How to check if router is damaged or not?

[tipstir]

Maybe I found an affordable alternative

Browsing the TP-link web site I found the TL-R600VPN.

I read specifications, but I'm not able to find how many connections is able to manage it. If I'm not reading the wrong parameter, the R600 is able to manage 10000 connections, and the 5120 can manage 120000 connections. If I use 200 or 300 connections, then the R600 should be more than enough. However, the R600 has lesser RAM, so which one is better for me?

PERFORMANCE
Concurrent Session 10000
NAT Throughput 120Mbps
IPsec VPN Throughput (3DES) 20Mbps

This is a VPN router do you need a VPN router. Get the Load balance ones instead. I am the 5120 and have a Smart Switch on it's way also here to replace two un-managed switches. 5120 has managed switch ports function.

You can get the 5120 very cheap today depends on where you get it from though. Some greedy vendors online charging way too much today.

 

[geno888]

Actually I don't need a VPN, but the R600 has a much more affordable price for me: I really can't afford the 5120

It should be anyway a well performing router for my needs.

Thanks a lot for your help. When I'll find money I'll buy it and I'll report here how it works

 

[geno888]

I'm back

Before to purchase the new router I have another quick question. Too bad here situation is not good, and money shortage is more and more a big problem. The f****ng politicians are stealing all the money and new taxes are placed every day (one of the last ones is a tax on beverages... so if you buy a soda you have to pay a tax... WTF?????)

So currently the only router I can afford is TP-Link TL-R470T+.

Based on the router charts published here, my current D-Link 655 is able to manage 22,172 connections, whereas the TP-Link (according to specifications) is able to manage 10000 Concurrent Sessions.

I'm confused about this difference. "Concurrent Sessions" is the same of "Simultaneous connections" or not?

Is the TL-R470T+ a good choice or not? At the moment it is the only alternative I can afford

Too bad the TL-ER5120 is definitely out of my range (it is priced more than 200 euro, i.e. around 262 USD ) compared to the 50 euro of the 470T+ (about 65 USD).

Even if I'll never use a VPN, the only affordable alternative I found is the TL-R600VPN, that like the 470 is able to manage 10,000 Concurrent Sessions, but it has more RAM so it should be a bit faster.

However, the TL-R600VPN is priced about 120 euro, and at that price I can get the asus RT-N56U, so I'm more and more confused...

Another thing that confuses me is that the 470+ is not a gigabit router, but considering that my ISP sux big time (I only have around 3.8 Mbs and there are no signs to get a faster connections here) do I really need a gigabit router?

Is it worth to buy the 470+ or I should wait some more trying to find money to get the R600? Or the asus?

TIA

 

[geno888]

I have another question about cable length

In case I have to connect another computer to the router, because of there is no wireless in these models, there are only two solutions: add a cheap access point or draw a cable from the router to the PC.

Is it possible to use cables in the range of 20-30 meters with any commercial router available or is needed to buy something specifically capable to provide enough power to carry signal without errors also to long distances? To be sure that connections will be working correctly should I add a PoE switch maybe? As I said cables I need are in the range of 20-30 meters, but to add some safety margin let's say 50 meters.

Moreover, is it needed to get shielded cables or any plain cat5 cable is fine?

 

[thiggins]

Ethernet it spec'd to support cables up to 100M per link. Note that you may have problems if your cables are near that length. But 20/30M is no problem.

 

[tipstir]

I have another question about cable length

In case I have to connect another computer to the router, because of there is no wireless in these models, there are only two solutions: add a cheap access point or draw a cable from the router to the PC.

Is it possible to use cables in the range of 20-30 meters with any commercial router available or is needed to buy something specifically capable to provide enough power to carry signal without errors also to long distances? To be sure that connections will be working correctly should I add a PoE switch maybe? As I said cables I need are in the range of 20-30 meters, but to add some safety margin let's say 50 meters.

Moreover, is it needed to get shielded cables or any plain cat5 cable is fine?

If you only get 3.8mbps from your ISP then don't go with a Gig router unless you move a lot of data back and forth in huge 500m to 800m. Then Gig Router would help make the data transfer quicker.

TL-ER5120 and ER6120 are very good most of the features I won't be using either. The one you decided has 1/2 the RAM of these two. Prices on these items and their matching JetStream switch have climbed back up. I was lucky to get mine for 1/2 price. ER6120 keeps running smooth. I am sure your R model will too.

These routers can work with CAT5 to CAT5e without any issues.

 

[geno888]

Thanks again for your help

Yesterday I placed the order at Amazon. I got the R600VPN (the cheapest gigabit wired router I was able to find) and a 30m cat 6 cable (I was lucky enough to find it at a very nice price, 12 euro, hoping that is not a scam ).

I'll post results when the router will be delivered.

 

[tipstir]

Thanks again for your help

Yesterday I placed the order at Amazon. I got the R600VPN (the cheapest gigabit wired router I was able to find) and a 30m cat 6 cable (I was lucky enough to find it at a very nice price, 12 euro, hoping that is not a scam ).

I'll post results when the router will be delivered.

Looks good. If you want I can find out from them what's in there making it run. But it might be the same 500MHz. Just have to ask them.

