Packet loss problems

RouterOS General
1

I have a core router that is causing me alot of heart ache and i’m needing to find answers.

Problems & Issues:

  1. Added Latency going through Router (Any traffic going through this router will increase latency by atleast 10%-15%)
  2. Uploads aren’t their fullest

Things tried to resolve the issue:

  1. Bypassing router (This bypasses all these issues and we don’t have any problems)
  2. Disabled OSPF (Upload issue still exists)
  3. Setup NAT, plugged in directly to MT, and tested speeds (Latency is still really high and upload speeds are still slow)
  4. Swapped out router completely with exact same setup and specs (Problems still exist)
  5. We recently upgraded to 2.9.42 before it was 2.9.39 and it still had the same issues.

Current Router Specs:
RouterOS 2.9.42
Pentium 3.0GHz
1GB RAM
2 x Onboard GB NICs
1 x 4 Port Routerboard 44

The average CPU usage is ~20%-25%.

The following uses for this router:

  1. OSPF to Fiber connection
  2. PPPoE concentrator
  3. Dynamic simple queues for PPPoE bandwidth shaping
  4. Input firewall rules to protect router
  5. Forward firewall rules for standard virus ports

NO:

  1. Mangling (tested with it and without)
  2. Queue Tree (right now nothing is setup for queue tree & Again tested with it and without.)
  3. NAT (We have all public ip addresses assigned to all customers through pppoe)

Do you think this is hardware related issue? Are is the routerboard definately causing my issue? Is there known issue with the new RouterOS that has issues with OSPF, PPPoE, Firewall, and Traffic Shaping?

Please help. I’m at my wits end.

BTW… This is a live router. So anything i do will take customers offline.

Matt

2

Have you tried replacing the RB44 card with another type card? Maybe a 4-port Intel Pro/1000 card? We’ve seen issues with the RB44’s under stress in Intel motherboards.

3

That is one thing i haven’t done. When i switch out the NIC’s i replace them with the same routerboard 44’s. The problem is i really hate to spend $300+ on server nic’s when i’m not 100% sure that is the issue.

4

I can say for sure that the RB44’s can have problems.

5

I’ve seen similar latency problems with IRQ conflicts on PC-based systems.

Have a look at /system/resources/irq and see what is sharing. Try disabling all un-necessary devices in the BIOS wherever possible, and disable unneeded NICs in MT

6

Hi,

I have 1 RB44 in my CORE ROS and the four have the same irq (#9)

This is a problem. How can I change the irq for ether ports in the same nic RB44?

Regards,
Fran.

7

You cant. Each PCI slot on the Motherboard holds 1 IRQ. Best performance comes from using one NIC per PCI slot. This is by design and have nothing to do with RouterOS.

To Mneumark; Try put in more normal NIC’s and let the biggest flows travel between PCI slots, this can be tested quite fast and cheap.

/Henrik

8

To Mneumark; Try put in more normal NIC’s and let the biggest flows travel between PCI slots, this can be tested quite fast and cheap.

Yes, but it makes for a low density port router. Someones one needs a 10/12/16 port router.

9

Just to let people know my final solution. I ended up switching out the routerboard 44 in the router and replaced them with dual port intel cards. The latency is way lower, no packet lose, and speed are dramatically better.

Thanks for all your help…