Router decisions - what to choose

[Plef5204]

I've been running wireless N via a WRT 610N v.1 for the last 2 and a half years. It's never really performed as well as I'd have expected of a wireless N product. My home is a townhome, and the router is about 10' below, and 30' away from my office. At that distance, signal strength sticks at about 50% on 2.4 GHz, and 10% on 5 GHz, with the PC using a Linksys WMP600N wireless NIC.

About 6 months ago, a Linksys support rep was able to help me optimize the router.......so I got the best performance ever from it...file transfer speeds of about 28 MBit/s.

In any case, the internal battery seems to have gone, and since December it keeps losing its settings, every time there is a power interruption to the house, so I've been thinking of replacing it.

Reading the reviews here, I tried the Netgear WNDR3700, and found the signal to be stronger....about 70% for 2.4 GHz, but still only 10% for 5 GHz. However, when I tried setting it up, any time I try to do file transfers, the most I've been able to get is about 50-170 KB/s.....which is far less than it should be capable of. Anyone else run into problems like this before?

I'm networking two machines that each have Windows 7 64 bit, and there's also a PS3, 360, and TV that are only occasionally on.

I've talked to Netgear's service reps, who told me that 54 Mbps is "the fastest speed your router can go". Which doesn't make any sense to me.

I'm still within the exchange period, and I'm thinking the device may just be faulty, so I'm going to switch it for a fresh copy.

Are there any other units I should be looking at? Right now, my Linksys is working, but it's limping along.....since getting it up and running again, the max I've got out of it is about 13 MBit/s in file transfer speed, when only two devices are on the network....and if I try to use Vonage or Skype to place calls, I pretty much can't do anything else.

I'd be interested in hearing if there are other products I should be looking at.....or if the problem is actually the wrong choice of wireless NIC or something.

I have considered that maybe, if I can get the WNDR3700 to at least work, purchase two of them, put one in the bedroom directly above the other, and set the one on the main floor as a base station, and the one in the bedroom as a repeater, and go that way. But I can only do that if I can get the thing working properly.

Plef5204

 

[thiggins]

First there is no internal battery in the WRT610N or any other router I've tested. So if your WRT610N is losing settings, there is something else wrong (bad flash, perhaps).

How are you measuring speed? Is the problem on the 2.4 or 5 GHz band? What wireless security are you using? Have you changed the default WMM settings (should be enabled)? What link rate are you getting on the client (what is Windows reporting)?

How did the Linksys rep help you "optimize" the WRT610N?

 

[Plef5204]

I'm using a few things.....first off, while testing, I go to Network and Sharing Center, click on the wireless network, and take the speed reading from the pop-up that appears there.

Then, when moving files using Windows Explorer, I look at the Advanced information that shows progress of file transfer.

Third, I have a desktop widget that I downloaded from the Microsoft site...a Network Meter. It shows data upload and download speed.

Finally, I use a simple stopwatch. I have a 1 GB file (actually 939 MB) that I place in a shared directory on the desktop, and using the laptop, I'll go to that shared directory, copy the file, and paste it into an empty folder on the C drive of the laptop. I then time the process with a stopwatch.

I've searched and searched for software that will do this, but everything I find is related to measuring file transfer speed over my internet connection....not between machines *within* my network.

For the Linksys WRT610N, they had me make the following setting changes:

2.4 GHz band (set to N only)
Channel width 20 MHz
Wide Channel - 1
Security WPA2

5 GHz band (set to N only)
Channel width 20 MHz
Wide Channel - 153
Security WPA2

Security
-uncheck "filter anonymous internet requests"

Beacon Interval (for both bands) = 50
RTS Threshold = 2304

That's all the stuff I'd recorded...but evidently I missed something, because after that power failure in December, even though I reset everything to those values, I was unable to get performance back to where it used to be.

If there's no battery in the WRT610N, then something is wrong with it. The power failure happened while I was testing a new position of the router, to try and gain more speed out of it, and I'd moved it to pretty much the only unprotected power outlet in the house (all it had on it until that point had been a end table lamp). So, now I'm wondering if there was a power fluctuation in that power failure that actually caused damage to the router? Because I'm not sure why else it would start resetting itself every time the power goes out, or I unplug it for a few minutes. The other thing is that since December, the speeds have been about 30% of the speeds I used to get with it.

I've got another post I left earlier, after testing the WNDR3700 this morning. I brought the other unit back to the store last night, and they gave me a fresh copy and it's been working much better this morning. It must have been a faulty unit, because the performance difference is night and day from the one I returned.

http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?p=25774#post25774

The 5 GHz on this new WNDR3700 seems much stronger than on the WRT610N, but the 2.4 seems slower for some reason. But I'm not going to sniff at 5 MB/s file transfers, when I've never come close to that before

Plef5204

 

[thiggins]

Sounds like you had a bad WNDR3700. Your settings sound ok, but I'd just leave the defaults on the WNDR3700 and use WPA2/AES security.

For throughput measurement, LANSpeed test is easy to use.

 

[Plef5204]

Thanks for the tip....I'll give that one a try.

At least with my testing so far, the WNDR seems to be working best if I have the 2.4 GHz channel set to 130 Mbps, and the 5 GHz channel set to 300 Mbps. If I bump the 2.4 to 300, the speed seems to drop by like 60%. Kind of odd.

