A funeral in the family......

[Nick Mullins]

We all fall in love with a piece of hardware. They become our favorites..... we see them every day. They are there first thing in the morning and when we go to bed at night. Such was the case with my beloved RT-N56U. For 8 years it faithfully delivered por...er... gamin...er.... educational YouTube videos. That was until lightening killed both it and my modem. I know feel hollow inside. My faithful friend.... dead. Gone. I wrapped it's now lifeless husk in th best pin-feed form paper I had and gently placed it in the recycling bin, so that the circle of life can continue.

The cable company swooped in and took care of restoring service and were kind enough to supply a ARRIS that is a modem/router combo. As a modem it seems competent. As a router...... er.... not so much. Where I had >1ms response time wired to the ASUS, my wired response time on both the Killer NIC and Intel NIC on my motherboard now ranges from 1 to 13 ms (!) to my ~inside~ IP address. It's even worse across the router fabric to the public IP. I thought maybe the lightning had damaged the patch cable. Bought a new one, same story.

For giggles, I plugged in my ASUS USB-N53 wireless adapter.... I actually got better response times! (2 to 5ms)

I have never, ever had a a response time be <1ms to the inside IP address, even when crossing old unmanaged desktop switches.

This brings me around to the ultimate question. What would be the best replacement?

Here is the setup:

Gaming PC - wired
Old tablet running on the 2.4 Ghz band for reading and watching videos and Netflix
HTC phone on the 5 Ghz band for pretty much the same thing
TCL 4K Smart TV on the 5Ghz band. (although throwing a network cable on it would be no issue)

I will never have a any form of gaming consoles, and I wouldn't be adding any high tech home management systems or alarms. I have considered an Alexa though and an updated tablet.

As you can see, my needs are pretty basic. I don't need something that looks like an NSA spy gadget with 27 antennas with 10gbs throughput. I tried a Linksys WRT32X but the performance to external websites was no better than the ISP-provided router, so I boxed it up and sent it back. (BTW, don't believe a word of the Killer NIC hype)

I am looking for something that:

a) Gives me good response times for gaming as that is my primary use for the internet (yes I know that is situational, but having your router add 15ms or more is stupid)
b) Gives me the ability to have QoS if I decide I ever need it
c) Needs to have at least 1 USB port (2 would be better)
d) Something in a reasonable price range. Say..... >$150 give or take.
e) It just works.

I have scoured, researched, prayed, made burnt offerings (don't tell my neighbor though, they might figured out what happened to their annoying cat) .... still I seem to be chasing my tail.

Need some recommendations guys.....

Harlech

 

[umarmung]

Asus RT-AC68U

Personally, I'd much rather have the ultra-low latency and management control of Ubiquiti Edgerouter X + UAP-AC-Lite, but since you require USB and want something that "Just Works", you will struggle to beat the RT-AC68U, unless you have a Gigabit Internet connection, in which case the RT-AC86U is a better fit.

Also, which Arris modem did you get? If it is an Intel Puma 6/7 device, then that will likely nuke your gaming latency no matter what router you have. If that is the case, you should replace it, especially if you are paying fees for it.

Ideally, you should put any modem or modem/router into bridge/"modem only" mode so that you can use your own router directly.

Also, you are using a Killer NIC. These are low end NICs with truly garbage software on top that can cause all kinds of problems. It is best to uninstall all Killer software, even their drivers, and either install Qualcomm drivers or rely on Windows built-in drivers. If for some reason that fails, you can try the "Driver-Only" Killer software from their website.

 

[Nick Mullins]

Umarmungm,

Thanks for your suggestions. I have dug high and low looking for information about the Arris DG3270 I have. I know it has a dual core "1.2GHz Intel Atom Core" CPU, but that seems to be all I can find. Nothing about the DG3270 chipset anywhere I have looked. Can you point me to a resource that can tell me? Also, can you recommend a good cable modem that DOESN'T have a PUMA 5/6/7 chipset? Preferably for not a huge chunk of money.

As to the Killer NIC, I am using the Intel NIC that is built in. (My motherboard has both built in). I will disable the Killer in the BIOS and uninstall the software to see if that helps any. I am sort of feeling like it won't....

As to the Ubiquiti set up.... I used to have a very.... extensive... home network before I had a fire. Now, I have a rather tiny apartment.

As to the ASUS RT-AC68U, it looks like it is the younger, bigger brother of my old one. Which I like. I have a question, given the chance to buy a certified refurbed one and a 4 year warranty at a third of the price, would you? This would leave enough left over in my budget to buy a modem too.

