Cisco RV042 Router and Linksys VPN Client Performance with Remote Desktop

Hi,

Thanks for the quick response.  I setup a port forward for the 3389 port and connected to the router using just the remote desktop.  The performance was about the same.  I did run a bandwidth test while connected with the VPN tunnel.  The results I got back were surprising.  The upload speed only averaged about 124Kpbs and the download speed dropped to 1.2Mpbs.  Is this normal for a VPN connection?  I do have concerns about the quality of the VPN client I am using as it has no options for configuration at all.  I have read a lot about it and the general consensus seems to be that is it not good.  I wonder if I got another of these routers and did a site to site VPN if I could get better performance.  Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Brian

I had another thought about this problem that I wanted to share.  I am behind another Netgear VPN router so I thought it might be causing some problems.  I by passed this router and connected the cable modem directly to my computer and tested the bandwidth during the tunnel session on the remote site.  It came back the same slow speed so I don't think the Netgear router I am using is the problem.

I don't know the actual averages in speed reduction for a VPN connection, but I do know that you lose speed due to the overhead used to encrypt all the packets for the tunnel.  I also know the Linksys client isn't that great at all.

Based on everything you have said I would say upgrading your bandwidth would be best based on the following:

-You tested doing remote desktop directly to a client machine (not via the VPN) and stated the quality was about the same.  You also said that gotomypc works fine, but it auto adjusts quality settings for lower quality (whether it be disabling or lowering resolutions for background, images, & overall desktop experience), yet this was not acceptable.

You can lower the quality of your desktop experience via Remote Desktop client, however you want the best quality which requires more bandwidth.

Your Netgear VPN router sounds like it's fine & I would not worry about it.

Thanks for the information.  I am working with our internet service provider to see if they can reproduce the problem on their end.  I'll post again when I have more information.

The ISP worked with me to see if they could reproduce the problem.  They used a regular DSL circuit like we are using an a Cisco concentrator.  The speeds they were getting were very good and the difference between the 512Kbps and 1Mbps upload speeds were minimal.  This leads me to believe the problem is not with the speed of the connection now.

One of our employees that needs to connect using this VPN ran some test for me.  He uses the same ISP that we use at the office.  I had him use the remote desktop connection client he has on XP to connect directly to the computer that is behind our VPN router ( I just did a port forward for the 3389 that RDC uses) instead of making a VPN tunnel.  He didn't have any trouble with the speed or performance when he connected in this manner.  I then asked him to create a tunnel with the VPN client I gave him and then remote desktop connect to all three computers that we need to access.  One machine is an XP box and the other two are Vista business.  He didn't have any problems with speed when he accessed the XP box and one of the Vista machines.  The other Vista machine had the speed problem that I am experiencing at home.

After all of this, I thought that the problem might be on my end so I setup of my router to allow a RDC to access my machine at home.  I had a user that was on a completely different ISP than what I am using at home and what we are using at the office connect to my machine.  He had no problems with speed or performance.  

I don't know what to think about the situation now.  In summary I have one Vista machine that is slow performance wise for one user that is using the same ISP and I have a problem with all three machines not performing well using both a VPN tunnel and a direct connection to the machines on my end.  Does anyone have any ideas on what I should try next?

Thanks,
Brian

I am still trying things but I am still running into problems.  We did increase our DSL speed to 1Mbps up and 10Mbps down but I haven't seen any improvement on my end.  I am thinking that the problem is with the router settings and no necessarily with the VPN settings on the router.  This is because I am see that same slow performance when I just remote into a computer thru the port forwarding on the router that I have setup.  I am thinking about trying a different router just to see if I have a setting or configuration problem with the RV042.  Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I came across another issue that might be related to the problems I am having.  I took the port forward off of the router for the remote desktop connection.  For some reason, I can still remote into the machine that I had setup with the port forward even though the router doesn't show that the port is forwarding.  I tried rebooting it to make sure that the changes were updated but it still allows the connection to the computer behind the router.  Does anyone know why this would be that way?