Hello,
Was wondering if there is anyway of limiting the amount of bandwidth a pc can receive. This is principally because I'm finding it increasingly difficult to play online games because my sibling (who is plugged into the router) is constantly on the internet streaming, dling, and chatting .
Help would greatly be appreciated
Regards,
Cookeh

It very much depends on your router.

If there is something in the settings then yes, if not then no.

TBH I would be surprised if a consumer level router had that kind of feature set.

The only other option would be some form of small server for it.

Erm, its an Orange Livebox if that helps. .
I must admit I haven't looked through the setup yet, was just wondering if there are any existing programs or anything like that around, or even if someone happened to know of any methods xD
Cookeh

Unless your computer is acting as a server for sibling's connection there's nothing you can do from your machine, that's for sure.

Certainly the French ones are very flakey, in my experience.

Well, Im British so . . .
But ok, thats a shame, its getting frustrating tbqh
Cookeh

Um, have you tried talking to said sibling?

Is a new router an option? There are some with QoS settings which are not that expensive, although I've never actually tried one myself. They are often advertised as "gaming routers", and if you Google you'll find loads of information.

Another option would be to run a Linux PC as a firewall. It could double-up as a file server and loads of other stuff, and even a 5 year old machine could well be up to the job. The downside is the electric bill and the size and noise of running it all the time. However, it's a very fun project if you're into that kind of thing.

The simplest solution, as Jon said, is to simply talk to your sibling. If the bandwidth is being eaten by a file sharing app, then make sure you set the upload and download limits to something fair. The upload is absolutely critical - even with no downloads, if you saturate the uploads then your connection grinds to a snails pace. With zero downloads, a saturated upload can increase your ping to over a second. Guaranteed death.

Alternatively, you could see if there are any alternative software options for your router.

I use dd-wrt on my router and it has lots of QoS options which would definitely work for you. It's just a question of whether your router has the right hardware to run it or not. Google is your friend when you want to discover such information.

Ok guys, thanks for the help, much appreciated
I will definately look into it some more, and I ahve now realised the Google is indeed my friend
Cookeh