Network slowdown.

[fivefeet8]

We have a DSL line with a speed rating of 1.5meg/128kb down/up speed. It's usually normal and fast. A Netopia R910 router sits between the DSL modem and our private LAN. We have 2 VPN connections setup to 2 offices in other cities. Whenever someone at one of the other offices uses a shared directory and works or dowloads large >2 meg files or looks at their email with Outlook which then has to transfer emails with large attachements from Exchange on our LAN to the other offices, the network here slows to a crawl.

I've checked the Netopia and it seems to indicate a lot of network collisions as the collision light on the Router blinks red every few seconds. I check the Netopia using telnet to log in and the CPU load on the router is hovering around 90-100%. Our upload bandwidth is also probably loaded up to it's max I'm guessing as well. I've also made sure no system in our LAN is using the network during that time, but the network is still very slow.

Questions::

1. Would network collisions cause that much of a load on the Router?
2. Why?
3. How would I go about resolving it other than increasing our outbound internet connection speed?
4. Would a new more powerful router handle the collisions better?

Thanks.

[Runningman]

This router doesnt support QOS, i would look at purchasing a new boarder router with more advanced features. Really whats killing your router is the VPN connections. why not setup a linux box with squid on it, then you can have full control over, logging and other more advanced settings.

[fivefeet8]

This router doesnt support QOS, i would look at purchasing a new boarder router with more advanced features. Really whats killing your router is the VPN connections. why not setup a linux box with squid on it, then you can have full control over, logging and other more advanced settings.

Questions:

1. Would Squid running on a Linux box acting as a proxy server also able to create and sustain VPN tunnels? Or would the VPN tunnels need to be created behind the proxy?
2. Having to change all the workstations we have to use the proxy server for internet access is not something I'd like to be doing. Many of the systems we use(notebooks) are setup for VPN point-to-point remote access as well.
3. Would a more advanced router fix the issue even though our bandwidth is still limited?

[Runningman]

1. Would Squid running on a Linux box acting as a proxy server also able to create and sustain VPN tunnels? Or would the VPN tunnels need to be created behind the proxy?
yes, its just that its more then just squid.It's a little more complex then that. I would probably go with an all in one router that can do all of the features you need. I dont know if you know cisco, no one ever lost there job going with cisco.

2. Having to change all the workstations we have to use the proxy server for internet access is not something I'd like to be doing. Many of the systems we use(notebooks) are setup for VPN point-to-point remote access as well.
actually if you setup your network with DHCP, you can just make the changes within that protocal.


3. Would a more advanced router fix the issue even though our bandwidth is still limited?
yes, i think your problem is that the router that you have now doesnt support QOS and is on the slow side of things.

I dont know what size your office is but i would go with a cisco 2600xm series router.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/routers/ps259/index.html