Please recommend me a router that works with bittorrent!

[fuzzybabybunny]

There are two users who use this router, my roommate which is on the wireless, and myself. I'm hooked up via an ethernet cable.

When he's downloading torrents my internet connection completely and utterly dies, even up to the point that I can hardly even connect to the router itself (192.168.1.1)

I've tried installing the DD-WRT firmware but it just flat out doesn't work. I can never get DHCP to renew and I've tried toggling all settings, cloning the MAC address, power cycling the modem and router, etc, and the DD-WRT forums have nothing further to add.

Even without the bittorrent, I'm not satisfied with the router. Every so often just out of the blue the internet connection will die, and I have to reset.

Can anyone recommend me a good router that will stay connected to the internet and can handle heavy loads like with bittorrent? Hopefully something that you've actually used...

Please don't recommend WRT54G v4, v3, etc. because I can't find them, or $500 enterprise level routers.

 

[mikeford]

My WRT54GS was $5 +$8 s&h from fon.com, but you have to run their firmware and allow semiopen access to the wireless for a year. 4 months and zero connects to mine so far.

http://www.roumazeilles.net/news/nw/news0068.php Has a chart of routers with comments on torrent performance.
http://www.bthq.net/btfaq.html more of a general faq on BT

I use a cable modem and from time to time the router gets out of sync with the cable modem and I have to power cycle it, but this happens maybe once a month that I catch it anyway (could somehow fix itself while I am offline and I would never even see the problem).

Should be some way to keep roommate from hogging all bandwidth, try a rolled up newspaper, no good reason for them to run a BT while anybody else wants to use the net.

 

[vorgusa]

I would think any new router would do a good job. you probably should tell your roomate to die down the bittorent... you should use this one. even though it is a business router it is not that expensive and you can just hook up your current wireless one too it and turn off a lot of its settings like DHCP http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php?masterid=3064068&search=rv042&op[]=page,71,1

 

[cmetz]

fuzzybabybunny, the WRT54GL is the same as the older WRT54Gs that you can't find anymore. In theory, they're the same as your v5 router *except* that yours has half the flash and half the RAM. The flash just means it's a PITA to hack, but the RAM could be a show-stopper with programs that open a lot of TCP connections.

Someday when I have a free afternoon (ha!) I'm going to hook a few SOHO routers up to my lab's traffic generators and do some real quantitative testing. This question comes up a lot.

 

[TheSophist]

Try using the DD-WRT firmware again. I have the same router as you and I host 3 servers which are accessed by FTP over Fiber. My upload and download are constantly maxed out as I also have multiple users using one of my servers through terminal services. Bit torrent is always on and is used by 3+ users at a time. It takes a bit of work to do, but once you get it running it will be solid.

I bet your problem is with your ISP. Call them up and tell them what you are trying to do. Many ISP's lock down your connection to a specific authentication type as well as one MAC address.

 

[ColemontHD]

Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
There are two users who use this router, my roommate which is on the wireless, and myself. I'm hooked up via an ethernet cable.

When he's downloading torrents my internet connection completely and utterly dies, even up to the point that I can hardly even connect to the router itself (192.168.1.1)

I've tried installing the DD-WRT firmware but it just flat out doesn't work. I can never get DHCP to renew and I've tried toggling all settings, cloning the MAC address, power cycling the modem and router, etc, and the DD-WRT forums have nothing further to add.

Even without the bittorrent, I'm not satisfied with the router. Every so often just out of the blue the internet connection will die, and I have to reset.

Can anyone recommend me a good router that will stay connected to the internet and can handle heavy loads like with bittorrent? Hopefully something that you've actually used...

Please don't recommend WRT54G v4, v3, etc. because I can't find them, or $500 enterprise level routers.

DSL or Cable. First off, start there, check with them and see if there are any problems.

 

[mikeford]

Hey I just stumbled across this at Buy.com, sounds like it might help, it looks at the packets and sets a priority by the type of application, BT get low, voip etc high. Hawking Broadband Booster. Goes between the existing router and the cable modem or DSL.

 

[InlineFive]

Originally posted by: mikeford
Hey I just stumbled across this at Buy.com, sounds like it might help, it looks at the packets and sets a priority by the type of application, BT get low, voip etc high. Hawking Broadband Booster. Goes between the existing router and the cable modem or DSL.

To me that just adds another layer of unnecessary complexity. And it doesn't seem very configurable, which is a major downer in my book.

And unfortunately it wouldn't solve the problem of the WRT54G crashing.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: TheSophist
Try using the DD-WRT firmware again. I have the same router as you and I host 3 servers which are accessed by FTP over Fiber. My upload and download are constantly maxed out as I also have multiple users using one of my servers through terminal services. Bit torrent is always on and is used by 3+ users at a time. It takes a bit of work to do, but once you get it running it will be solid.

I bet your problem is with your ISP. Call them up and tell them what you are trying to do. Many ISP's lock down your connection to a specific authentication type as well as one MAC address.

I actually don't think it's a MAC address thing because when I plug the modem right into my computer, which has a different MAC address from my router, internet still works. When I cloned the MAC address with the DD-WRT it still wouldn't connect...

 

[ShOcKwAvE827]

I have the same problem i have a wrt54g v6 andutorrent causes my http to die. The torrent will still work and IM/gaming still works perfectly but surfing grinds to a halt. I have dd-wrt installed and still the same problem. It's hardware for sure. A lot of people are having this problem but there are no fixes it seems.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Well, I've been playing around with torrent settings. We use uTorrent, and in options > preferences > BitTorrent under Global Maximum Number of Connections is the setting for how many simultaneous TCP/IP connections can connect to your computer, and thus through one's router.

I've learned that many consumer level routers can't handle all that many connections at the same time without dying. My WRT54G v5 seems to be maxed out at around 500. The default value in this Global Maximum Number of Connections field is 250. When my roommate and I use uTorrent at the same time that's 2x250 = 500 simultaneous connections, plus all the connections from general internet browsing, IM, streaming radio, etc. This completely destroys the router.

The Fix:

Set Global Maximum Number of Connections to a lower setting. I set it down to about 175 connections for each computer and now, even when both of our torrents are at full tilt, internet browsing is still possible, albeit a little slow and choppy, but still usable.

 

[vorgusa]

my router can handle a ton of connections without slowing down anything else.. you should try getting another router if it annoys you

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Originally posted by: vorgusa
my router can handle a ton of connections without slowing down anything else.. you should try getting another router if it annoys you

I know... that's the purpose of this thread...