Recommend a good router that doesn't stall with p2p traffic please..

[sourthings]

Hello all,

I currently rent out a home to university students, there are seven people renting there and I have a high speed internet run through the home using a Linksys wrt54gs v5.0 router.

Not surprisingly there is a lot of p2p and other such traffic going through the router, the router suffers from this issue http://utorrent.com/faq.php#Sp...s_WRT54G_GL_GS_routers

The problem being that the modem and router are locked away in a fusebox in the basement, so when it does freeze up, it cannot always necessarily be powered off and on and the tenants end up lacking internet until I can get there and power cycle the router.

Even with no p2p traffic going on, this router still eventually will freeze up. My question is, does anyone know of a good solid router that does not freeze, EVER ? One that once plugged in and setup will not crash or hang etc. I don't need anything fancy, does not even need wireless, although a simple wireless G router will also work. I just need something reliable, with good QoS options that is certain not to freeze up and need to be powered off and on, regardless of the amount and type of traffic flowing through it.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Griffinhart]

For 7 college students sharing a network connection, don't even look at consumer routers. three or four people running Bit torrents will likely be problematic for even the more robust consumer routers.

You're going to need to take a look at some business class stuff. Unfortunately it looks like they start around the low to mid $300's for pricing.

 

[JackMDS]

If p2p is so important for the well being of some members the best thing to do is to get them thier own Internet account and Router.

It is not so bad, after all they save a lot of money by getting the staff "free" on p2p.

 

[jaqie]

Actually, as long as you run a good third party firmware, a WRT54GL will suffice - providing you optimize the daylights out of the onboard QoS options. I was running ten heavy internet users with my WRT54GSv3, DDWRTv24beta, and a heavily optimized QoS table in it, and the RAM usage was never really over ~8MB used of the 32MB in my GSv3 so a GL could do it.

Something you *HAVE* to understand about the WRT54GS/GL/G series is that the problem with locking with p2p and such is the firmware, not the hardware - this is why they are so popular, as there is third party linux based firmware available for them that turns them into a low-end cisco router in functionality (which would run you a good $400+) of which the hardware is actually similar in spec, the only real difference is serious development and optimization of firmware....which third parties have done with the WRT54G family of firmware, such as DD-WRT. - with one little nitpickish type thing - the ventillation isn't the best in their casing, so if the WRT54G family is under heavy load all the time, it should have a small ventillation fan modded into it, google shows many results on this from horrible to well done. Personally, I merely added a heatsink to the CPU on mine.

Barring that, you could set up an old PII or PIII or such and smoothwall, m0n0wall, pfsense, et cetra... again you will have to do some serious optimization of QoS rules to get appreciable speed out of it.

 

[JackMDS]

Nah, the WRT54GL with DD-WRT might solve the problem for one or two users.

Here the OP is talking about 7 users with a lot of p2p.

 

[jaqie]

As I had just got finished saying in the post you replied to, I had been managing ten heavy internet users on my WRT54GS and it never used more then 8MB ram, which is what the WRT54GL has.

 

[bluestrobe]

Dlink DFL-210

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=2&pid=512

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: bluestrobe
Dlink DFL-210

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=2&pid=512

Yap, a dual WAN with second Internet connection might cut the "Mustard".

 

[jaqie]

You do realize you can set up a WRT54GL for dual WAN, right?

 

[JackMDS]

Originally posted by: jaqie
You do realize you can set up a WRT54GL for dual WAN, right?

Hmmm... What is Dual WAN AFAYK?

 

[jaqie]

Well let's start with a bit of a technological overview of the WRT54G family of routers.

There is actually a single switch in the router, which is logically partitioned on setup by the firmware through (IIRC) two GPIO data ports. The factory WAN port is actually on the same physical switch as the LAN ports, lending the router the physical ability (with proper firmware modifications, which DDWRT has, along with a few other third party linux based firmwares for SOHO/home routers) to have the firmware assign seperate VLANs to the various ports. To be more specific, the WRT54G series can physically handle up to 4 WAN ports using either BGP if you have a business class internet solution including BGP protocols, or via a round-robin pseudo-loadbalancing functionality for home based internet providers without BGP. The only real performance bottleneck of the WRT54G series is inherent to the MIPS architecture of the CPU design, lacking any true IRQ functionality, forcing the firmware to instead rely on polling techniques, but for a home router or even a SOHO router, a 200-233Mhz MIPS based processor is actually sufficient to deal with up to about three home-level internet connections at once, provided they are not extremely high bandwidth such as the Verison FiOS is, in which case a true x86 compatible architecture would actually be more benefeciary then the little MIPS that could, to paraphrase. This is all discounting using the WIFI as one of the ports, my scenario and discussion thus far has been centered around an all-wired configuration using the WRT54G family of products, adding the wifi as a primary (either wan or lan) link will decrease the amount of processor power available to do QoS, VLAN, and other functions, especially when using an encryption protocol such as WPA2.

 

[JackMDS]

Yap, you can create Dual WAN like situation with some of the Routers that takes DD-WRT.

It is a process that is usually beyond most End-Users skills, it works in a limited way, has problems with some of the Router's features.

It is not even recommended directly by DD-WRT but rather a Interesting projects by members on its forum.

