Need a Router That Doesn't Suck....On Router #7 Now...

[Stangs55]

I need a robust home router that will work....I'm about to take a shotgun to every other POS router I have lying around.

Unplugged...unused...in my closet right now....I have:
Dlink DGL-4100
Dlink DGL-4300
Linksys WRT54G - DDWRT
Linksys WRT610N
Some Netgear boxes I let my cat shit in

And now...add the latest $250 router, the Dlink DGL-4500 to the above list. This latest router has been my favorite so far and has served me well....for a year....until now....
For the past month, it's been rebooting and crashing whenever I stream HD video across it within 2 minutes of the video starting. Why? I have no efing clue. I've updated the firmware, made sure it's cool and ventilated, rubbed it with cocoa butter....nothing works and now it goes back in my POS pile.

Yes, I'm looking for a "home" router...but I don't have the typical home. I run two 8 port gigabit switches off it hard wired to:
Desktop PC
Desktop PC again
Mac
Xbox 360
PS3
Wii
Windows Home Server (HP EX485)
Slingbox
...And this is BEFORE my wireless....

Needless to say, I'm looking for a router that can handle the above and stop crapping out on me. I need it to be able to:
-Stream 1080p HD video without trouble...multiple streams even...
-Lag free gaming
-Gigabit Ports
-Wireless N
-Not suck

Ideas?

Right now, I'm considering the Dlink DIR-825...I would go for the 855, but I understand that the innerds are "identical" sans the extra antenae...which I don't really need the coverage for). Of course...this is coming for a DGL-4500 that can't stay on anymore. Any other ideas?

 

[Nuwave]

Other than the HD streaming does it give you any trouble? If not than...

Maybe sounds like you should get one 16 port gig switch plugged into the router (or cross connect the two switches together, make sure not to create a loop tho). That will take the load from the HD streaming off of the router, which seems to be whats causing you the most grief.

 

[Jeff7181]

That's an awful lot of routers to go through and your needs are really not that extravagant. Are you putting these routers in well ventilated areas? I know you said it was well ventilated... but what exactly do you consider well ventilated?

*EDIT* I'm not trying to insult your intelligence by the way... that's just extremely odd that you're having that many failures. Leads one to believe there's something unique to your condition that's causing it. I highly doubt it's your usage as I've seen SOHO routers used more heavily than that stand up just fine.

On a side note... you don't necessarily need a gigabit router since you have gigabit switches and if everything is on the same subnet all internal traffic never touches the router. The only reasons I can think of that you'd need a gigabit port on your router is if you have multiple subnets on your LAN or your Internet connection is greater than 100 Mbit, which I highly doubt.

 

[Ka0t1x]

I'd have to side with Nuwave, when the router dies is the traffic hitting the router itself, have you tried only running on the switches and having a link to the router only for WAN connections?

 

[kevnich2]

OP, I'm on Jeff's side here - I use my network pretty heavily (20 some devices) and I've never had a SOHO router actually die on me at all, let alone 7. And as others have said, you don't need a gigabit switch. I have all my wired devices connected to a central switch and then that is uplinked to the my router so that all internal traffic just goes to the switch and only internet traffic hits my router.

 

[Stangs55]

Thanks for all the replies and input.

To address a couple things...
1. You're right, I don't need a gigabit router if I'm using a gigabit switch at the hub...however, I am plugging 2 devices directly into the router, which then goes to 2 different gigabit switches that each have their own devices. In this setup, a gigabit router is needed...however, I can just buy a third switch and place that at the hub--in this case, a gigabit router isn't needed.

2. EVERY one of those routers didn't die. I did retire a couple of them when I moved onto 802.11n. But several have died. The first one did die because of poor ventilation (I had rigged a home networking hub in a closet...bad idea The other routers have "died" in a similar way to this one...they still power on, but when under load of multiple streams they crap out.

3. Yes, the current router only dies when placed under the load of streaming HD video. Other than that, it was worked well.


Soooo...with the above considered, I do like the idea of just adding a more robust switch at the location of the router. Any recommendations for a "business grade" gigabit switch? Really on NEED 5 ports at the hub, but more is always better Let's put the dollar cap at $150-ish.

Thanks again.

 

[Crusty]

I'm a fan of the HP ProCurve line of cheap gigabit switches.

You can get a 1400-8G unmanaged L2 switch for $75 that has 8 ports on it. If you want basic web management you can step up to the 1800-8G. IIRC it can do basics like VLANs and trunking.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833316076

It's OOS @ newegg, but there's a link anways.

 

[Stangs55]

Originally posted by: Crusty
I'm a fan of the HP ProCurve line of cheap gigabit switches.

You can get a 1400-8G unmanaged L2 switch for $75 that has 8 ports on it. If you want basic web management you can step up to the 1800-8G. IIRC it can do basics like VLANs and trunking.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833316076

It's OOS @ newegg, but there's a link anways.

Wow...I really like what I've found to read on these switches

I just ordered one from Amazon with overnight shipping...but I'm thinking about replacing my other two switches (DLink and Trendnet) with two of these...

Anyone else have experience with Procurve switches or something comparable for the money?

 

[sonoma1993]

Originally posted by: Stangs55
I need a robust home router that will work....I'm about to take a shotgun to every other POS router I have lying around.