But I'm very pleased with the 5 GHz band. Theoretically, I suppose I could have my access point (with PS3, 360, and TV) and desktop run off the 5 GHz band all the time, and our iphones and laptop run off the 2.4 GHz bands, and that would do it. The access point is in the living room on the floor below the router, and it's much closer....so the signal strength is even stronger....usually over 90% (at least it was with the Linksys). I haven't set it up set, but I'll check. I suspect there won't be any problems now.

The only other thing I can think of that I changed with this second WNDR3700 is that I read somewhere not to use the install disk with Windows 7 64 bit. But with the first WNDR3700 I *did* use the disk.

This time around, before unboxing the replacement, I found the Netgear folder that the disk placed on my PC, and I changed the name to Netgear_bak. Then I unboxed the new unit and everything worked fine. I know the Lela software that came with the Linksys caused no end of problems when I was initially setting that unit up.....it was only when I deleted it that things started working.

So either a bad unit, or Windows 7 64 bit didn't like something with that install disk.

Plef5204

 

[thiggins]

I don't think the NETGEAR install disk installs anything like LELA, at least right now. At CES, they told me they are rolling out a "Genie" app this year. But that's later.

40 MHz bandwidth mode (Up to 300 Mbps in NETGEAR-speak) provides benefit only with strong signals. So I'm not surprised you see a speed drop. Probably comes from excessive link-rate switching.

If 300 Mbps mode is working for you in 5 GHz, that's fine. Plenty of non-overlapping channels there. Sounds also that your setup (router on the floor directly below your primary use area) is also ideal.

 

[Plef5204]

If I can ask, what is link-rate switching? I haven't heard that term before.

With the speeds I'm getting, do you think there would be a benefit to buying a second WNDR3700, and setting it up on the 2nd floor, immediately above the first one, and turning it into a repeater, so that it's now just firing straight through the air into the office, instead of shooting up from the first floor through the ceiling into the office at an angle?

I assume I would get a much stronger signal at that point.....but I also have been told that using a repeater will decrease speeds by 50%.

I guess the question is....with 5 GHz, if I'm getting speeds of 4.8 to 5.1 MB/s, how close is that to the optimum of the router. Theoretically, if with a strong signal this thing was capable of doing, say, 40 MB/s, then putting in a repeater could boost me from 5 MB/s to 20 MB/s (half of 40). However, if it's unlikely that I'd get over, let's say, 12 MB/s in the best of scenarios with one router, then it doesn't make sense to spend $130 more to go from 5 to about 6 (half of that 12).

I hope that question makes sense.

Plef5204

 

[Plef5204]

One other question.....I downloaded the latest firmware for the WNDR3700, and ran the install wizard.

Do I either need to turn the router off for 30 seconds and then turn it back on OR do a hard reset by pushing that tiny little button on the bottom with a pencil and holding that for 30 seconds?

Some routers require that, and others don't...

Plef5204

 

[thiggins]

If I can ask, what is link-rate switching? I haven't heard that term before.

The wireless link rate is what Windows reports as "speed" in the Wireless Connection Status. It's also referred to as PHY (PHYsical Layer) speed, or the maximum theoretical rate at which data will flow.
802.11n supports many link rates. Wireless drivers have algorithms that monitor received signal level and change link rates accordingly so to minimize bit error rate.

With the speeds I'm getting, do you think there would be a benefit to buying a second WNDR3700, and setting it up on the 2nd floor, immediately above the first one, and turning it into a repeater, so that it's now just firing straight through the air into the office, instead of shooting up from the first floor through the ceiling into the office at an angle?

I assume I would get a much stronger signal at that point.....but I also have been told that using a repeater will decrease speeds by 50%.

I guess the question is....with 5 GHz, if I'm getting speeds of 4.8 to 5.1 MB/s, how close is that to the optimum of the router. Theoretically, if with a strong signal this thing was capable of doing, say, 40 MB/s, then putting in a repeater could boost me from 5 MB/s to 20 MB/s (half of 40). However, if it's unlikely that I'd get over, let's say, 12 MB/s in the best of scenarios with one router, then it doesn't make sense to spend $130 more to go from 5 to about 6 (half of that 12).

Wireless throughput is cut approximately in half for each WDS repeating "hop", i.e. an AP that data flows through before hitting the wired network. This is because all transmissions use the same channel and radio and must be retransmitted to reach the wired LAN.

So you lose at least half of whatever throughput you are getting with a client at the location that you install the repeater.

5 MB/s is decent throughput for your setup. If you want higher speed, you'll need to run Ethernet.

As for firmware upgrade, as long as the router shows the new firmware version you don't need to do a factory default. But can't hurt if you want to. Follow the instructions in the user guide to perform a reset to default.

 

[Plef5204]

Ah, that makes sense. That number, that Windows reports as "speed" changes all the time. With my current setup, I've seen it range anywhere from 5 Mbps to 300 Mbps.

At the moment, it's sitting at 40.5 Mbps.

Overall signal strength has been fluctuating to a much higher degree today than it did all weekend....going back and forth between 10-30%.

The firmware number identified in the router does seem to reflect the upgraded firmware, so I won't change anything there.

The only things I've changed:

1-Access point in the basement is now connected to the 5 GHz band.
2-I've placed a DECT 6.0 phone base about a foot away from the router.

I'll try monkeying around with those, and see if it makes a difference.

Thanks for explaining all this. It was a big help.

Plef5204