Replacing my Router: An Adventure !

[Bucknekked]

I wanted/needed to replace my home network router because of diminishing radio signal strength. I was contemplating it, but not really all that enthusiastic about replacing it since that can be a mess.
Long story short: I was forced in to a replacement by user error. Me.

FIRST THINGS FIRST: @BoredSysAdmin was willing to offer me advice and counsel as I began the journey. If you don't know it now, BSA is a genuine router authority. Nobody knows everything. BSA is pretty danged close on routers. Helpful. Knowledgeable and quick with a reply. Routers are something I've lived with and managed since the first home boxes came out. But, somewhere along the way they got super complicated and I had no idea what I was unaware of until this last week. I didn't know what I didn't know.

Thankfully, I knew enough to ask BSA for some help and advice before jumping off the pier.

A SIDE NOTE: This is something I see a lot of on the forum. An OP comes in needing some answers and needing some advice. He asks and pokes around. Many get defensive. Many just take the answers and run. Most don't actually implement the advice even if its spot on. Adult males are remarkably resistant to taking advice. Its a marvel that they are able to ask for it. MY OBSERVATION: if you're going to ask someone for advice and counsel you're burning somebody elses time. For heaven's sake: take a moment to either take the advice and implement the changes, or, at least say thanks for the time.

MY ROUTER REPLACEMENT: I won't chronicle the entire journey because unless you need to do it, it aint that interesting. Here are the deficiencies that BSA said I needed to address: (you may have similar issues)
1. I had a s-h-i-t-t-y router (Netgear)
2. It was mounted in a s-h-i-t-t-y location (under my desk)
3. My channel selection needed changing (14 neighborhood networks)
4. My channel bandwidth needed trimming (40mhz to 20mhz) (not allowed by Netgear)
5. Other admin settings and such needed changing
6. I needed to use wifi analyzer to provide hard data to measure success/failure

Rather than just bitch about it, BSA said I actually needed to recable and relocate my router in a more central location in my home and figure out where that was by measurements. He was correct. That's a pain in the a-s-s. Taking the advice however solved all my problems: every single problem I had is now solved because I implemented BSA's advice rather than just nod my head at it and complain that it was a messy thing to do.

Here's a picture of the new router sitting 10 feet in the air above a doorway. It looks like a B2 Stealth Bomber chasing a B52 that's flying next to it. The next pic is my new CISCO switch. I had to recable my entire office so I put in a new CISCO switch and all new cabling too.

Again: big thanks to @BoredSysAdmin for the help. I would have had a tough time without his advice

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I'm almost blushing enjoy

 

[Pogre]

That's awesome. Props to BSA!

 

[Alex2507]

This looks like a good thread to hijack with a router/modem question.

We just went from 15/5 speeds from Verizon to 100/10 with Cox. The guy on the phone said this was a good option to get away from paying a $10/month rental fee. I missed the details on the router model above.

Thoughts?

 

[rojo]

This looks like a good thread to hijack with a router/modem question.

We just went from 15/5 speeds from Verizon to 100/10 with Cox. The guy on the phone said this was a good option to get away from paying a $10/month rental fee. I missed the details on the router model above.

Thoughts?

Do you currently own a wifi router separate from your Cox cable modem? If so, the wireless N offered by the SBG6580 is just a wasted feature.

For $10-ish more you can get the SURFboard SB6190 which trades the integrated wireless N wifi AP for a 5x faster max download speed. I think the SB6190 would be more future proof. And WAN pipe notwithstanding, you can opt for a wireless AC router now, or perhaps 802.11ax in the near future, each of which would offer superior LAN connectivity over the already dated wireless N offered by the SBG6580 you linked.

On Amazon, if you look under used and new, I can vouch for the EZ cash pawn & jewelry seller. That's who I ordered my SB6190 from, and it was brand new as promised and allowed me to avoid the sales tax imposed if I'd ordered Prime.

You could go with used, but it's a gamble. There's always a chance the modem's previous owner exhibited some reprehensible behavior that got the modem's MAC address blacklisted by Cox, although they could just as easily have been a Charter or Comcast subscriber and / or stayed well enough under the radar not to get the device blacklisted. Just make sure if you order used, whatever seller you order from will allow you to return it if it's a dud.

 

[Alex2507]

Do you currently own a wifi router separate from your Cox cable modem? If so, the wireless N offered by the SBG6580 is just a wasted feature.

For $10-ish more you can get the SURFboard SB6190 which trades the integrated wireless N wifi AP for a 5x faster max download speed. I think the SB6190 would be more future proof. And WAN pipe notwithstanding, you can opt for a wireless AC router now, or perhaps 802.11ax in the near future, each of which would offer superior LAN connectivity over the already dated wireless N offered by the SBG6580 you linked.

On Amazon, if you look under used and new, I can vouch for the EZ cash pawn & jewelry seller. That's who I ordered my SB6190 from, and it was brand new as promised and allowed me to avoid the sales tax imposed if I'd ordered Prime.