 

[geno888]

Finally the router was delivered

Now it is installed and running (by about 2 hours). So far so good. I'm putting the device to a sort of "home made stress test": I am downloading 30 torrents at the same time and with a download manager I'm also downloading 10 files each one split in 8 segments... this should open a ton of connections

Yep, I know that with a so crappy bandwidth my ISP gives me it is stupid to download so many torrents at the same time, but I'm not interested at all to these files (I'll delete them soon). I'm only curious to check if this router is able to manage a quite high number of connections without collapsing like the old D-link did

If someone is interested, with a room temperature of about 26C, the router box (it is a fully metallic chassis) is not even mildly warm... until now it is running cool even if with a so high number of connections the hardware should be put at stress. In the config pages there is no indicator of CPU activity like it can be found in the online simulator, so I have no idea if the CPU is really running at full load or not.

Another information if someone is interested, the CD provided in the box is pretty useless, because it only contains the pdf manual, that I already grabbed from TP-Link web site. So the VPN software (if needed) must be downloaded by the users.

Before to put the router at work, I updated to latest firmware available at TP-Link site.

So far so good

As a side note, the cable is fine: I was really lucky to find a 30 meters long cat6 cable at a so nice price.

 

[tipstir]

Finally the router was delivered

Now it is installed and running (by about 2 hours). So far so good. I'm putting the device to a sort of "home made stress test": I am downloading 30 torrents at the same time and with a download manager I'm also downloading 10 files each one split in 8 segments... this should open a ton of connections

Yep, I know that with a so crappy bandwidth my ISP gives me it is stupid to download so many torrents at the same time, but I'm not interested at all to these files (I'll delete them soon). I'm only curious to check if this router is able to manage a quite high number of connections without collapsing like the old D-link did

If someone is interested, with a room temperature of about 26C, the router box (it is a fully metallic chassis) is not even mildly warm... until now it is running cool even if with a so high number of connections the hardware should be put at stress. In the config pages there is no indicator of CPU activity like it can be found in the online simulator, so I have no idea if the CPU is really running at full load or not.

Another information if someone is interested, the CD provided in the box is pretty useless, because it only contains the pdf manual, that I already grabbed from TP-Link web site. So the VPN software (if needed) must be downloaded by the users.

Before to put the router at work, I updated to latest firmware available at TP-Link site.

So far so good

As a side note, the cable is fine: I was really lucky to find a 30 meters long cat6 cable at a so nice price.

Which BT app are you using? I was able to pull down 3x 1.68GB files in less than 10 minutes. My Router maxes out at 5.5MB/s is the highest tested on my end on BT. Yes it doesn't get hot they stay cool. What your CPU % running at in the Web UI.

 

[geno888]

Which BT app are you using? I was able to pull down 3x 1.68GB files in less than 10 minutes. My Router maxes out at 5.5MB/s is the highest tested on my end on BT. Yes it doesn't get hot they stay cool. What your CPU % running at in the Web UI.

LOL guess what... I still get random disconnections

However I can say that this router works pretty well. With a so powerful hardware now the most annoying bottleneck is my painly slow connection (4.2 Mbps when I'm lucky).

Actually it seems that I'm cursed in some way... after fixing the router issue now I have another annoying problem: after updating the download manager to latest version (I'm using IDM) the app is crashing often, forcing me to kill it with task manager... Every time I fix something, something else is broken

For my "home made" test I used uTorrent version 1.8.2 (I was too lazy to search for latest version ). The max download speed I was able to get was around 490-520 KB/sec, but as I said I have a quite suxxy ISP...

In the Web-UI there is no indication of CPU speed, so I have no idea how much is the CPU load in the router

 

[tipstir]

LOL guess what... I still get random disconnections

However I can say that this router works pretty well. With a so powerful hardware now the most annoying bottleneck is my painly slow connection (4.2 Mbps when I'm lucky).

Actually it seems that I'm cursed in some way... after fixing the router issue now I have another annoying problem: after updating the download manager to latest version (I'm using IDM) the app is crashing often, forcing me to kill it with task manager... Every time I fix something, something else is broken

For my "home made" test I used uTorrent version 1.8.2 (I was too lazy to search for latest version ). The max download speed I was able to get was around 490-520 KB/sec, but as I said I have a quite suxxy ISP...

In the Web-UI there is no indication of CPU speed, so I have no idea how much is the CPU load in the router

I don't using U-T and kept the old Azu for years then they upgraded to Vuz with some tweaks to dampen their extra bloatware. This app using Java which is much faster than U-T.

Make sure you download the latest firmware for the router! Make a heck of a difference. I've build so many download server system the last one is very powerful. I am not downloading like I use too. I've burnt out so may routers they go dull in the WAN port more than the LAN ports. This VPN Router seems to do a much better job with more session connection than with any other router before it except for the old DYNEX WIRED ROUTER which was the best for BT until it had died.

ISP modem connections are they in A-1 shape?

 

[geno888]

I already installed latest firmware version (actually it was the first thing I did even before to configure router).

I never used vuze because is too complicated for me (too many settings, and for most of these I have no idea what they means), so U-T is just fine for me. I read that latest versions are pretty bloated too, so I think that I'll stay with this old version

About the modem connection, I'm not sure what do you mean. Are you referring to the cable? I'm using something like this to connect the modem to the wall plug.

To be more precise, I connect one extremity of cable to the wall plug, the other to the UPS, then from the UPS I draw another cable to the modem. I decided to buy an UPS a couple of years ago, when a friend "fried" his PC because of a power surge caused by lightning weather

I just checked the config page and it shows

System Up Time:
3 days 01:53:22

So far no more disconnections

 

[tipstir]

I see they have upgraded the ER5120 to what the ER6120 is. You can newer one ER5120. Don't let the price make you wonder these routers are not like the kind you pickup at Walmart store.