I use these free network tools to find what’s slowing down my internet

When my web begins crawling, I do not simply restart my router and hope for the perfect. I seize these three community diagnostic instruments and systematically work via my community to seek out the true perpetrator.

Community gadget discovery

I all the time begin with Indignant IP Scanner as a result of I must know what gadgets are literally related to my community.

Just a few days in the past, my latency was spiking when taking part in on-line video games. I might have suspected that my neighbors secretly acquired my Wi-Fi password, however I made a decision to verify what was really on my community first. That is once I fired up Indignant IP Scanner to get a whole image of each gadget related to my residence community.

I downloaded Indignant IP Scanner from its official download site and launched the 64-bit installer. After set up, the interface routinely detects my community vary, so I simply hit Begin and watch because it discovers gadgets. The device color-codes the whole lot properly, with purple indicating inactive addresses, blue indicating responding gadgets, and inexperienced indicating gadgets with open ports.

My current scan took simply 36 seconds to verify 254 doable addresses and located 4 lively hosts. Straight away, I might see my GL.iNet router at 192.168.8.1 with its hostname exhibiting as “console.gl-inet.com.” This confirmed my community format and confirmed me precisely which IP addresses had been occupied.

Throughout that investigation, Indignant IP Scanner confirmed all my common gadgets plus one which appeared significantly busy. After some digging, I found it was simply my sensible TV routinely downloading YouTube movies prefer it does each month. Not some neighbor stealing my Wi-Fi in spite of everything.

What makes the device significantly helpful is that it shows MAC addresses and open ports alongside the IP addresses. This helps me establish gadgets even when their hostnames aren’t instantly apparent. I all the time export the outcomes to CSV format so I can examine towards future scans and spot when one thing new seems on my community.

Steady path monitoring

After mapping my community with Indignant IP Scanner, I want to know how my web site visitors behaves on its path to the skin world. PingPlotter provides me steady visibility into latency and packet loss throughout each hop between my PC and any vacation spot on the web.

I downloaded the free model from PingPlotter’s official site and put in it on my Home windows PC. After the 14-day trial expires, it converts to PingPlotter Free, which nonetheless provides me the whole lot I want for WAN troubleshooting. To make use of it, I merely enter my goal like “google.com” within the Host area and hit Begin. I discover {that a} 15-30 minute seize normally provides me sufficient data to know what’s taking place with my connection.

The primary interface reveals precisely what I must diagnose web issues. The highest part shows every hop from my router to the vacation spot servers, with essential metrics together with IP tackle, hostname, common latency, and packet loss proportion.

I love using Perplexity for research. Nonetheless, I seen its service slowing down. As an alternative of assuming it was my web connection, I made a decision to check each Google and Perplexity to see what was really taking place.

My Google check confirmed clear efficiency all through the complete path. Beginning at hop 1 with my router at 2.8ms latency, transferring via my ISP’s infrastructure, and reaching Google’s servers with a stable 10.3ms response time. The timeline stayed inexperienced with regular latency and minimal packet loss.

Nonetheless, once I examined Perplexity’s servers, the story took a totally totally different flip. Whereas my native hops nonetheless carried out effectively, the timeline graph lit up with large purple spikes in all places. The ultimate hop to Perplexity confirmed 55.2% packet loss with latency leaping everywhere. This visible comparability made it crystal clear that Perplexity’s servers had been struggling below load, not my web connection.

What makes PingPlotter invaluable is the way it pinpoints precisely the place issues happen. With out this visible proof, I might need spent hours troubleshooting my very own tools and even complaining to my ISP about their service. Now I do know to simply anticipate Perplexity to type out their server points as a substitute of losing time on my finish.

Exact throughput testing

Whereas PingPlotter tells me about web stability and latency, it may well’t measure precise bandwidth capability. That is the place iPerf is available in. It measures uncooked throughput between gadgets on my native community, serving to me establish doable bottlenecks inside my very own system.

You may run the check between any gadget that has iPerf put in, whether or not that is your NAS and PC, a DIY laptop Plex Media Server and sensible TV, or just between two PCs. For my instance, I will be testing the connection between my Home windows PC and Android smartphone.

To take action, I downloaded the Home windows PC model from its offered Sourceforge hyperlink and the Android app from the Play Store. I set my Home windows PC because the server, and my cellphone because the shopper for testing.

On my Home windows PC, I open Command Immediate within the iPerf2 folder and run this command to begin the server:

        ./iperf-2.2.1-win64.exe -s -p 5001    
    

This launches iPerf2 as a server on port 5001.

For the shopper gadget I need to check the connection towards (my Android smartphone), I opened the iPerf app and entered the next command for TCP testing:

        iperf -c 192.168.8.111 -p 5001 -t 30 -P 4   

    

This connects to my PC’s IP tackle, runs for 30 seconds, and makes use of 4 parallel streams. On this check, iPerf2 confirmed that my smartphone was in a position to switch 1.42 GB of knowledge to my Home windows PC in 30 seconds. That is thought of first rate velocity, as my router is utilizing Wi-Fi 5 and my cellphone is related via the two.5Ghz band.

For UDP testing, the command adjustments barely:

        iperf -c 192.168.8.111 -p 5001 -b 100M -t 10 

    

This checks UDP efficiency with a 100 Mbps load for 10 seconds.

Based mostly on the outcomes, my cellphone efficiently transferred over 100 Mbps of knowledge via a UDP connection.

What makes iPerf2 significantly priceless is its potential to check each TCP and UDP modes. TCP testing reveals sensible throughput for file transfers and streaming, whereas UDP mode reveals doable packet loss below stress circumstances.

I caught with iPerf2 as a substitute of iPerf3 in my instance due to Home windows compatibility points. Microsoft has documented performance problems with iPerf3 on Home windows programs, making iPerf2 the extra dependable selection for my setup. After all, if you happen to’re testing between Linux gadgets, iPerf3 would work higher.

These instruments are best when utilized in sequence. I begin with Indignant IP Scanner to map my community, then use PingPlotter to verify my WAN connection, and iPerf to check bandwidth between my gadgets.

This systematic strategy has helped me resolve points starting from routing issues to misbehaving IoT gadgets. The secret’s having dependable instruments and figuring out interpret their outcomes. With these three free utilities, I can diagnose most community issues in below half-hour as a substitute of spending hours guessing.