So much of what you said is beyond my depth that I almost missed the question. I do have a dlink router from 5 or 6 years ago. BSA already told me it's past it's prime but it's what I'm using now. Looking at the spec's for my laptop, I see:

Wireless LAN Standard

IEEE 802.11ac

It's this computer.

I can see right now that I'm doing $10/month rather than throw a c note at an N router/modem combo or the now much sought after SURFboard SB6190 plus whatever router I get directed toward.

Thanks for the response. You saved me from the Cox guy.

 

[TLS Guy]

I'm almost blushing enjoy

You solved my router problem also. That software change has done the trick. I ended up recabling as you know, because I went on the Gigazone.

I will say one thing though, in the area of HT a hard wire connection beats Wi-Fi.
I now have seven hard wire connections and only one Wi-Fi connection. Of course all the mobile devices including my laptop are Wi-Fi.

If you are doing new construction or a remodel, then but conduit to any place you might need Internet. I did and it saved my bacon.

Anyhow I remain very grateful for your advice, and like Buck I followed it.

 

[rojo]

... plus whatever router I get directed toward.

Thanks for the response. You saved me from the Cox guy.

You're very welcome. For router, this Asus RT-AC68U is a good one if you don't mind used. That one in particular appears to be owned by someone who enjoys cheeseburgers. Might ought to invest in a bag of cotton balls and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, and it'll be good as new.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

You solved my router problem also. That software change has done the trick. I ended up recabling as you know, because I went on the Gigazone.

I will say one thing though, in the area of HT a hard wire connection beats Wi-Fi.
I now have seven hard wire connections and only one Wi-Fi connection. Of course all the mobile devices including my laptop are Wi-Fi.

If you are doing new construction or a remodel, then but conduit to any place you might need Internet. I did and it saved my bacon.

Anyhow I remain very grateful for your advice, and like Buck I followed it.

Same thing I did in my own house and same thing seemed to help Buck.
Steps are simple:
1) Get a powerful wifi access point or router - TLS Already had one, but had crappy firmware, Buck's router was a) old, b) crappy firmware c) Not sufficient options (for some reason Netgear set channel width limited to only 40mhz)
2) Set it to free 2.4ghz channel (use this tool: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vrem.wifianalyzer). I'm not discussing 5ghz radio since it will be very limited distance due to walls
3) and set channel width to smallest 20Mhz - yes - this option will reduce max performance, but will likely to significantly improve wifi strength and stability, which in result will make wifi work better.
4) Most important one: Place the wifi at the physical center of the house or closest as possible. This way one good wifi will easily cover even 3k sqft house.

Asus routers are NOT perfect, but I'd easily consider them as lesser evil in field of really crappy consumer wifi equipment.

New Wifi Mesh products could also provide good wifi, but I personally don't have the experience.
I know I used Apple Airport Extreme to wirelessly extend the network and it did worked nicely, but speed was not great.
If have larger house, you somewhat technical and don't afraid of a bit of challenge, I strongly urge you to take close look at Ubiquiti Wifi UniFi APs

 

[Alex2507]

I just ordered the SB6190.

 

[Alex2507]

invest in a bag of cotton balls and a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, and it'll be good as new.

Normally I'm all over used but for now I'll stick with my current dlink router and wait to buy a new chocolate sauce free router for a little more money.

I understood my dlink has Gigabit Ports. Everything is hardwired so the wireless thing isn't currently important.

 

[Bucknekked]

I will say one thing though, in the area of HT a hard wire connection beats Wi-Fi.
I now have seven hard wire connections and only one Wi-Fi connection. Of course all the mobile devices including my laptop are Wi-Fi.
Anyhow I remain very grateful for your advice, and like Buck I followed it.

TLS Guy
I believe you are correct : a hardwired connection is preferred over a wireless one. I have the advantage of a new home (we had it built 4 years ago) and it has a centralized wiring plan with Cat 5e cabling to each room and a centralized wiring "smartpanel". I believe if I look at my router table, I have 15 hardwired devices in the network, plus all the wireless stuff.

One of the things that stuck out to me was just how many networked (wired and wireless) devices we have now. When you replace the router you get the opportunity to touch each and every one. I don't think I will ever take my router's complexity or function for granted again.

 

[rojo]

2) Set it to free 2.4ghz channel (use this tool: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vrem.wifianalyzer). I'm not discussing 5ghz radio since it will be very limited distance due to walls

2B) WifiInfoView is a useful alternative for Windows. It's what I use to find an unpolluted channel when needed.

Asus routers are NOT perfect, but I'd easily consider them as lesser evil in field of really crappy consumer wifi equipment.

Adding a community-developed firmware such as Tomato, DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Merlin, etc. can increase the reliability and features of consumer wifi equipment as you know, but replacing the stock firmware is not for the faint of heart or techno-challenged as there is a risk of bricking the device. For anyone with any proficiency on the command line, I highly recommend it. For anyone struggling to understand what I mean by command line, forget I said anything. This path isn't for you.

