ASUS Network iControl SUCKS

[ClayMeow]

So I trying to upload a 970MB file (Thesis project) to WeTransfer (needed to send it to a group member) and it was uploading at around 0.02MB/s...left it running overnight and after about 20 hours, Firefox crashed before it could complete. Needless to say, I was fuming.

 

I thought it was my ISP that was the problem - speedtest.net was showing an upload speed fluctuating around .55mbps, which is still way faster than my upload at WeTransfer, but still well below what I should be getting. Then I tested on another computer and I got 2.0mbps!

 

Winds up it was the stupid Network iControl in the ASUS AI Suite II that was causing the problem. This build is only about a month old and I guess it was enabled by default when I had installed it. It's supposed to prioritize traffic, but obviously sucks at it. It was set on auto, where it should prioritize whatever is active. But just to test it, I created a profile that set Firefox to always be high priority and it was still only hovering around the .55mbps mark. So I turn it off completely, and voila....upload speed is back to normal and the 970MB file is about to finish up after just 30mins.

 

Curiously, download speed was not negatively impacted with it on, only the upload speed. Weird. But whatever, I have a fast enough connection - I don't need some stupid network monitor "prioritizing" traffic, so eff that shit.

 

So figured I'd post this as a warning to anyone else that may be using it - you may not even notice until you go to upload a big file.

 

 

tl;dr - ASUS AI Suite II Network iControl was "capping" my upload speed, so if you're using it, go test for yourself because it may be doing more harm than good!

[freddie]

Not entirely sure but it could have something to do with P2P traffic.

[ClayMeow]

Not entirely sure but it could have something to do with P2P traffic.

WeTransfer is not a P2P site, plus I tried uploading to my school's server (still slow), and the speedtest.net test was coming back with slow numbers as well. After I discovered that was the issue, I Googled "ASUS Network iControl" and it seems I'm not the only one who has discovered the problem - and like me, it seemingly only negatively affects uploads. BTW, when I was uploading and doing the tests, I had nothing but the browser open - no Steam.

 

I'm wondering if it's also the reason that every so often Google and YouTube would take forever to load for me - Google to the point where sometimes results weren't even returned (I'd just get a blank page). I thought it was an issue with the Instant Search, so I turned that off the other day, but now that I've discovered this Network iControl issues, I've turned Instant Search back on and we'll see if I have problems or not - I'm going to guess not.

[freddie]

Not saying it is but upload speeds are usually limited to reduce P2P traffic. P2P traffic (especially uploading) slows down the rest of the network and the ASUS iWhatever was deprioritising uploads thinking it was helping (obviously not)

So yeah.. pretty much useless unless if you want to throttle uplink P2P traffic on the network and don't know how to configure your router but then again its probably not worth the side effects.


Why ASUS felt they had to make this program? I have no idea..
 

[ClayMeow]

Not saying it is but upload speeds are usually limited to reduce P2P traffic. P2P traffic (especially uploading) slows down the rest of the network and the ASUS iWhatever was deprioritising uploads thinking it was helping (obviously not)

 

So yeah.. pretty much useless unless if you want to throttle uplink P2P traffic on the network and don't know how to configure your router but then again its probably not worth the side effects.

 

 

Why ASUS felt they had to make this program? I have no idea..

 

Yeah, I get what you're saying - I guess it can be beneficial to computer illiterate types that decide to dabble in a little P2P, but I would think most ASUS motherboard owners would be smart enough to know how to throttle P2P within the appropriate clients and not need a network prioritizer to babysit it. I've never let any P2P program use unlimited upload bandwidth, that's just stupid.