New Wireless Router

porchrat

porchrat

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Hi all

I've been running an SMC Barricade as a router. It has served me relatively well over the years but for a while now it seems to be battling with the load being put on it. For example if I try to copy some large file across it while someone else is trying to stream something on Youtube the router will often crash. When I say crash I mean the entire thing reboots itself, I lose all connectivity for a minute or 2. Lately it seems to actually be crashing even with little to no throughput. I'm guessing there is some sort of intermittent fault in it at this point.

It seems to crash less when I transfer files through wired connections.

Anyway I've lived with it for a while but it is now becoming a serious annoyance and I am looking to replace it. What sort of router would you guys recommend. It needs the following:

  • straightforward interface would be nice (Tendas for example tend to have pretty bad interfaces - I don't really want to have to struggle)
  • SPI firewall (preferably one I can turn on and off should I need to)
  • 4 ethernet ports (10/100Mbps is fine but if I could get away with 1Gbps ports without paying extra that would be cool)
  • some nice high gain antennae would be great
  • able to run WPA/WPA2 mixed mode
  • support for 802.11b/g/n
  • MAC address filter
  • automatic channel selection would be useful (the option that scans for the channel with the least interference on it - there are a lot of competing wifi networks nearby and this feature on the Barricade has been wonderful)
  • I don't need ADSL integration - just a plain old NAT router
  • other standard stuff like DHCP on the WAN side and not just the LAN side etc.

If I think of anything else I will add it but overall the requirements are pretty standard. I just want something that isn't going to be a mission to maintain but is still robust enough to not cut off the interwebs every 5 minutes.

I was looking at the TP-Link WR1043ND but I've read that it does tend to drop wireless clients often so I might end up back where I am now. :p

Anyway any suggestions you guys might have would be great.
 
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What about Billion? I recall they had a nice router with Firewall, QoS, 4 Network points, USB etc. Can't recall the model though.
 
creeper said:
What about Billion? I recall they had a nice router with Firewall, QoS, 4 Network points, USB etc. Can't recall the model though.
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I'd forgotten all about them. Will take a look thanks.

EDIT: A lot of their stuff seems to want to integrate ADSL2+ routers into the router. I already have the ADSL side of things covered and am just looking for one without the ADSL. Darn it.
 
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nic777 said:
Do you have a particular budget range? I see the TP-Link you wanted was about R600.
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Yea I know a guy who will give me a discount of at least 15% on it. That is about as high as I am willing to go though. I would prefer something in the bargain basement range of like R250 before VAT obviously (thought I had put that in the OP, sorry about that :p) and there is a Tenda I found around that price at Scoop but its interface doesn't even mention firewalls let alone SPI so I'm not so keen on it. The interface is also utter garbage. I will fork out for that TP-link if it means I avoid that awful Tenda interface.

There is a ncie Bullfalo router with DD-WRT already installed so you could do amazing stuff with it. I will check first if it also matches your requirements: http://www.buffalotech.com/products...station-highpower-n300-dd-wrt-wireless-router
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DD-WRT is that open source firmware project right? - is it easy-ish to use? I mean I am relatively proficient at networking but some of these interfaces are truly diabolical.

I actually want to check to see if my Barricade is supported to try and flash it first to see if I can't salvage my beloved Barricade (in case you hadn't noticed I HATE throwing away hardware, (I still have IDE HDDs)).

EDIT: this Buffalo thing looks awesome!! Looks pricey though. Will look at specs to see if it fits my needs and of course will look at prices.
 
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Just check if Barricade is not overheating, that would explain rebooting on increased load. Bulged capacitors on PCB or poper supply unit. Check with other power supply.
 
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sajunky said:
Just check if Barricade is not overheating, that would explain rebooting on increased load.
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I have it mounted up on a nice cool wall far away from everything. I can't imagine that it is overheating. It doesn't have a thermostat in it so I don't know how I would tell if it is overheating. I've never experienced it being so hot that I can't touch it or anything... is that what you mean by overheating?... we talking cpu type levels of heat?
 
Hi There,
I tend to need the ADSL side for my routers so don't tend to look at those that don't have it.
However in terms of interface Netgear is pretty good as is TP-LINK. Both are easy to configure.
Yes the Buffalo looks like it would fit your needs to. It retails for about USD45 so should be in the budget. The local agents Miro don't have a price on their site but there are contact numbers. You can get to them here

Regards

Tim
 
porchrat said:
I've never experienced it being so hot that I can't touch it or anything... is that what you mean by overheating?... we talking cpu type levels of heat?
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I can be wrong, but this is a typical symptom of overheating. It is no matter whether it feels hot, matter is what is internal temperature of the die on which the chip is built. If it has a radiator, things are similiar to the CPU overheating due to the deterioration of thermal compound. Not easy to detect by a finger. If it doesn't have radiator the chip itself can feel quite hot and still work properly. So perceived condition can be misleading.

