Why is it always a router reset that fixes the problem?

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CA_Steve
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Why is it always a router reset that fixes the problem?

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:19 am

It seems 9 out of 10 times home broadband connectivity problems are solved by a power up reset of the router. I've seen this:
- with both cable and dsl systems
- with wired and wireless routers
- with one pc or a host of PCs connected to the router
- in one case, the wired PCs had connectivity issues, while the wireless PCs were fine
- with Linksys, Belkin, Dlink brands
- with new routers and with old
- in different cities on different systems (Cox, Comcast, ATT)

In all cases, the routers were on conditioned AC power (either on a surge suppressor or behind a UPS). In most cases, the routers were powered up 24/7.

Is there something inherently unstable about this piece of hardware?

tehfire
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Post by tehfire » Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:24 am

I feel your pain. I've noticed the same issues with multiple brands (Linksys, D-link, Netgear). For the record, I've found Netgear to be the best, but they're not without their problems. Everytime I have a problem, I end up returning a router until I get one that works. I probably have a 50% success rate with routers :-/

Stravos
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Post by Stravos » Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:38 am

The best I've found is my current Buffalo with DD-WRT firmware installed. For the most part it's fine, but after an extended uptime ( > ~60 days) trying to make changes to router settings can sometimes kill the web interface and require a restart. Other than that, I've never had a problem that I could specifically pin on the router.

josephclemente
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Post by josephclemente » Sat Jul 05, 2008 12:19 pm

At work, our routers have been rock solid. First router we had was a Netgear and never needed a reset. Now we are using a D-LINK DGL-4100 and it works great too. The internet connection is some sort of T1 line but very slow (somewhere around 80 kilobytes per second).

At home, I've had problems with my cable internet connection, requiring router and/or modem resets, usually once every two months or so. I had a DGL-4100, and now I use a D-LINK DIR-655. Both operated about the same. About 3 weeks ago I replaced my modem. So far I haven't had any internet connectivity issues but it is still too early to tell.

andyb
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Post by andyb » Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:34 pm

The way I understand the nature of broadband and routers is that its more often the fault of the broadband/service provider than the router itself.

In the UK, ADSL is far less reliable than DSL (Cable), simply because it is. Its the quality of service, and its fitness for reliable use that makes the difference, and ADSL varies in a massive way compared to DSL (Cable).

My Cable router has been rebooted about 3 times in the last 14 months, many people I know on ADSL reboot their routers once or more a week. ADSL is inherently far less reliable than DSL (Cable), but in the UK we only have 1 (one) DSL provider (for home usage that is), so there is no-one to compare them to, could it just be that the company is more reliable, and not the nature of the service itself.


Andy

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Re: Why is it always a router reset that fixes the problem?

Post by Beyonder » Sun Jul 06, 2008 11:27 am

CA_Steve wrote:It seems 9 out of 10 times home broadband connectivity problems are solved by a power up reset of the router. I've seen this:
- with both cable and dsl systems
- with wired and wireless routers
- with one pc or a host of PCs connected to the router
- in one case, the wired PCs had connectivity issues, while the wireless PCs were fine
- with Linksys, Belkin, Dlink brands
- with new routers and with old
- in different cities on different systems (Cox, Comcast, ATT)

In all cases, the routers were on conditioned AC power (either on a surge suppressor or behind a UPS). In most cases, the routers were powered up 24/7.

Is there something inherently unstable about this piece of hardware?
People refer to these devices as "routers," but that name is a little misleading. For most people, this device routes traffic, manages NAT, handles DHCP and addressing, handles DNS requests, acts as a firewall, and often runs numerous other services. It often has an integrated wireless access point supporting various security protocols, and most have 4-8 port switches as well. Some "routers" even have integrated DSL/cable modems. More advanced "routers" might also implement QOS, DDNS, better UPnP features, and so forth. Clearly this device is much more than a "router."

My point in mentioning all this is: your "router" is a massive single point of failure. And it isn't the hardware that's likely going to fail. All of those "services" are implemented in software, so the bottom line is your router is only as reliable as the firmware you're running.

Companies that manufacture small SOHO routers have no incentive to provide stable software because they don't make a single cent by providing customers with firmware updates; in fact, they lose money. They make money when you buy a new router. Which is why you should stop using the crap firmware that ships with your router, and start running something like Tomato or DD-WRT.


I've used both; I prefer Tomato at this point (clean and simple), although DD-WRT has some really advanced features that can be useful if you need them. Both of them are based on the Linux kernel. Both of them blow the doors off of the stock firmware your router ships with.

sjoukew
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Post by sjoukew » Sun Jul 06, 2008 12:53 pm

The problem with all those cheap things it that they are cheap. So there was no money to test them properly and use enough hardware.
I bought a 3com office connect. Using wireless internet, firewall, running all kinds of "nasty things for routers" like bittorrent, emule.
It never crashed ever since I have it, about a year.
If you don't like the crashes of those things, buy a expensive and good one, it really helps.