Thanks again for your time,

Nick

 

[System Error Message]

ubiquiti edgerouters arent a good idea if you want something that just works, they fall in the category of needing skill.

Im sure you can set the given router to bridge mode. Even the AC68U is still decent, depends really on your WAN speeds and your featureset needs.

Sometimes with USB getting a NAS is better than attaching a hard drive to a router.

 

[umarmung]

I would not trust any even slightly modern modem that contains an Intel Atom SoC, since that is the core of the Puma 6/7 technology that has failed so hard it led to lawsuits. Ancient Intel Puma 5, which were actually rebadged Texas Instruments, were fine.

Yes, a factory refurbished router is fine. I would still prefer new, but under budget constraints it is ok, especially if you can buy it with a good return policy like from Amazon or Costco.

You have not said what the speed of your Internet is and since you should only get a modem approved by your cable company, it makes it hard to recommend any specific model.

Here are picks at different (conservative) speed points:

• < 200 Mbit/s: Arris SB6121 or Arris SB6141
• < 300 Mbit/s: Zoom 5370 or Arris SB6183
• < 700 Mbit/s: Netgear CM600
• 1Gbit/s: Motorola MB8600 or Netgear CM1000 or Arris SB8200

 

[Nick Mullins]

Umarmung,

Thank you for your advice. I have the router lined up, and the modem ordered. I don't currently have Gigabit service, but I MAY go that route in the next year, so I ordered the Netgear CM1000. It's on the list of approved routers by my ISP. Right now I have 100 down / 10 up. If I do step up, I will get an -86U. For the amount I will have invested in the -68, swapping out in a year or so wouldn't be painful at all. Oh, and oddly enough, I actually found a fan kit for the -68U. My old -56 did run on the hot side, so I may invest in it.

BTW: FOR PRIME MEMBERS THE Netgear CM1000 is$25 off until 7/17.

And I do like System Error's suggestion on the NAS. I might consider it down the road.

Thanks, I appreciate the input.

 

[sfx2000]

RT-N56U

If you're ok with AsusWRT - seems like the answer is obvious there...

Sorry to hear the router died - like cats and dogs and frogs and fish - everything has a turn...

 

[sfx2000]

I have. I know it has a dual core "1.2GHz Intel Atom Core" CPU, but that seems to be all I can find. Nothing about the DG3270 chipset anywhere I have looked. Can you point me to a resource that can tell me? Also, can you recommend a good cable modem that DOESN'T have a PUMA 5/6/7 chipset? Preferably for not a huge chunk of money.

Take a serious look at the SB6183 from Moto/Arris - Docsis 3.0, doesn't have the issues with Puma on x86...

It's a bit on the older side, but it's a solid modem...

 

[avtella]

Killer doesn’t make any hardware they rebadge existing products and modify the device id so their terrible suite works only with the rebadged products. Only product of theirs is that atrocious suite. Don’t recall which model the Killer Ethernet NIC is rebadged from. WiFi side the, Killer 1550 is rebadged Intel 9260ac and the 1535 is a rebadged Qualcomm 6174A even the drivers come directly from the original suppliers, so you can use stock Intel/Qualcomm drivers as that’s what’s on their site anyway.

The SB6183 is pretty good and reliable, I got the SB8200 as Comcast has DOCSIS 3.1 enabled in my area. As for the SB6190 yeah the Puma 6 issues are still there so avoid it.

 

[sfx2000]

Killer doesn’t make any hardware they rebadge existing products and modify the device id so their terrible suite works only with the rebadged products. Only product of theirs is that atrocious suite. Don’t recall which model the Killer Ethernet NIC is rebadged from. WiFi side the, Killer 1550 is rebadged Intel 9260ac and the 1535 is a rebadged Qualcomm 6174A even the drivers come directly from the original suppliers, so you can use stock Intel/Qualcomm drivers as that’s what’s on their site anyway.

The original Bigfoot Killer NIC's (M1 and K1) were very interesting - they had their own Linux OS running on a PowerQUICC - the upside was that one could get under the hood and doing interesting things with the card's OS - the downside was that it was as expensive as most mainboards, and didn't offer significant improvement in overall performance compared to other quality ethernet cards.

Not intending to be negative there with regards to the folks over at Killer - their tech was interesting enough that Qualcomm did buy them when QCOM was in their "let's go buy interesting companies" mode...

 

[Easy Rhino]

If you want to spend a bunch of money on gaming, the netgear XR500's dumaOS seems pretty interesting. Overkill in other ways, and it does look like a spaceship.