I don't want to abuse yout patience, in this case generated heat is maximum 2W, but wanted to point that still it can be overheating. :) Never experienced that your optical device can read successfuly poor quality media when cold and in higher temeratures (or immediately after burning) starts generating reading errors and even stops responding?

Quality of power supply can deteriorate over the time if capacitors are getting dry. With increasing load (it happens during transfering files) voltage ripple excede allowed value and microcontroller resets at random times.

These are just possible cause. Don't be upset, I can take your router and will tell you what happened. :)
 
sajunky said:
I can be wrong, but this is a typical symptom of overheating. It is no matter whether it feels hot, matter is what is internal temperature of the die on which the chip is built. If it has a radiator, things are similiar to the CPU overheating due to the deterioration of thermal compound. Not easy to detect by a finger. If it doesn't have radiator the chip itself can feel quite hot and still work properly. So perceived condition can be misleading.

I don't want to abuse yout patience, in this case generated heat is maximum 2W, but wanted to point that still it can be overheating. :) Never experienced that your optical device can read successfuly poor quality media when cold and in higher temeratures (or immediately after burning) starts generating reading errors and even stops responding?

Quality of power supply can deteriorate over the time if capacitors are getting dry. With increasing load (it happens during transfering files) voltage ripple excede allowed value and microcontroller resets at random times.

These are just possible cause. Don't be upset, I can take your router and will tell you what happened. :)
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LOL trust me if this router left my place for even a day there are folks that would have my head. I've simply been told to replace it. I'd be happy to take a look at fiddling with it to see if I can't get it working again once I've got a working alternative. :p

These are all interesting possibilities though thank you for the information. I do know someone who is close by that can take a look at it and that thought hadn't even occurred to me :p.
 
Tim the Techxpert said:
Hi There,
I tend to need the ADSL side for my routers so don't tend to look at those that don't have it.
However in terms of interface Netgear is pretty good as is TP-LINK. Both are easy to configure.
Yes the Buffalo looks like it would fit your needs to. It retails for about USD45 so should be in the budget. The local agents Miro don't have a price on their site but there are contact numbers. You can get to them here

Regards

Tim
Click to expand...
Ah Netgear is another brand I had forgotten about. Silly me. Will look.

Thank you for info on the local agents for the Buffalo. Much appreciated.
 
Pity about your budget as the ASUS RT-N66U would have been a much better router for what you need and more. I have never had any problems with ths router since I bought it more than a year ago. It has a lot of features for an ordinary home router. :)
 
Ryansr said:
Pity about your budget as the ASUS RT-N66U would have been a much better router for what you need and more. I have never had any problems with ths router since I bought it more than a year ago. It has a lot of features for an ordinary home router. :)
Click to expand...

+1 for Asus. I have the N56U, brilliant performance and not a single problem since day 1. Definitely worth the extra bucks.
 
Ryansr said:
Pity about your budget as the ASUS RT-N66U would have been a much better router for what you need and more. I have never had any problems with ths router since I bought it more than a year ago. It has a lot of features for an ordinary home router. :)
Click to expand...

semaj said:
+1 for Asus. I have the N56U, brilliant performance and not a single problem since day 1. Definitely worth the extra bucks.
Click to expand...

Yup... +1 from me too. And if Jola and Mike Smit see this thread, I'm sure they will agree.
But...
They are pricey... :(
 
Jeez that ASUS looks good. Has about a zillion features I will probably never use but man does it ever look up to the challenge.
 
OK for those who were following this thread I'll provide an update.

I ended up buying a TP-Link WR1043ND and gave it some usage before giving my opinion on it. It has solved my problems. This is a great router so far. No more crashes, I could push anything I want across it without having it fall over. I'm even considering trying out the media server feature it comes with using an external HDD.

Just used the standard firmware the thing shipped with. Didn't bother with dd-wrt because it was so solid as is and it is nice to be able to hang onto that warranty.

Anyway thanks all for your participation in this thread.
 
Nice gigabit FTW, what data transfer speed do you get now when you copy over the network ?
 
Dan C said:
Nice gigabit FTW, what data transfer speed do you get now when you copy over the network ?
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Haven't specifically been monitoring it to tell you the truth. Just was so much faster than the Barricade (and without falling over :p) that I was speechless.

I will do a transfer and check for you. I doubt wired is going to be a true reflection of the capabilities of the router though as at the moment I don't have a device with a gigabit port in it, only 100Mb/s.
 
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