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I've absolutely had it with store bought POS routers. Want to build my own.

Keysplayr

Keysplayr

Elite Member
I'm thinking Mini-ITX Atom Dual core based with about 2GB RAM and FreeBSD PFSense. Been doing a little research. Anyone take on a similar project?
Suggestions?
I just can't handle the Linksys/Cisco, D-Link, NetGear, etc. etc. Garbage they are pumping out. No matter how expensive a unit you get, (last one I bought was the ASUS RT-N65U for 140 bucks) it still only lasts about a year before I need to start rebooting it two or three times per week to get it to work right (wireless mostly), which is what I'm doing with this current router now. Garbage.. Never again after this one.

I'm considering this Mini-ITX Intel/Atom board.
http://ark.intel.com/products/56462/Intel-Desktop-Board-D2500CC

Has two Intel Gb NICs and a PCIe Mini card slot for and Intel wireless/bluetooth module. The ATOM is a 1.86GHz dual core and I figure 2GB SODIMM DDR3.
 
Were you running the store-bought routers with factory firmware? Or did you flash DD-WRT or Tomato? I've very rarely had any problems with 3rd-party firmware.
 
I had a Linksys/Cisco E1200 before I bought this ASUS. I flashed DD-WRT onto it. I had to reboot the router still. DD-WRT is nice, but it can't fix garbage hardware.
I'd try DD-WRT or Tomato on this ASUS, but, I'm done. So forget that DD-WRT or Tomato exists for now. Once I have my mind set on something, it won't go away until it's done. hehe.
 
Build yourself a Mikrotik router with a PCIe card added on for Wifi. They make many different Router boards and many different PCIe cards depending on what Wifi band you want and the output power desired. I have one in the center of my house and my iphone pulls in full signal strength anywhere in my acre lot.
 
Keysplayr said:
(last one I bought was the ASUS RT-N65U for 140 bucks) it still only lasts about a year before I need to start rebooting it two or three times per week to get it to work right (wireless mostly), which is what I'm doing with this current router now.
Click to expand...
Note that the problem might not be the router proper, but instead, the power brick. I've had otherwise very reliable routers with DD-WRT start to flake out on me after a few years. I discovered, after I had purchased new routers, that replacing the power bricks, brought the old routers back to life like they were new.
 
Mungla said:
Build yourself a Mikrotik router with a PCIe card added on for Wifi. They make many different Router boards and many different PCIe cards depending on what Wifi band you want and the output power desired. I have one in the center of my house and my iphone pulls in full signal strength anywhere in my acre lot.
Click to expand...

Did you have any issue with the setup I suggested? Mikrotik also use pretty slow single core CPUs unless you spend big bucks. And they use RouterOS which is purely console driven which I don't much care for.
 
man i've got 50+ folks on a 4th generation airport extreme - never gets rebooted! even have a 5th generation extending (wirelessly) now!
 
Poor power control has been the issue with most of the devices ive had issues with. Either the power brick starts to die or the outlet has dirty power.
 
You can also get a Ubiquity Edgerouter Lite and run BSD Unix and they are working on a PFSense port right now. They have a good firmware though so I just use the factory firmware. The Edgerouter Lite is under $100 and I never have to reboot mine.
 
could always go with an i3 running sophos utm home.
pricey but can't really beat real time antivirus/antimalware.
 
Keep in mind that if you want concurrent dual-band, you'll need two wireless NICs. Which you can do if you use both the mini-PCIe and the PCIe slots.

You can get something like this for the full PCIe slot for 3x3 11ac on 5GHz and then use whatever in the mini-PCIe slot for 11n on 2.4GHz.

(There currently are no 3x3 11ac chipsets that fit in a mini-PCIe form factor; the BCM4360 is the most common 3x3 11ac, and it's used in most 3x3 11ac routers as well as client devices like the card here or the cards in Macs--but none of those are mini-PCIe. Broadcom did submit a mini-PCIe reference design a month or two ago for FCC approval, but that's not something you can buy yet.)
 
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Ayah said:
could always go with an i3 running sophos utm home.
pricey but can't really beat real time antivirus/antimalware.
Click to expand...

This is what I run at home. Originally it was for an IPSEC VPN to work, but I've found so many more uses for it, like blocking all traffic to/from China. 🙂

*EDIT* Actually, I have Sophos UTM running on an Atom box with 2 GB of RAM. Has no trouble keeping up with my VPN traffic, 24 Mbps downstream bandwidth, real time virus scanning, DHCP and of course all the usual rules you'd expect on a firewall.
 
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alkemyst said:
I have a Cisco C819 working. I would not recommend a soft router unless you really need it.
Click to expand...

Why not? It would have more powerful hardware than almost any retail consumer wireless router and not made with the cheapest crud that can be scraped off the floor in china's factories. And the *nix based os and routing apps are pretty stable. And that for that 1200 dollar cisco one could build 4 top quality pc based routers?
 
code65536 said:
Keep in mind that if you want concurrent dual-band, you'll need two wireless NICs. Which you can do if you use both the mini-PCIe and the PCIe slots.

You can get something like this for the full PCIe slot for 3x3 11ac on 5GHz and then use whatever in the mini-PCIe slot for 11n on 2.4GHz.

(There currently are no 3x3 11ac chipsets that fit in a mini-PCIe form factor; the BCM4360 is the most common 3x3 11ac, and it's used in most 3x3 11ac routers as well as client devices like the card here or the cards in Macs--but none of those are mini-PCIe. Broadcom did submit a mini-PCIe reference design a month or two ago for FCC approval, but that's not something you can buy yet.)
Click to expand...

