?Why? Router stops network transfers
Fred Moore
hazard a guess as to why it happened.
For the last week I was having trouble watching Flash video, say the New
York Times and others (but not all, YouTube worked). The videos would
play for about 2 or 3 minutes and then stall. There would be no way to
restart them. Also If I tried to download a large file it would stall
after 2 or 3 minutes of proceeding normally. This happened both with
ftp in Safari and Software Update. The problem occurred in FireFox as
well. When the connection was working it was just as it was supposed to
be. I have RoadRunner and was getting consistent throughput of
800-1000kbps. Then it would stop dead.
After troubleshooting this with RR tech support, which has improved--the
tech actually had a Mac at home and was very helpful, I restored the
router to its factory settings and rebuilt the settings to my specs.
Transfers now work as they are supposed to.
Other than 'Do-do happens', anyone have an idea of what went wrong with
the router to cause this. Apparently something was corrupted somewhere
inside the router's software, but what would cause such a thing? I
haven't seen this before. Inquiring minds want to know.
Thanks for your input.
Jolly Roger
Fred Moore <fmo...@gcfn.org> wrote:
In two words: a bug.
--
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JR
Tom Harrington
Assuming neither you nor anyone else had messed with the settings--
power surge, cosmic rays, or maybe the router is just a piece of crap?
Computer memory is not infallible and sometimes data gets corrupted for
no readily obvious reason. In those cases actions like the ones you
carried our are the only reasonable response.
--
Tom "Tom" Harrington
Independent Mac OS X developer since 2002
http://www.atomicbird.com/
Clark Martin
I had nearly the same thing happen recently. I looked through all the
settings and couldn't see anything amiss. I zapped the settings and
added back the basic settings I needed and it started working again. I
seems like it was the same thing, some setting internal to the router/AP
was messed up. It's called imperfect software.
--
Clark Martin
Redwood City, CA, USA Macintosh / Internet Consulting
"I'm a designated driver on the Information Super Highway"
Kevin McMurtrie
Home networking equipment is extremely low quality. It's common for
them to drop packets, crash, or have throughput that's a tiny fraction
of their rated specifications.
--
I won't see Goolge Groups replies because I must filter them as spam
nospam
<kevi...@sonic.net> wrote:
> Home networking equipment is extremely low quality. It's common for
> them to drop packets, crash, or have throughput that's a tiny fraction
> of their rated specifications.
maybe the stuff you buy is.
Kevin McMurtrie
nospam <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
Tried a Linksys home or Cisco small business router recently? They're
not what they used to be. I returned a Cisco RVS4000 because it caused
out-of-order packets above 2Mbps and maxed out at 18Mbps with nothing
but NAT on. I get excellent performance from Netgear FVS336G but
patches for bugs take months to arrive and their online support forums
are a joke.
J.J. O'Shea
(in article <311020092015159615%nos...@nospam.invalid>):
A lot of home networking stuff simply stinks. This particularly applies to
Belkin devices, including routers, switches, hubs, and even USB hubs. They
die for no particular reason. They have limited capabilities. And support is
poor to non-existant. Linksys/Cisco stuff used to be better, but the low-end
Linksys/Cisco routers are barely better than Belkin stuff. Their support is
better, though. Old Linksys stuff was very good indeed. I still have a
12-year-old Linksys router which does exactly what it is supposed to do and
does it quickly, efficiently, and with a total lack of fuss. Of course, as
it's 12 years old it doesn't have wireless... Netgear low-end stuff is better
than Linksys low-end, but Linksys high end is much better than Netgear high
end. Apple's stuff is mostly okay, so long as you stay away from Time
Capsules, which have a power supply issue. D-Link stuff is
middle-of-the-road: not as good as the best Netgear and Linksys and Apple
stuff, not as bad as the worst Linksys or Belkin stuff.
If you stay away from low-end Linksys or Netgear stuff and from all Belkin
stuff, you should be mostly okay. (And if you keep your Time Capsule cool,
then you won't get bitten by the power supply heating issue) But the low-end
stuff accounts for at least a third of the market. If you buy based on price
or if you buy Belkin only you _will_ be sorry. And even high-end stuff can
bite you: see further Apple's Time Capsules. When I first went here
<http://timecapsuledead.org/> a few weeks ago the number of dead TCs
memorialized there was under 350. It's now over 700, so it's doubled in about
two weeks. The average life span then was just over 18 months. It's down to
just over 17 months.
Yes, a _lot_ of home networking equipment is of low quality.
