The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

All routers are bad, though those netgear ones aren't quite so bad as most.
As far as wireless N goes, you will still be very disappointed compared with wired ethernet.

 

Hmmm. Perhaps a powerline adapter could be an option. I've used one before. Excellent technology! For the BD player in the living room

 

Powerlines are better than wireless, but still markedly inferior to ethernet. They are sensitive to interference, and also produce well above acceptable levels of it themselves, and are thus not suitable for anyone who uses RF-sensitive equipment. They also do not carry a great deal of bandwidth, though adequate for video streaming at least, where Wifi is not (not even Wireless-N except in clean environments).
You should always try and run ethernet where possible, even if it's hard work, it pays off.

 

I agree... fact of the matter is, I'd have to go under the house to run a wire for the BD player. Last time I was under there, I discovered I'm highly claustrophobic. I was freaking out big time. I even heard voices that were not there LOL!

 

We just ran cable trunking along the skirting / staircase. Pretty cheap and easy.

 

Houses really need to be equipped with multiple ethernet lines! I imagine they do that now though
My step dad always speaks of getting a laptop. So that wireless connection would be needed. I guess I'm gonna find out just how good the Netgear is. Seems like the most logical choice at the moment. However expensive. For myself however, I'll continue looking for a cheaper reliable modem option.

That does seem like a good idea, by the way.

 

Kev,

All Wireless isn't bad! And like you I was looking at that same Netgear as I too have the Actiontec crap. Is hardwire better? Of course it is!

Here is one I've been considering, seriously... However they aren't DSL modems too.

ASUS RT-AC66U Dual-Band Wireless AC 1750 Gigabit Router IEEE 802.11ac, IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, IEEE 802.3/3u/3ab

And here is a D-Link but I'm not impressed with their through put, it is never per their spec.

D-Link Amplifi Cloud Router 5700 (DIR-865L), Wireless AC 1750, Dual-Band, Gigabit, USB SharePort

There is a third and it is as fast as the other two plus has DSL2 but I've lost the link that I like even better then the ASUS, wish I had the link still...

As far as the voices, it was god speaking to you telling you not to go under the house! LOL

 

I'm afraid DSL modem is a must. Obviously I need something to interpret the phone line signals
I swear I heard my mother through the floor, saying "Hi honey!" To the dog, like she usually does when she arrives. When I came out though, no one was home. I have very serious anxiety issues. No doubt my mind was playing tricks on me LOL!

 

I have to disagree, Wireless G has been fine streaming relatively good quality 1080p for me, on a somewhat borderline laptop. Some wait when seeking but meh, flawless playback.

Omega you are not alone. I have experienced the same thing and have had severe anxiety most of my life. It can really suck.

 

Don't you mean the standard 5port switch/wireless access point? Cheap ones that can't turn off remote access, leaving you wide open?
I use a small business 4 port(gigabit) router and for wireless, a Buffalo WAP/repeater plugged into one of it's ports. I setup static IP mapping using the MAC table of everything in my house, and then turn off all unused addresses.

A bad DLink is the reason i went to my current setup a year ago. Ran hot and needed power cycled often. I had an older model, but with all the same features.

 

I'm not sure I understand the first comment, I didn't say anything about wireless security?

I've had bad routers from almost every brand out there, it's a real minefield, no company is really safe from producing lemons until you get to business grade, e.g. proper cisco routers (not linksys). Still, given that they have no GUI and you need to understand basics of cisco networking to program them, and they're pretty damn expensive, they're not exactly ideal home routers...

 

I thought you meant bad as in security/gui/feature set, not bad as in dies in 6 months. And although I've trained on "proper" cisco units before, i didn't mean to imply i employ one in my home. I meant to imply that the feature set of some of those cisco/linksys are the same as "proper" ones with advanced routing, acl's, vlans, vpn and such. Maybe i shouldve just said that instead of a cool little story about how i use some features that most router/wireless combos don't have

 

I've got a DIR-655 and it just doesn't perform well with bandwidth plus the constant measuring bandwidth screen when things go south drives me nuts, it's like just let me into the gateway so I can do something about it. It has tons of great features but if it limits your throughput, what good are the features.

With exception to Netgear's cap problems a few years back they have been rock solid performers for me and by far the best of all others I've used which is just about everything with exception to the really cheap off brands. Most of my home network is large frame business class gear the only limiter is my Actiontec modem and the D-Link router.

 

Well, Kevin, I don't have the network experience of guys like Steve, or others, but I run three houses with various mixtures of ethernet and wireless.

Like Steve, my one Netgear was rock solid, and I have it back in the box, and you might want to buy it from me - it's a DSL modem/router combo. Details at bottom of this post.

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Besides that, I use 4 pieces of linksys equipment and they have been flawless. The main router at my house is an apple airport, the original round type, about 6 years old - maybe older, maybe 8 years old. My brother is a Mac guy.

But I have a linksys access point Wireless G in my trailer/office, running my trailer ethernet lan. And I have another identical linksys Wireless G access point upstairs grabbing the signal from the apple, and powering a small lan one person is using up there for his xbox and laptop, boosting the signal for him - his laptop was getting 1 Mb/sec wirelessly, and now it's getting 8Mb/sec through the access point coming in now through the ethernet port. Those linksys devices look identical to the two Cisco/Linksys WRT54G routers that I have in two houses up in LA, running from cable modems, except the access points just pull the signal and send it through cat 5 to the local lan and they can't provide sub-addresses.

The two WRT54G routers up in LA have been in service for 3 years, one, and 3 months the other, flawlessly. Both were bought used from Amazon for less than $30 delivered, from the same reseller, Save the Earth Books. He is a good guy so when I needed the second router 3 months ago, after dropping AT&T and switching to the cable company, I bought again from him, and each time he included a cat 5 patch cord.

