Does your wireless bridge's performance slowly decrease?

[lhwidget]

I started streaming video to my media streaming devices using Buffalo and Linksys wireless G routers running Tomato or DDWRT to build wireless bridges to my entertainment system locations.

The basic architecture was one WAP with two routers in bridge mode bound to it (two remote locations).

All configurations of Linksys/Buffalo/Tomato/DDWRT would do the same thing;
1) When the software was first installed, it would perform its best. The little G routers would do OK for standard definition TV and music and got iffy on DVDs.
2) After 3 to 5 weeks, I would notice that DVD performance was worse, and some TV recordings would stutter or hang.
3) Soon after, the wireless bridges would fail. The failure was so totally and utterly complete, the first time this happened, I bought new routers.

The replacement equipment was flashed with DDWRT.

After 4-5 weeks, the wireless connections failed again.

This time, I played with it (for days) until I wound up doing a hard reset on all three routers and reconfiguring each one at the same time.

Suddenly, all worked again, just like new, for about 5 weeks, until the next wireless failure. Again, a hard reset and re-entering the routers' configuration settings fixed the failure. I have since confirmed that all of the routers are fully functional, even the first three I had originally replaced.

About a year ago, I upgraded to Netgear's WNHDE111s. Again, one configured as a WAP, with the other two bound to it in bridge mode.

After a year, I have found that:
1) Their performance slowly degrades. After 8 weeks in service, drop-outs/stuttering was unacceptable on HD TV streams (average though-put about 14 Mb/s).
2) Just for grins, I tried a hard reset on all three units. For once I got lucky, my problem was cured.
3) For the last 6 months, I’ve only been using one 111 bridged to the WAP, the wireless connection lasted longer, but by the end of 16 weeks, its performance had degraded to unacceptable levels.

Again, a hard reset of both 111s fixed the poor performance and the stuttering disappeared.

I have done three hard resets on the 111s since installing them.

Sorry to be so long winded, but I had to describe this with some detail to ask my question.

1) Is anyone else seeing this behavior in consumer grade wireless bridge applications?
2) If so, can anyone explain what’s happening? (I have a guess, but that’s all I got…)

 

[freesafety13]

I have a similar issue with a DAP-1522. My connection does not go completely out like yours but there are times when my DAP, even though its on a N only network using a 40Mhz channel width, will suddenly have its throughput speed to the router drop to 11Mbps. The only thing I have connected to my bridge is my media server, with serves no purpose if my connection speed drops.

One thing I have noticed with my bridge is I will start to see high latency between my bridge and router then I will start to get small amounts of packet loss. After the packet loss starts my bridge starts defaulting back to slower and slower transmission rates until it reaches its slowest supported rate. All this occurs while my connection strength is above 80%. A simple reboot to both my router and bridge usually fixes it though.

 

[lhwidget]

I have a similar issue with a DAP-1522. My connection does not go completely out like yours but there are times when my DAP, even though its on a N only network using a 40Mhz channel width, will suddenly have its throughput speed to the router drop to 11Mbps. The only thing I have connected to my bridge is my media server, with serves no purpose if my connection speed drops.

One thing I have noticed with my bridge is I will start to see high latency between my bridge and router then I will start to get small amounts of packet loss. After the packet loss starts my bridge starts defaulting back to slower and slower transmission rates until it reaches its slowest supported rate. All this occurs while my connection strength is above 80%. A simple reboot to both my router and bridge usually fixes it though.

My post was getting long, but your reply brings out some things I should have mentioned...

My network consists of a WHS, a PC, and a 111 on cat 5 cable to the switch in a Buffalo WRT54G router, then two other PCs, each bridged wirelessly to the 111 (configured as a 5 GHz WAP). The other two 111s operate in bridge mode back to the 111 WAP. The Buffalo still provides wireless G connectivity to my old notebook.

The first total failure of the wireless side of the network happened with the G routers I was using (running Tomato). After numerous re-boots and days of fiddling, one by one, I replaced all three of the Linksys routers I was using with Buffalo routers. Out of desperation, I finally tried the hard reset routine for all three routers at once and the wireless G network began to function again. I experienced several more failures of the wireless G network, and was able to restore the network every time by hard resetting all three routers and re-entering the configurations.

The 111s don't show the same behavior; They don't quit working, they just get very slow over time (2 to 4 months), until stuttering with HDTV streams becomes too obnoxious to put up with.

Rebooting them doesn't help, but a hard reset of the WAP and both bridge units will restore their original performance.

The only reason I can think of for this behavior is that the hard reset clears whatever routing tables and/or databases they use to operate. I'm thinking that over time, these data bases are being corrupted somehow.