BSA is right, though, that the stock Asus firmware is better than most. This is mostly due to the Asuswrt firmware being a fork from Tomato-RT / Tomato-USB[*]. In other words, Asus router software started with a stable code base that had already been through massive beta testing.

New Wifi Mesh products could also provide good wifi, but I personally don't have the experience.
I know I used Apple Airport Extreme to wirelessly extend the network and it did worked nicely, but speed was not great.
If have larger house, you somewhat technical and don't afraid of a bit of challenge, I strongly urge you to take close look at Ubiquiti Wifi UniFi APs

I ran WDS for a while with a collection of Linksys WRT54G routers running a mix of Tomato and DD-WRT. The problem with WDS is that the addition of each node divides the available wifi bandwidth in half. So my 54mbps wireless G network had a max transfer of 27mbps over the air with one repeater, and 13.5mbps with two. It's better to have a single router in a central location than a wireless mesh if it can be helped.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Normally I'm all over used but for now I'll stick with my current dlink router and wait to buy a new chocolate sauce free router for a little more money.

I understood my dlink has Gigabit Ports. Everything is hardwired so the wireless thing isn't currently important.

Just FIY: Just because the port is a Gigabit speed, it doesn't mean that your router could use gigabit speeds if your local internet provide would make that these are available to you:
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/30087-d-link-dir-655-xtreme-n-gigabit-router-reviewdraft-20-arrives?showall=&start=3
That this says is anything over 200Mbps is crapshoot. 200 & 300mbps internet speeds start to become more common, my local ISP - Cablevision started to offer these recently. I'm on 200mbps package now myself.

 

[Pogre]

You solved my router problem also. That software change has done the trick. I ended up recabling as you know, because I went on the Gigazone.

I will say one thing though, in the area of HT a hard wire connection beats Wi-Fi.
I now have seven hard wire connections and only one Wi-Fi connection. Of course all the mobile devices including my laptop are Wi-Fi.

If you are doing new construction or a remodel, then but conduit to any place you might need Internet. I did and it saved my bacon.

Anyhow I remain very grateful for your advice, and like Buck I followed it.

I don't have a lot of networking knowledge, but I've always been a proponent of hardwired connections. Everything on my entertainment stand is hardwired, including the laptop I'm using as a HTPC right now. The only wireless connection I have is my tablet and the only thing I use it for as far as my av stuff is the remote app for foobar2000.

 

[Bucknekked]

Just FIY: Just because the port is a Gigabit speed, it doesn't mean that your router could use gigabit speeds if your local internet provide would make that these are available to you:
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/30087-d-link-dir-655-xtreme-n-gigabit-router-reviewdraft-20-arrives?showall=&start=3
That this says is anything over 200Mbps is crapshoot. 200 & 300mbps internet speeds start to become more common, my local ISP - Cablevision started to offer these recently. I'm on 200mbps package now myself.

BSA
Just as an anecdote, my throughput is better now on the Asus vs. The Netgear. When i run the speedtests now I am right at 200mbps on the download side. Its unchanged on the upload side at about 12mbps.

Like someone else posted, i am not paying for the 200mbps package, but I am seeing that throughput. I believe i am paying for 100. My son who has the same router is pulling thevsame throughput but he is actually paying for the top tier package. Sometimes the ball bounces in your favor for a while

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I used to pay for 25mbps down, but got almost 32. Then i had 100, but received 114mbs. Unfortunately now I'm paying for 200, but lucky to get 190 .

 

[Alex2507]

Just FIY: Just because the port is a Gigabit speed, it doesn't mean that your router could use gigabit speeds if your local internet provide would make that these are available to you:
https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-reviews/30087-d-link-dir-655-xtreme-n-gigabit-router-reviewdraft-20-arrives?showall=&start=3
That this says is anything over 200Mbps is crapshoot. 200 & 300mbps internet speeds start to become more common, my local ISP - Cablevision started to offer these recently. I'm on 200mbps package now myself.

The Gigabit port thing was suppose to be good for speedy networked computer file transfers or something. So in effect none of that matters to me because there is no network, no files and no transfers. I just wanted the router to be up to par with my subscribed internet connection speed. The dlink has worked without incident for years at 15 mbps download speeds.

On Thursday the guy is gonna come out to hook us up. To avoid the installation fee, we are getting 300 mbps. They waive the $75 installation fee for that $90/month deal. A day later we can downgrade the service to 100mbps which runs $60/month (the cox guy's idea). I'm curious to see if there is any advantage for my level of internet use. I think I'm doing okay with the 15 mbps that I currently have, especially having recently stepped up to Windows 10 SSD from Vista.

See you guys later. I gotta go pound nails.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Congrats on getting 300 Internet, but I'll eat my hat if your download speed would be higher than snb measured on same router as yours (a bit above 200). What I'm trying to say is that you may want a new router if you want to fully utilize your internet speed

 

[Alex2507]

you may want a new router if you want to fully utilize your internet speed

Copy that. I may start off with the Cox modem/router combo depending on what time the SB6190 gets delivered. The router recommendation in this thread is going to get put on a wish list for down the road. I don't know ... maybe the used one? Nah ...