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Back to the Netgear, regarding a DSL modem, I can't remember if you said you DID NOT want a combo router, but that is what I was using. Once again, it is a Netgear, which as Steve mentioned above, has been a rock solid performer for him.

It is now back in the box like new, due to my deciding to terminate the phone service with AT&T, (after they jacked up the bill from $16/mo to $38/mo) and instead I signed up with Time Warner cable, which I already have in another relative's house up there, and that was on April 2.

The Netgear, specifically is a DSL combo modem/router N300 Wireless ADSL2+ Modem Router (DGN2200) and if you want to buy that one, I'll sell you mine, cheap. I paid $49.95 for it in refurbished condition last September 13, 2011, plus shipping total $55.44, and I don't know what refurbished means, exactly, but in my experience sometimes it means brand new - something somebody returned and the manufacturer looked at it, and tested it out as working, but couldn't exactly resell as brand new. My present usb keyboard is a high end lighted logitec that newegg has for around $80, but when I bought it 3 months ago, they had some refurbished for $40 which is what I chose. This thing arrived looking brand new and is the greatest non-gaming keyboard I have ever owned. So I often take chances on getting refurbished, and so far I have not had any that did not appear to be new.

So if you want this particular one, it is still like new, back in its original box - don't ask me why I kept the box - and as I said, I think it was pretty much new, and I had it in service from last September to this past April 2. You can have it for $20 plus UPS shipping - they are right around the corner - and I don't know freight to Oregon but it is not a big item - to LA I can ship something like that for $8, so I am guessing about $10. (I'll give you a money-back 1 year return on it, lol.) If you're interested, send me an email - harvardguy at harvardguy dot com, as I don't get to the forum everyday but usually do check my email daily.

Rich

 

a rough history

2003-c. 2005:BT Voyager 100/105 USB Modems: No hardware issue, but only XP drivers, and drivers that disabled the shutdown script of windows so if you used them you had to power off your PC by holding the power button in - not good for the OS!
2005: D-Link DSL-G604T: Lasted about 6 weeks before failure (per hour of uptime, had a 6 hour cooloff session before it would reconnect PPP)
2005: Linksys WRT54GL (used 2007-2012): Could not initially use as the 'designed for use with' modem I bought it with was not compatible. This is not a combi router, but with custom firmware has worked fine up until I upgraded from 40 to 70Mbps broadband. Now it simply can't handle the bandwidth and bogs down to about 25Mbps. Doesn't crash though.
2011: Linksys WRT54GL - ordered a second to try out - with the stock firmware at least, dropped PPP connections at least 3-4 times a day. Did not want to flash a factory-new router, so consigned it as useless.
2005: Netgear DG814: Defective from new (crashed every few hours)
2005-2010: Linksys ADSL2MUE - worked fine, but surprisingly for an ADSL2 modem, only supported ADSL1. Other limitation was a bandwidth limit of 512B/s (4Kbps) in either direction if the temperature exceeded about 35C. Was eventually required as I wanted ADSL2!
2010: Linksys AM200 - After the success of the first of these used (see below for gear we used in the student house), I tried another. Failed after 1 week, dropping sync every few minutes.
2010-2011: Netgear DG834GT - Used up until 40Mbps VDSL line installed, without incident.


2007-2008: Speedtouch 780WL - worked fine for 3-4 months, then for the last 3-4 months required two fans, a 92mm for the power brick (3500rpm) and a 120mm for the router itself (2400rpm) were used - if either of these fans were turned to below 75% speed, the router would crash. Eventually, they stopped being of any help, and router was binned.
2008-2011: Linksys AM200 - worked without incident until we left the house.

At the moment I'm still looking for a suitable router that will deal with 80Mbps bandwidth, for now my server is routing just with Windows ICS and PPPoE.

 

Belkin F5D7230-4 Wireless G and been running fine for well over a year now. Obviously would be a bottleneck for something like Sam's connection but considering my average of about 30-32Mbps it's fairly adequate for my needs. And for the average American home 30Mbps is a pretty serious connection.

Seconded on commercial Cisco hardware. Have some experience with Cisco stuff and have never seen a dead Cisco switch.

 

Zero issues with the WRT54GL on tomato on 40/10, at 4675KB/s down and 1055KB/s up. Once it went up to 67/20 though, the max speed which I get via my server is about 8050KB/s down and 2075KB/s up, but the WRT bottlenecked it down to about 3200KB/s down and 1200KB/s up.

Currently looking at getting a Western Digital MyNet router.

 

Interested now to try without the router and see what speeds I get. Speedtest is largely useless on my connection though as it has a temporary speed boost at the beginning of downloads where it spikes to about 60Mbps.

Best test I've found is downloading Battlefield 2 patch 1.5 from FilePlanet's high priority servers(being a file of sufficient size and priority to allow my connection to max out). Hovers between 3.5 and 4.5MB/s. Most other downloads average about 3MB/s but high priority downloads from fast servers almost always average like 3.8-4MB/s with obvious spikes and dips due to several factors.

The line itself is advertised at 30Mbps.

 

Very common with cable services as the speed is artificially determined by the service provider, and not by the physical limitations of the infrastructure as-per DSL, so you will often see those spikes when speed-testing.

 

That was quick, lol. Edited my post for better wording. The 60Mbps boost is actually an advertised feature for accelerating small downloads.





See? It's very variable. This is part of steady increases since I first paid for the line at 8Mb. It very quickly increased to 18 for the same price, then 30.