--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.
J.J. O'Shea
(in article <4aed0ff2$0$1957$742e...@news.sonic.net>):
Low-end Linksys, or even mid-range Linksys, devices simply don't deliver the
performance that you expect from them. Netgears behave better. Stay far away
from Belkin.
Jolly Roger
I agree with J.J. Netgear is my favorite out of all the non-Apple home
router brands, because they do behave better in general.
Warren Oates
J.J. O'Shea <try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> Yes, a _lot_ of home networking equipment is of low quality.
I have a Dlink DGL4300, wireless g, with gigabit ports. It's been "on"
for the last 3 years +, just sits there and does it's thing, gives me
the throughput it claims as well. It's a fairly "high end" (i.e.
expensive) consumer router, but well worth the price; the gigabit
transfers across our LAN are invaluable. I haven't seen the need for
wireless n yet.
--
Suddenly he realized that he was alone
with a giant halfwit on a dark deserted street.
-- Chester Himes
nospam
<try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote:
> A lot of home networking stuff simply stinks.
same can be said for the enterprise stuff or any product, actually.
> This particularly applies to
> Belkin devices, including routers, switches, hubs, and even USB hubs.
i won't touch belkin products of any kind after their little stunt with
their routers a couple of years ago where they modified the data and
instead of passing on the correct data, they displayed ads for parental
control software. disabling it was difficult, not surprisingly.
Barry Margolin
nospam <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> In article <hck3g...@news3.newsguy.com>, J.J. O'Shea
> <try.n...@but.see.sig> wrote:
>
> > A lot of home networking stuff simply stinks.
>
> same can be said for the enterprise stuff or any product, actually.
Sturgeon's Law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_Law
--
Barry Margolin, bar...@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
*** PLEASE don't copy me on replies, I'll read them in the group ***
Bruce in alaska
Jolly Roger <jolly...@pobox.com> wrote:
> I agree with J.J. Netgear is my favorite out of all the non-Apple home
> router brands, because they do behave better in general.
>
I have NetGear AP's and Routers on my network but am slowly changing
over to Buffalo AP's and Router running the WW-DRT Firmware. These seem
to be a cut above the rest.....
--
Bruce in alaska
add <path> after <fast> to reply
Fred Moore
happens'. What I was looking to find was some well known common problem
which wasn't known to me, such as: 'It's common knowledge that if you
interrupt a Flash video three times in a row during a full moon when
your checking account is below $100 and you take extra cream in your
coffee, you'll corrupt the router's TCP stack and it'll go buggerup.'
Now I know there isn't such a simple explanation. ;)
My router is a Belkin wireless G+ MIMO (2 external antennas), about
2-1/2 years old. At the time I researched the purchase, the reviews I
read liked Belkin's reliability and Mac friendliness. JJ and others here
strongly disagree with the reliability point. Also I avoided D-Link and
Linksys because several reviews disliked their 'Doze centric interfaces
and programming which evidently wasn't standards compliant and didn't
always work properly with Macs. Presumably that has changed since
several of you like them?
If I decide to replace the Belkin, does anyone have a recommendation for
a specific unit? While I want to get a good deal, I am very willing to
pay extra for quality. Here is what I _think_ I want in a new wireless
router:
- 802.11N with MIMO multiple external antennas (they supposedly get
better range),
- WPA2 security,
- dual band so I can set up separate network links for b/g and n,
- 4 gigabit ethernet ports (I could live with Airport Extreme's 3, but
its range is supposedly less than units with external antennas),
- don't care one way or the other about a USB port for attached storage.
Checking Amazon for a Netgear which might fill the bill, I found this
one for US$160 and a 4-1/2 star rating from 35 reviews (has 8 internal
antennas):
<http://www.amazon.com/Netgear-Rangemax-WNDR3700-Wireless-N-Gigabit/dp/B0
02HWRJY4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1257097526&sr=1-2>
Anyone have experience with this?
As to reliability, it seems Netgear is not perfect. Here is a somewhat
similar unit (US$120) with 107 1-star reviews out of 170 posted:
<http://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-WNR854T-RangeMax-Wireless-N-Gigabit/dp/B00
0FGI970/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1257097483&sr=1-9>
Netgear seemed to stonewall that there was any problem with the unit
despite widespread complaints. I'm more concerned here with Netgear's
handling of the issue. Any company can have a dud product, but do they
provide a reasonable remedy?
Or is there a unit from another manufacturer anyone cares to recommend?
Thanks again for your help!