Good to know. Thanks. So with the mini-PCIe card I can run 2.4GHz b/g/n and the PCIe card to run 5GHz ac? Or something like that? I don't think I currently have and devices in my home that utilize 802.11ac at the moment. Just g or n at this point but that will incrementally change over time.
Thanks again for this info. very useful.
 
Keysplayr said:
So with the mini-PCIe card I can run 2.4GHz b/g/n and the PCIe card to run 5GHz ac?
Click to expand...

Or vice-versa. A dual-band WiFi NIC has only one radio, so it can provide a signal on either 2.4GHz or 5GHz, but not both bands at the same time--for that, you'll need two radios, and thus two NICs. Which NIC you use to handle 5GHz and which one you use to handle 2.4GHz is up to you (subject to the card's capabilities, of course). But if you do get a 3x3 11ac card, it would be a waste to assign it to 2.4 duty. 🙂
 
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Keysplayr said:
I was thinking going this route:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128721

with an Intel Celeron G1820, a mini ITX case. 2GB DDR3 and 30GB SSD.

I have a bunch of choices for an OS. IPCop, PFsense, etc. etc. Just have to decide what is best for my use.
Click to expand...
The 1st ethernet chipset is intel, so you should be able to get drivers for that for linux and freebsd (pfsense) easily.

The 2nd ethernet chipset is atheros. There seems to be a linux driver, but I'm not sure about freebsd.

I can't tell what the wifi is. The angled picture shows the antenna's connected to an intel card, so maybe something like an intel 7260 ac with bluetooth built-in? It might not have freebsd support. I only see linux drivers.
 
another vote for pfsense. been using it for almost 10 years now... it rocks, to say the least.

the only thing is wireless drivers for freebsd are hit and miss. i've never bothered with it and just offload my wireless to an AP.
 
OogyWaWa said:
another vote for pfsense. been using it for almost 10 years now... it rocks, to say the least.

the only thing is wireless drivers for freebsd are hit and miss. i've never bothered with it and just offload my wireless to an AP.
Click to expand...

While that would work as you say, to me, it kind of defeats the purpose of building your own wireless router if you just offload the wifi to a store bought POS over the counter router that will have to be rebooted just as usual.

Unless you did something completely unlike what I just said. 🙂
 
With all due respect I used for years Buffalo HP Wireless Routers and Now Asus Dual Band Wireless Routers.

I never experience the horrors that many users intensively "Drama Queen" about.

When using a Computer as a Router the Wireless sources are Wireless cards which are Not as Good as the Wireless arrangement and design and build of a good Wireless Routers.

The amount of electricity that computer/Router cost is 5 times (or more) of Wireless Router.

That said if your are set on using a Computer with Router software, build one but for the Wireless part use something like this.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Netw.../B00D80J2XU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1409181454



😎
 
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JackMDS said:
With all due respect I used for years Buffalo HP Wireless Routers and Now Asus Dual Band Wireless Routers.

I never experience the horrors that many users intensively "Drama Queen" about.

When using a Computer as a Router the Wireless sources are Wireless cards which are Not as Good as the Wireless arrangement and design and build of a good Wireless Routers.

The amount of electricity that computer/Router cost is 5 times (or more) of Wireless Router.

That said if your are set on using a Computer with Router software, build one but for the Wireless part use something like this.

http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Netwo...qid=1409181454



😎
Click to expand...

I'm happy for you, Jack. No, really.
Thanks for the suggestion and I'll try not to drama queen too much. I currently use an Asus RT-N65U
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wire...al-band-wireless-n750-gigabit-router-reviewed
And I still need to reboot it once or twice per week to get wireless devices working again.
 
Keysplayr said:
While that would work as you say, to me, it kind of defeats the purpose of building your own wireless router if you just offload the wifi to a store bought POS over the counter router that will have to be rebooted just as usual.

Unless you did something completely unlike what I just said. 🙂
Click to expand...

you're wireless router is actually three different things. a router, a switch and a wireless ap. Most home use routers suck and have issues which you speak of. however, a lot of them work great just as APs or they even sell AP only variants. All the AP needs to do is act as a hub for the wifi<->ethernet.

Offloading all the routing work to something like pfsense makes a lot of sense and is immensely more powerful (in routing capacity and customization). When I investigate friends' networks with similar issues, I often find they are taxing the hell out of their crappy home router and this is causing hangs/reboots. These routers can only handle so many open connections (states)... on top of that they have to do all the switching and Wifi. Pfsense completely kicks ass at handling 10s of thousands+ open states while performing complex routing on top of that. You can even throw in SNORT and "invisible" http antivirus. as long as you have enough ram/disk... it doesn't even hiccup.

Of course if your wireless AP is a POS then you're not solving your current problem... but there are plenty of quality APs out there.

i recommend you ditch your current router for a pfsense replacement that can be expanded. once you get pfsense (or whatever os you want) running, then try using your current router in AP only mode. if it still sucks, get another one. alternatively, get a wifi card and try wifi directly from your new box...

As much as i would love to shove a nice pcie wifi card in my pfsense box and let it do all the wifi work too... the hardware/drivers just aren't there.

fyi, my setup is:

()--[ONU]--(pfsense router)---(switch)---(asus rt-n65U in ap mode)--( wifi clients )
|-- other hardwire devices
 
There are so many networked (wireless or wired) devices in my home it is no wonder these store bought routers cant cope.
6 smartphones
6 tablets
3 gaming systems all wireless
Smart tv and blu ray devices
3 laptops
5 desktops
Its ridiculous.
I can even use two or more APs to split the wireless load.
 
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