does constantly enabling/disabling wireless on a router shorten its lifespan?

[Turbonium]

I usually disable my router's wireless before gaming (I'm convinced it slightly lowers my ping due to lower overhead for the router, though I could be totally wrong).

Will disabling/re-enabling wireless on a regular basis shorted the lifespan of the router? I'm not sure of the answer, since I don't know what is actually happening when I do this through the router's control panel.

My main concern though is cutting/initializing power to whatever controller(s) is/are involved with wireless, and to a lesser degree the antenna itself.

 

[ch33zw1z]

It will be fine. but what you're doing is unnecessary...unless you have someone in the house who is torrenting while you game 😛

 

[Turbonium]

It will be fine. but what you're doing is unnecessary...unless you have someone in the house who is torrenting while you game 😛

Can you tell me what actually happens when I toggle the option though? Like at the electrical/hardware level. I'm really curious.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Can you tell me what actually happens when I toggle the option though? Like at the electrical/hardware level. I'm really curious.

No idea, it's probably not the same for every device. It's probably just a service that is disabled at the OS level.

Going into electrical engineering? 😀

 

[Turbonium]

No idea, it's probably not the same for every device. It's probably just a service that is disabled at the OS level.

Going into electrical engineering? 😀

Lol, no. I'm generally curious about a lot of things.

 

[mfenn]

It depends on the particular router as to how exactly its implemented, but what generally happens is that its going to do an ifdown on the wireless interface. That'll put the router's wireless NIC into its lowest power state, which will in turn have the NIC tell the physical radio to turn off. That shuts off power to the radio's power amplifiers.

As for your question, no it isn't going to hurt anything. The radio regularly turns its power up and down for normal power-savings purposes. You turning it off manually is a tiny fraction of the overall power events.

 

[piasabird]

There is probably all kinds of outside interference with a wireless router from phones to people trying to steal your wireless signal. Even police radios probably interfere. The stronger your wireless setup the more interference you can be receiving.

 

[mfenn]

There is probably all kinds of outside interference with a wireless router from phones to people trying to steal your wireless signal. Even police radios probably interfere. The stronger your wireless setup the more interference you can be receiving.

What? No. The stronger your wireless setup, the more interference you could be producing. You'll receive the same amount of interference whether or not your radio is 1mW or 10W.