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Question I need a reliable, stable router for medium size home

T

Tomtennant

Junior Member
I’m tired of buying routers. I have a 3000 sq ft home and the router sits right in the middle. I have no access issues from anywhere in the home. What I need is a router that doesn’t die after a year of use. I have a stack of about 5 routers that I have used over the last 5 years. My last was a Netgear R7000 that was awful. The included Circle by Disney functionality decreased the throughput of my 75/75 FIOS connection down to 5/0.2 MB when enabled. They still haven’t fixed that. Each new firmware is more buggy than the last and their support is terrible.

Anyway, I am looking for a router that will last for a few years and provide stable 2.4/5/wired connections. That’s about all I need. Each router I’ve had (multiple Netgear, D-link, multiple Linksys) has started dropping connections (usually wireless but sometimes wired), having trouble with DNS resolution lookup (tried OpenDNS, Verizon, Google servers), or just slowed to a crawl on throughput.

I don’t have a lot of throughput needs. Maybe one streaming video service (Netflix) going while my son is watching YouTube or playing Xbox, but other than that I just need stable internet browsing and email. I think a 2.4 and one or two 5G channels are plenty. AC1700?

I am willing to pay $300 for a space-ship router but the one’s I’ve bought before fail just as quickly as the $50 ones. Do I need a dual-core processor? The ASUS ones say one core is for wireless and the other core is for USB. I won’t be using the USB port at all but I don’t want to wait on buffering if Netflix and YouTube are running at the same time.

Any recommendations?
 
Routers die all the time, just usually not as fast as you described.

What died probably were the power bricks? Caused by unreliable power source (voltage up & down)?

A UPS with voltage regulator might help.

==

Ubiquiti & AmpliFi (same company) products are considered enterprise grade at consumer price.

Maybe

https://www.amazon.com/AmpliFi-Ubiquiti-Seamless-Touchscreen-Expandable/dp/B01L9O07FS

https://www.amazon.com/AmpliFi-Ubiquiti-Seamless-Wireless-Extenders/dp/B01L9O08PW

https://www.amazon.com/AmpliFi-Ubiquiti-Seamless-Wireless-Extenders/dp/B07KTQKLW2

==
or combine Ubiquiti wired router with its access points.

==
Synology is new player. But has been in NAS business for a long time.

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-RT2600AC-Wi-Fi-Gigabit-Router/dp/B01N5MPTG1

==

Don't own any of them personally.
 
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ch33zw1z said:
So it's either very hot, the power isn't in spec, or both.
Click to expand...
Yes, something, environmental or electrical, is wrong, in that location you chose to place your router in.

(Is it in a cabinet or closet?)

Also, you mention other family members, do any of them Torrent? That can put extra stress on a router, and slow down connections / cause normal browsing to fail if router is overloaded, and can stress less-than-perfectly-engineered routers, and cause them to overheat, and yes, die prematurely, because the internal CPU / chipset isn't heatsinked properly.

It seems to me, that assuming that torrenting is going on, that you need to sttep up to a small industrial-grade PC, and run pfSense, or another router/gateway/UTM distro of Linux, and use basically a small PC as your router, as they will be more powerful, more robust, and more flexible. (You mentioned Circle by Disney, and how it slowed down your connection speed. Something like a pfSense box, or Sophos UTM, would likely be able to handle some content-filtering and A/V / anti-spam, without being too bogged down.)

I was planning to go that route, but I have thus far been happy with my AC68U and my meager personal demands on it. (I have a gigabit FIOS line.) I don't normally torrent, but the Verizon G1100 and AC68U (running Tomato!), handle torrents OK. I don't know about overheating, sometimes the 2.4Ghz goes out on the router, but it was a refurb when I purchased it a few years back.

Edit: Tell me, OP, have you tried an Asus AC68U, with or without 3rd-party firmware? (MerlinWRT is another popular one.)
 
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Not, not in a cabinet or closet. It is sitting in the family room on top of the media cabinet. No torrents, or high use activity. I am running a UPS on the entire entertainment center - LCD TV, sound bar, DVD, and DirecTV receiver (nothing high current draw). I think they are all just designed to be disposable and I, unfortunately, get the worst of the bunch.

I think I’ll try the Ubiquiti EX-R router and see if I can use one of these as a pass through WiFi access point. If not, I’ll get some stand alone access points.

Edit: Nope, never tried an ASUS brand unit
 
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I’ve ordered a EX router and a UAP AC LR. Should be here later in the week. I’ll make sure the UPS is up to scratch and providing clean power.
 
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