This does not mean that it is bad but under such situation, when given advice to people over the Internet it would nice to disclose things like this and Not send people chasing Red herring.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

Sounds like someone has become a WRT fan-boy.
I used a WRT54GL with DD-WRT for awhile, and it just couldn't take it. I had a fan in mine because i ran very very heavy P2P it would choke so much, i would have to reboot it all the time. So i finally moved to a P4 2.6ghz running mikrotik and i use about 10% of its cpu.
I moved because the WRT finally craped out. All the lights on the front came on and it never worked again. It wasn't bricked it was totally melted. I noticed the internet wasn't working so i went and looked at it and it was super hot, even with the fan i put on the top of it. which was a 80mm fan. I opened it up and it was so hot i couldn't even touch it. That was the last day of the WRT. Moved to Mikrotik and have never been happier.

Also, i question using it as a Dual WAN router. Sure its possible but if your going to spend that much on internet your going to have something better then a crappy Linksys product. That would be like Hooking up a OC-48 to a P2 based laptop with a 10mbs network card.

 

[Genx87]

Heh I remember back in school we had a single roomate using one of those P2P programs. I'd like to say iMesh? Anyways when he started doing his thing it took the entire effing thing down. My solution was to unplug his dumbass from the 8 port switch that was connected to the DSL modem.

Like clock work about 3 mins later he'd come up asking what happened. I played dumb and said. No idea, been playing Tribes. Eventually on the 3rd attempt he'd stop trying for the night.

 

[jaqie]

Nick: how can someone be a "fanboy" when they are a woman? No, I am not a rabid fan of WRT series, as I said above, for the heaviest use (in more then one of my posts) it would be better to run an x86 architecture system combined with something such as m0n0wall, pfsense, smoothwall, et al. Your usage was definitely out of the purview of the WRT series, but I use p2p very heavily from time to time as well and have had no problems ever since I put a good small heatsink on the cpu in mine.

 

[jaqie]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
It is a process that is usually beyond most End-Users skills, it works in a limited way, has problems with some of the Router's features.

This is why I only mentioned that it is possible with it in passing later on down in the thread and not in my original reccomendation post.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

Originally posted by: jaqie
Nick: how can someone be a "fanboy" when they are a woman? No, I am not a rabid fan of WRT series, as I said above, for the heaviest use (in more then one of my posts) it would be better to run an x86 architecture system combined with something such as m0n0wall, pfsense, smoothwall, et al. Your usage was definitely out of the purview of the WRT series, but I use p2p very heavily from time to time as well and have had no problems ever since I put a good small heatsink on the cpu in mine.

Fan-boy is a term that can describe a man or woman.

 

[jaqie]

In your world, maybe. I don't think most men would like to be called female terms as if they were one of the women, so don't do it to us.

Back on topic: It is not a matter of being a rabid fan of the WRT series, it is a matter of having such a low opinion of most other routers on the market (combined with knowing this particular one better then the other low dollar OSS routers out there). As Daria once said, "I don't have low self-esteem, I have low esteem for everyone else!"

 

[jlazzaro]

fanboy (fan·boi) - A term used to describe an individual who is devoted to a single fannish subject, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession.

human (hu·man) - A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H. sapiens.

mankind (man·kind) - All of the living human inhabitants of the earth.

...yes, im bored at work.

 

[jaqie]

Since you are so good at looking things up and going offtopic, perhaps you should look up, oh, I dunno, "boy" and "girl" since you seem to have trouble with the birds and the bees and the difference between the sexes.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

I can't believe you have a hard time with the term fanboy, Do you take all things so literally?
Thats obviously not the meaning. And I'm not sure if you read the definition.
fanboy (fan·boi) - A term used to describe an individual who is devoted to a single fannish subject, or to a single point of view within that subject, often to the point where it is considered an obsession.
Note that is says INDIVIDUAL, Not boy or man.
So it is not a Male or a Female term. I think these terms are called Unisex. Look it up.

Also, You talk about being off-topic so much yet you respond to such items. If you wanted to stay on topic take it to the Private Messages.

jlazzaro: Nice, I didn't even think of that. huMAN or MANkind.

 

[JackMDS]

So please let?s go back to the topic at hand before I move the thread to OT.

sourthings, summarizing the thread?s suggestions thus far.

If you are a Linux maven, try to hack your current Router and see if it withstands the Traffic.

If your Internet bandwidth is strong enough to support the need for the traffic generated by the users, you can try a semi professional Router/Firewall. Sonicwall, and some others sell them for few hundred $$$.

If you are incline to boost the traffic by getting a second Internet connection, a semi pro Dual WAN Router (like the D-Link mentioned above) might e the solution.

 

[xgsound]

OP: The simplest immediate solution would be to install an external switch outside the locked area for the router so the renters can cycle on demand.

That should give you a breather to decide how far you want to go with a better router, or tell them to get their own additional internet if this doesn't meet their demand, or do both. Doing both sounds like the a good deal to me.

In the past JackMDS has suggested a Zyxel (? is it this one Jack)(if you get this get a better wall wart) http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833181218 at $70 that comes with some QOS capabilities and others have suggested a D-link http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833127215 at $130 that comes with QOS capabilities also.


Jim

 

[JackMDS]

xgsound, you are right usually I would recommend the same measures that you mentioned.

However, I have the feeling that it would Not work since we are talking here about 7 independent adults that are into Internet and p2p, as oppose to an individual with few computers, or small family.

If it was my rental endeavor I would say to the renters, the Internet as is with No p2p. Or additional cost for Internet with better p2p and I would install a second line.

 

[NickOlsen8390]

I would recommend anything that supports heavy QOS, I would implement heavy QOS before i got another internet connection.