 is failing, except for the fact that it works fine when I use it at my girlfriend's place (where she also has a FiOS Actiontec router, albeit an older revision). That's what's so baffling -- the router works well otherwise, with all other devices, and the PS3 works well otherwise, on other networks. There's just something about the combination of the PS3 and this router which just doesn't seem to want to work together.

[quote name='GaveUpTomorrow']I'm honestly not sure if it is a problem with the PS3 or ISPs throttling data to insanely slow speeds. I feel it is the ISPs doing the throttling though, as my PS3 used to download the same speed as my other equipment before I moved, but once I moved and switched providers it has never been the same.[/QUOTE]

Why would they specifically throttle PS3 traffic, though? Of all of the possible traffic that they could have on their network (including streaming video, bittorrent, and other high-bandwidth applications), the PS3 seems like it would be the least of their concerns. I wouldn't be surprised if the slowness were PSN itself. My issues with connecting, though, I'm certain are an issue local to my PS3 and my router.
 
Have you tried bypassing your router completely (i.e. hook modem directly up to the PS3)? May or may not help, but it'd let you rule out a bunch of possibilities.

Also, did you run the internet connection setup on your PS3 again after you moved? If it's still using the old settings, I'd think you might have all kinds of problems.
 
[quote name='madcatz1999']Have you tried bypassing your router completely (i.e. hook modem directly up to the PS3)? May or may not help, but it'd let you rule out a bunch of possibilities.

Also, did you run the internet connection setup on your PS3 again after you moved? If it's still using the old settings, I'd think you might have all kinds of problems.[/QUOTE]
The Verizon supplied Actiontec FiOS router is part and parcel. It takes coax going in from the terminal box so there is no bypassing it as far as I can tell. Bridging may work in theory if it's just a router issue but that requires a spare router to even test it out with.
 
[quote name='madcatz1999']Have you tried bypassing your router completely (i.e. hook modem directly up to the PS3)? May or may not help, but it'd let you rule out a bunch of possibilities.[/QUOTE]

Mad39er is right -- the Verizon FiOS modem/router is an all-in-one deal, with no option to bypass anything. Though maybe I will dig around and try to find another router (I've probably got an old one around somewhere) and try bridging it as he suggested. I could also take the Motorola NIM100 that I set up at my girlfriend's house and try that, though she might get annoyed at not having Netflix on her TV for a few days. :)

[quote name='madcatz1999']Also, did you run the internet connection setup on your PS3 again after you moved? If it's still using the old settings, I'd think you might have all kinds of problems.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I did, though given that I moved from one Actiontec MI424WR to another Actiontec MI424WR, I don't think the settings really changed. But with this new router, I have to use the manual setup on the PS3 to get anything -- if I try to use the automatic setup, it tells me that there isn't an ethernet cable connected.
 
The only other time I ran into a similar issue where my download was higher than my upload was when I was trying to enable Full Duplex speeds on my router/ps3. Check the Port Configuration under Advanced Settings on the router. Find your port and make sure the settings match what your PS3 is calling for, if it's set to Auto on the PS3 for speed/duplex settings then set it to auto on the router, if not, set the router to 100 full duplex and the PS3 to 100 full duplex under the PS3 custom network settings.

I was skimming a thread on DSL reports that mentioned similar and it reminded me of a problem I had when I was playing around with my router. If the speeds don't match, there are issues for whatever stupid reason.
 
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