Wanted: a very stable router

[Lightwave]

Are there any routers on the market that will run for months without rebooting or needing to be power cycled? User reviews for every 'leading' router I've looked at suggest that even high-end units have bad stability problems.

Can I expect 60 day+ uptimes out of any residential all-in-one wireless router or do I need to go for a separate AP, switch and a dual NIC Linux box as a router?


Need wireless G (or higher) with WPA2. Gigabit wired Ethernet a plus.

 

[thiggins]

Depends on how hard you are pushing the router and speed of Internet connection. If you have a 100 Mbps connection and are running video streams, Torrents, gaming sessions you may have problems from most any router.

That said, I would separate the wireless function out. Some router problems are caused from the wireless section.

I'm sure folks will tell you to run DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Tomato, too. An old notebook with Pfsense will probably do nicely, too.

 

[jdabbs]

I've found that pfSense wireless NIC support is hit or miss (BSD-based), so ebaying a disposable laptop will require investigative work. I haven't experienced stability issues with my low-power embedded PC.

 

[Lightwave]

Usage will be fairly light. 3mbit connection (this area isn't worth more in the eyes of the monopoly service provider) supporting three users. Worst case usage would be 4 simultaneous torrents. No gaming.

I am considering the WRT310N but user reviews don't suggest it's any more stable than any of the other junk on the market.

 

[Osamede]

Can I expect 60 day+ uptimes out of any residential all-in-one wireless router or do I need to go for a separate AP, switch and a dual NIC Linux box as a router?.....Need wireless G (or higher) with WPA2. Gigabit wired Ethernet a plus.

I get this quite easily out of my Draytek 2100VG which I've had for about 3 years now. Its pretty much set it and forget it. No overheating, dropouts and all that sort of nonsense I used to experience with Netgear, D-link and the likes. And that is with heavy torrenting from two laptops in the house at the same time.

For your purposes you probably dont need the VOIP model I use, so something like the 2100G model would work for you If you're in the US, I think guideband.com has then online for in the region of 75 to 80 bucks. Its a bit more than you might pay for an average G router, but as you've seemingly found out, there is a difference under the hood when you reach "cheap" price points.

Draytek have other models as well but the prices are much higher. Also there is some weird quirk where their 2950 model in the US only has 10/100 ethernet but in the Uk for example they are sold with Gigabit instead.

 

[gsxr600]

I've got an extra WRT330N laying around if you're interested! It was designed as a gaming router and has all the features you could ever want / need - 4Gb ports, Extensive QoS settings, Security, Port Forwarding / Triggering, Usage monitoring, etc etc and excellent coverage!

It ran for a good 6 months or so and never had to be restarted or had any issues - with 5 wired computers connected to a file server (all GbE), 4 wireless devices, 2 BD Players, and 2 Xbox 360's. It's the older style WRT300 / 330 / 350 / 600 style with 2 rubber duck antennas and a patch in the center.

It isn't dual-band, but it does support wide-band and automatic network adjustments based on tested WAN throughput and RF behavior.

Either way, this series of routers was my favorite - even to this day. Although they weren't dual band (except the 600N) they were the most reliable routers made IMO. I'm not a fan of the new fancy looking compact units, they just aren't as reliable and don't perform as well IMO.

Check 'em out on Amazon or Ebay if you can still find 'em, otherwise the WRT54G/GS/GT and SRX models were pretty reliable also if you only need .11g!



If you're interested, let me know and I could probably work out a good price. I have a Paypal Premier / Business account also so you'd be insured 100%.

**I'm not sure if this is against forum policy or not and apologize if it is. If I'm in violation please disregard / delete the part about it being for sale...

 

[thiggins]

**I'm not sure if this is against forum policy or not and apologize if it is. If I'm in violation please disregard / delete the part about it being for sale...

It's ok. Actually, I'm thinking of adding a buy/sell/swap forum for non-commercial use.

 

[DaveMcLain]

Reliability with this sort of equipment seems to vary a great deal. For instance I've had excellent results from the Netgear WGR614V9 at my home. Yet other people have not had as good of results. I didn't have good luck at all using the D-Link DIR-655 in the same installation. Now I'm experimenting with the D-Link again but now I've turned off DNS Relay which I've read was a source of problems for those routers.

At work I have a WRT54G-TM router bought off of E-Bay that's running the Tomato firmware. Right now it's at 100 days of continuous up time with no problems. I'm not using the wireless section of that router however so maybe that adds something to the reliability. None of my equipment is on a connection that's quicker than about 3Mbs and I rarely run any torrents. Both routers do however handle several clients who are surfing the web or sending data to and from a NAS at one time without trouble.