Richard Maine
> I'm more concerned here with Netgear's
> handling of the issue. Any company can have a dud product, but do they
> provide a reasonable remedy?
All the caveats about single samples not being statistically significant
apply, but I won't buy another Netgear router because my personal single
sample happens to be significant to me, statistics aside.
My Netgear wireless router started flaking out after several months of
working fine. It was pretty clear to me that the router had a hardware
failure of some kind. I forget how many calls and how much time I wasted
talking to Netgear's tech support. They had me update the firmware...
multiple times... to the same version. I should reset to factory
defaults... multiple times. Since the unit would work for a while after
reseting, each of these tries meant a new call after it failed again. Of
course, I had tried those things before calling them. Each phone call
seemed to go through the same script, probably quite literally reading
from a script. Listening to the symptoms or even reading what had
transpired on my previous call didn't seem to be part of the script.
Eventually they referred it up to the next higher level, who I was told
would contact me. About two weeks later I got an email from that next
level of support saying..... that I should update the firmware... to the
same version. It took two weeks of the second tier support to do the
same trick of not even reading what had already been tried?
I could tell that the hardware had failed, but I never managed to talk
them into an RMA number (all this under warrantee).
I eventually gave up. Pretty early in this fiasco, I had to go out and
buy another router anyway unless I was going to be without network
connection for a month or so while trying to work things with Netgear.
Had to have my fix. I kept trying for a while just on general principles
because I figured that the router I had paid for ought to work at least
through the warrantee period, and it wouldn't hurt to have a spare
working one on hand anyway. But eventually I gave up.
The failure didn't particularly bother me. I've had Apple products fail
also (multiple ones). The horror that was their tech support line did
particularly bother me. It made the warrantee worthless.
I still have the unit. It actually works as a wireless access point as
long as you don't route through it. It doesn't really "want" to
configure that way, but you can fake the effect. I keep it as a spare
for temporary "emergency" use.
--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
Warren Oates
Fred Moore <fmo...@gcfn.org> wrote:
> - 802.11N with MIMO multiple external antennas (they supposedly get
> better range),
> - WPA2 security,
> - dual band so I can set up separate network links for b/g and n,
> - 4 gigabit ethernet ports (I could live with Airport Extreme's 3, but
> its range is supposedly less than units with external antennas),
> - don't care one way or the other about a USB port for attached storage.
http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=548
Fred Moore
Thanks for posting this, Richard. This is similar to what people posted
on Amazon for the Netgear unit that had 107 1-star reviews. Netgear just
stonewalled. Not encouraging.
Fred Moore
Warren Oates <warren...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In article <fmoore-1B8B9C....@feeder.eternal-september.org>,
> Fred Moore <fmo...@gcfn.org> wrote:
>
> > - 802.11N with MIMO multiple external antennas (they supposedly get
> > better range),
> > - WPA2 security,
> > - dual band so I can set up separate network links for b/g and n,
> > - 4 gigabit ethernet ports (I could live with Airport Extreme's 3, but
> > its range is supposedly less than units with external antennas),
> > - don't care one way or the other about a USB port for attached storage.
>
> http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=548
Thanks for the recommendation, Warren. Do you actually have this router?
Although most of the reviews on Amazon were positive, there were a few
which complained that the 5GHz range sucked bigtime. How's your
reception? Also, does this D-Link product play well with the Mac? Once
upon a time D-Link wasn't Mac friendly, using special 'Doze tweaks i
their firmware.
Warren Oates
Fred Moore <fmo...@gcfn.org> wrote:
> Thanks for the recommendation, Warren. Do you actually have this router?
> Although most of the reviews on Amazon were positive, there were a few
> which complained that the 5GHz range sucked bigtime. How's your
> reception? Also, does this D-Link product play well with the Mac? Once
> upon a time D-Link wasn't Mac friendly, using special 'Doze tweaks i
> their firmware.
I haven't got that one, I've got a DGL 4300, which is wireless g only,
with the gigabit ports, no USB. I've been looking at that one (855) as
nice new Christmas present. I've had zero problems with the Dlink that I
use, and I wouldn't hesitate to buy another. It's certainly Mac
friendly, uses a browser to administer. The only range problems, with
2.4 gHz seems to be with Mac laptops, in the back room. Most PC laptops
connect just fine. I need to wire an access point back there anyway,
though, so I might get the 855 for the main router, use the 4300 for
access in the back room. I dunno. It's caught my attention, and it
seemed to have _all_ the features you were looking for.