Vicotnik
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Post by Vicotnik » Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:00 pm

sjoukew wrote:If you don't like the crashes of those things, buy a expensive and good one, it really helps.
Or buy a cheaper one that supports DD-WRT and the like. :)

Beyonder
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Post by Beyonder » Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:17 pm

sjoukew wrote: If you don't like the crashes of those things, buy a expensive and good one, it really helps.
You don't need to buy an expensive router; that's a waste of money. Just get one that runs good firmware.

psiu
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Post by psiu » Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:38 pm

I only use mine as wired switches/wireless APs.

I use a separate computer as firewall, gateway, router, DNS--currently it's an Athlon 900, running BrazilFW on a CF->IDE card. It will run on anything down to a Pentium effectively though, probably 16MB ram minimum.

Beats the pants off these little boxes--I always found they can't handle sustained heavy loads especially requiring lots of NAT work.

Cheers!

Vicotnik
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Post by Vicotnik » Sun Jul 06, 2008 5:05 pm

Before I got my Linksys WRT54GL (using DD-WRT) I used all kinds of Linux/BSD walls like Smoothwall, IPCop, ClarkConnect and m0n0wall running on older hardware booting from CD, floppy, HDD or CF.
Of those I tried I liked m0n0wall the best. There are some features from m0n0wall that I miss a little bit now with DD-WRT but the convenience of a small box is worth more to me right now.
For a while I thought about getting a WRAP or something like that, but they cost a bit to much.

I have been using DD-WRT for little over a year now and it has never crashed on me (had to reset my cable modem a couple of times though). I can max out my 24/10 connection without any problems and it handles torrent traffic very well.

theycallmebruce
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Post by theycallmebruce » Sun Jul 06, 2008 6:22 pm

My two cents:

I used to work at a computer store. Originally we sold all D-Link. They used to be great but at some point we started getting a large number of returns. Moved to Netgear after that, and I have been very happy with them to this day. We have a DG834GV which gets all 25 employees on the Internet, as well as handling two VoIP lines at the same time, and it never misses a beat. We have the same model at home and the wireless is rock solid too.

As for the cause of the lock-ups, I agree that this is often caused by poor firmware. However, I have also seen cases where I believe the hardware is at fault. For example, where a device would lock up frequently, but if it was moved out of direct sunlight the issue would go away. To be fair, in an Australian summer, the temperature in direct sunlight probably exceeds the manufacturers specs.

As an extreme example, I installed a D-Link wireless access point in a waterproof enclosure on my roof, to create a point to point wireless link to the office so I could use their broadband internet. It ran for over a year, until one fateful summer day where the temperature reached 43 degrees C outside (and probably a fair bit higher inside the little box), and it failed.

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Re: Why is it always a router reset that fixes the problem?

Post by mexell » Tue Jul 08, 2008 4:52 am

Beyonder wrote: Companies that manufacture small SOHO routers have no incentive to provide stable software because they don't make a single cent by providing customers with firmware updates; in fact, they lose money. They make money when you buy a new router. Which is why you should stop using the crap firmware that ships with your router, and start running something like Tomato or DD-WRT.
Sometimes there are exceptions: For example, in early 2007 we bought a AVM Fritz!Box. You people in other countries might not know it, but here in Germany it's pretty popular.

Back when we bought it, it was:

- WLan AP
- VoIP-gateway for three analogue and multiple ISDN phones
- ADSL modem
- 4-port switch

Now, after some firmware updates, it is in addition:

- Answering machine for every number
- basic NAS device
- USB-over-ethernet tunnel device
- TAPI appliance
- VPN access device (site-to-site as well as normal off-site workers' connection, certificate-based security)

There are still companies, that care. I once had a problem which was the result of a lacking feature. In the following beta, they included the feature, and it also came in the following stable branch. That's customer dedication.

Btw. this box is sold for about 179€ new, you get a lot of these as "open box" because many people here get these "for free" together with their telephone/internet contract.

AVM published these functions all for free, and all of them are/were in use here and saved us real money, especially the VPN function. All of these functions work as intended

fri2219
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Post by fri2219 » Thu Jul 10, 2008 1:59 pm

As previously posted, the "routers" mentioned are actually general purpose computing devices with a full blown operating system working behind the scenes (stored in firmware). The routers commonly use the same operating system, sharing common bugs like memory leaks. The device continues to gobble memory until it runs out of memory and locks up- rebooting clears the memory and starts the train wreck all over again. These bugs have been fixed a long time ago, but most race to the bottom consumer electronics assemblers don't bother to use the updated operating systems.

If you're looking for an example of how consumer "router manufacturers" all share the same operating system, check out OpenWRT, which also forms the basis for the previously mentioned Tomato and DD-WRT firmware replacements.

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