Unplugged...unused...in my closet right now....I have:
Dlink DGL-4100
Dlink DGL-4300
Linksys WRT54G - DDWRT
Linksys WRT610N
Some Netgear boxes I let my cat shit in

And now...add the latest $250 router, the Dlink DGL-4500 to the above list. This latest router has been my favorite so far and has served me well....for a year....until now....
For the past month, it's been rebooting and crashing whenever I stream HD video across it within 2 minutes of the video starting. Why? I have no efing clue. I've updated the firmware, made sure it's cool and ventilated, rubbed it with cocoa butter....nothing works and now it goes back in my POS pile.

Yes, I'm looking for a "home" router...but I don't have the typical home. I run two 8 port gigabit switches off it hard wired to:
Desktop PC
Desktop PC again
Mac
Xbox 360
PS3
Wii
Windows Home Server (HP EX485)
Slingbox
...And this is BEFORE my wireless....

Needless to say, I'm looking for a router that can handle the above and stop crapping out on me. I need it to be able to:
-Stream 1080p HD video without trouble...multiple streams even...
-Lag free gaming
-Gigabit Ports
-Wireless N
-Not suck

Ideas?

Right now, I'm considering the Dlink DIR-825...I would go for the 855, but I understand that the innerds are "identical" sans the extra antenae...which I don't really need the coverage for). Of course...this is coming for a DGL-4500 that can't stay on anymore. Any other ideas?

if you have a spare computer lying around and few network cards, look into building your own firewall/router using smoothwall express 3.0 sp1. I use smoothwall for my home router/firewall and it working great.

 

[Jeff7181]

FYI, you can daisy chain switches... unless you're talking about remote switches in which case that wouldn't work so well.

 

[Emulex]

WRT600N with dd-wrt (latest brainslayer) is what i rock.

 

[melchoir]

.however, I am plugging 2 devices directly into the router, which then goes to 2 different gigabit switches that each have their own devices. In this setup, a gigabit router is needed...however, I can just buy a third switch and place that at the hub--in this case, a gigabit router isn't needed.

What are these two devices that you're saying are going before the switches?

What you need to do is forget about the router with a integrated gig switch.

You should connect your 2 8 port gig switches together, and then have one of them connect to the router. If this is impossible due to cable runs, then add a third gig switch as you mentioned, connect both switches to the new third, and then connect the third switch to the router.

By doing it in either of these ways, you will keep the traffic separated. LAN traffic won't touch the router to induce any load on it's integrated hardware, and your routers will probably react favorably.

 

[Modelworks]

Put together a pc based router using pfsense or smoothwall.
They have more features than SOHO routers and can handle anything you could possibly throw at it from home.
http://smoothwall.org/
http://www.pfsense.com/
You need a pc, can be anything as old as a p2-450 with 512MB and two nics.


I tried to kill my pfsense box by running torrents, uploads, downloads, streaming video, and anything else I could think of and it never dropped a packet.
This was using a p3-933, 384MB ram , compact flash drive for storage.


To set up all I had to do was connect one nic to a switch, other nic to internet, run the install cd and follow the prompts.

 

[VisionxOrb]

At my house Ive got 4 wired PCs gigabit, 2 Xbox 360s, A WII, A PS3 and a couple of wifi enable win mobile phones. Im using a old AMD64 2800+ with 512mg ram booting off a compact flash card running DD-WRT x86 for the router which is connected to a 8 port switch ( 2 5 ports connect off that in other rooms for the groups of equipment ). Im using a buffalo WHR-HP-54G ( also with dd-wrt on it ) running as an access point for b/g networks and a Dlink DIR-825 in N only mode for both 2.4 and 5ghz.

No matter howmuch streaming, torrenting etc we through at it, never has a hiccup, works flawlessly.

 

[Stangs55]

Originally posted by: Crusty
I'm a fan of the HP ProCurve line of cheap gigabit switches.

You can get a 1400-8G unmanaged L2 switch for $75 that has 8 ports on it. If you want basic web management you can step up to the 1800-8G. IIRC it can do basics like VLANs and trunking.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833316076

It's OOS @ newegg, but there's a link anways.

Don't ever think nobody listens to you

I've replaced all my switches with the Procurve unmanaged switches--overkill? Maybe. But peace of mind is priceless.

I'm going to run in the setup:
Uverse Modem -> DGL-4500 -> Procurve Switch -> 2 Other Procurve Switches

Thanks again for the advice!

 

[drebo]

You know, the 2Wire "residential gateway" they give you with Uverse is actually a fairly powerful router. Any particular reason you aren't using it?

 

[betaflame]

DIR-655, love em. No 5GHz N though, dunno if that matters. About $100 normally.

 

[Lean L]

you can try to buy a cheap last gen cisco router off ebay for cheap

interested in selling that 610 or the dgls?

 

[narzy]

Originally posted by: Stangs55

Originally posted by: Crusty
I'm a fan of the HP ProCurve line of cheap gigabit switches.

You can get a 1400-8G unmanaged L2 switch for $75 that has 8 ports on it. If you want basic web management you can step up to the 1800-8G. IIRC it can do basics like VLANs and trunking.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833316076

It's OOS @ newegg, but there's a link anways.

Wow...I really like what I've found to read on these switches

I just ordered one from Amazon with overnight shipping...but I'm thinking about replacing my other two switches (DLink and Trendnet) with two of these...

Anyone else have experience with Procurve switches or something comparable for the money?

I installed one, it has been GREAT. Plus the lifetime warranty isn't bad.

 

[Perryg114]

I think I am going to upgrade my Netgear GS105 switch with the Procurve. I need more ports anyway. Currently I have two of the GS105 switches daisy chained. I will replace the one at the router with the procurve. The GS105's work fine but they are finicky about cables and they tend to work loose and drop the gigabit connection and default to 100Mbps.

Perry