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Cost of a router that isnt a POS

B

Bill Lumberg

Junior Member
So I mistakenly assumed that connecting 2 systems via a router to share an ip was going to be easy. Many trips to Best Buy later....

4-port wired routers 40-60$
D-link lasted 3 days
Linksys DOA
Linksys Randomly stops working, wont reset.

So D-link is junk, we should all agree on that?. Linksys is acceptable trash since they a 1-1.5yr? life. My last router was a Seimens and it lasted for years without a problem (roommate jacked it but I still see them on ebay 4 yrs later now). These new routers cost more money, are complete cr@p, and don't have print servers.

What do I need to spend to get a router that last more than a few days and something I wont be wasting my life returning every week?

Its not the outlet my entire system is plugged into it. If you all think Linksys is ok, then I'll try it again.
 
I've had very good results with D-Link, Netgear, and Linksys wireless routers. My current Linksys WRT54G is well over a year old and working perfectly. I have several Linksys routers running in the office I manage and have never had a single problem with any of them. My in-laws have a Netgear wireless router (I forget the model) that has been running strong since January of last near.

The fact that you have had four different routers fail in such a short amount of time tells me that you either have extremely bad luck, or yes, there is something wrong with the outlet you are plugging them in to. If you have your computer and the router(s) plugged in to a power strip/surge protector, it is possible that the one outlet on the strip that you are using for the router is bad. If/when you get a replacement router, try plugging it in to an outlet on a completely separate power circuit in the house, preferably in a different room if possible. This may not work as a permanent solution, but will at least give you a better idea of what happened to the other routers. If the router works in a different location, try a different power strip - or at least a different outlet on that power strip - in the location where you want the router to be set up permanently.
 
Never had such hardware problems with my routers all these years. I once had a compusa model die after a year but that was definitely heat related as the unit got blazing hot during the day; not at all surprised it crapped out after a year of that. Otherwise, the only gripe I have is with the router's software operation but the wrt54g completely changed all that with the numerous firmware alternatives out there. Oh, and print servers on routers are not typically found anymore because they are very simplified types which were meant for old school printers that aren't bidirectional unlike the printers found today.
 
avoid the wrt54g now, it has crap vxworks firmware and has some issues.
The wrt54gs is still linux based, and reliable IMO.
 
Do you do any hardcore P2P? That can cause problems (rebooting, etc.) with a lot of SOHO routers. It shouldn't BREAK them but it will make them unstable.

- G
 
Originally posted by: Garion
Do you do any hardcore P2P? That can cause problems (rebooting, etc.) with a lot of SOHO routers. It shouldn't BREAK them but it will make them unstable.
Click to expand...

I don't p2p hardcore, just maintain a steady stream of traffic. Nothing too 'hardcore', maybe 50kb/s constantly.

Thx for the resonses guys, I'll make another trip, hopefully my last trip. =)
 
If you've had 4 failures within that amount of time I would suspect its something else on the network. 50kb/s constantly is also considered a medium to medium/high amount of traffic for home use and will heat up some routers to failure.
 
Wait, Kb or KB? coz 50 kilobits (~6KB/s) is nothing. If you're pulling 50 kilobytes (400Kb) then yes, that could be too much for some routers.
 
I meant kilobytes, not kilobits. I had my FTP server running on my WRT54GS and it was getting noticeably hotter. I had to throttle down the connections to keep it normal temps. I've seen home grade routers die within days from high constant bandwidth usage.
 
I'm suprised no one has suggested this yet. What about a old, cheap pc and something like m0n0/smooth wall or some other linux/bsd firewall distro ?

I have a p200mx with 64 megs of ram running m0n0wall off a 16mb CF card and it has been solid since I installed it.
 
I use SMC, D-link, Netgear, Buffalo, Linksys, Belkin, Hawking, Proxim.

They do not work always at the full ?Rosy? specs., but None of them ever ??Crapped??.

Hmmm?. I am probably just lucky!

:sun:
 
Old-school (pre-v5) WRT54G and WRT54GS routers have been 100% solid for me with third-party firmware. Ditto a low-end Belkin router.

In all cases, I'm putting the SOHO router on a decent UPS with surge/spike filtering. I am sure that if you plug it straight into noisy power, it's going to affect the box's longevity. These things are heavily cost optimized. If the manufacturer has to choose between saving a few pennies on input filtering capacitors the unit lasting another year, they're going to save those pennies. Witness the recent Linksys WRT54G cost optimization where they cut the RAM and Flash in half though they have to pay royalties on VxWorks, the net savings of a few cents a unit was more important to Linksys than shipping a fully working product or maintaining their good reputation.
 
I agree that it sounds like it may be a power issue that's causing most of your headaches. If you do want to give something a little higher-end a chance, take a look at the SonicWALL TZ 150.
 
Or use a computer-based router. THAT won't fail because of too much network traffic. Make sure you are running a software firewall, though.....
 
I have an SMC Barricade with built-in parallel print server that I've had for many years. Never had a problem. Also have al inksys hub, netgear wireless and smc wireless and I've never had a problem with any of them.

You just must have really bad luck.
 
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