Smoothwall Random Drops in Internet Speeds

[TSEARS]

We are facing a strange issue with our Smoothwall; we seem to be having drops in internet speeds at random times throughout the day. Our speeds are usually around 700/800mbps but will often drop to 10mbps or even lower. 

 

We believe it's Smoothwall as if I plug a laptop straight into both our HP Routers while we are experiencing the issues, the speeds are fast as expected. Also if I connect to a network we have that does not go through the Smoothwall the speeds are also fine. 

 

Smoothwall have provided some support, but has not found the issue and are suggesting it may be something on our network, which I'm not convinced as we have proved not going though Smoothwall fixes the problem... 

 

Any suggestions on what to do next? 

[Joeloman]

If you are still on Leeds, there is a big difference in performance to update to Maiden.

 

Sometimes it can be a network card that has problems, have you checked the Kernel log?

If you see "Detected Hardware Unit Hang" then the advice is to do a reboot and then monitor if the error returns.

[TSEARS]

Thank you for the reply, we're already on Maiden

 

I have checked the Kernal log, nothing standing out, only a few martian destination errors. When we have the issue, rebooting the box doesn't seem to resolve it, after a bit of time it just seems to speed up. But I have noticed we have slower speeds when we have lots of users online

[Joeloman]

If you don't already have it, always use the Internal Smoothwall DNS cache and check the speed of the DNS you use.

 

Feel free to use Wireshark, both when it works and when it's slow.

Sometimes there can be traffic that interferes that shouldn't be there.

Once a virus created a virtual network card that cried out for DHCP (only fixed IP on that network). When about 100 computers cried out for DHCP, the network became slow.

[CrootUK]

What hardware are you running on? 

Are you using fiber or copper? 

[tom_newton]

Please let me have the ticket # and I will take a look. TBH, if a reboot doesnt make a difference that is a very strange issue. Are you sure the smoothwall isnt being throttled upstream. When it's slow, what does a curl from the smoothwall cli look like?

[TSEARS]

16 minutes ago, tom_newton said:

Please let me have the ticket # and I will take a look. TBH, if a reboot doesnt make a difference that is a very strange issue. Are you sure the smoothwall isnt being throttled upstream. When it's slow, what does a curl from the smoothwall cli look like?

Thank you, the ticket number is 585485

We have had ups and downs this morning, one minute getting 10mbps then moments later getting 400/500mbps. Plugged into the router and speeds are normal 

We've not tried anything in cli yet

[TSEARS]

Our RAM usage always seems high: 

[tom_newton]

High ram usage is normal. If it's there, we might as well use it for caching etc 

[tom_newton]

Looks like there's a bit more intricacy in the case - load balancing connections? I can see Alex is working with you on that, I'll keep an eye on progress 

[TSEARS]

On 21/03/2025 at 09:46, tom_newton said:

Looks like there's a bit more intricacy in the case - load balancing connections? I can see Alex is working with you on that, I'll keep an eye on progress 

Alex has been very useful in trying to resolve the issue, but sadly not yet been resolved. We have noticed that when we have slow speeds throughout the day, there are always 2 cores running at 100% throughout the duration of the slow speeds, and when speeds improve, these cores settle down. Have you seen that before? We are using HTOP to monitor the usage. Sorry to reach out on here again, but we are getting real pressure from senior management to get this resolved. Also worth noting that the past 3 weeks has been fine as we have been on easter break so low usage on the internet. 

Edited April 24, 2025 by TSEARS

[tom_newton]

Let me have a little dig