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"Choosing a router"

Hi All,

I'm fairly sure my current router (Netgear DGN2000) is giving up the ghost. Our household has several devices which are all regularly dropping wireless connection to it. Several restarts of the router get it going again but the problems are getting more and more frequent.

Anyhoo, I think it's time to look for a replacement.

I've seen the Linksys WRT1900AC which looks like a nice router but tbh there are so many choices out there that I may well be chucking good money at a spec I don't really need.

We're not really heavy data users although we do have SKY and fairly regularly use on-demand stuff. There are two laptops and a couple of mobiles too but there's no real need for anything other than to handle normal internet use.

Any advice from the more knowledgeable Freeolarers would be greatly appreciated.

JTD

Right, my head hurts!!! Firstly thanks to Chas for pointing me in the right direction yesterday, here's how things panned out... My issue (with the Netgear router) was identical that shown in the You Tube clip. Chas suggested trying a £5 bog standard wired phone and this worked...initially. So I binned off my expensive Panasonic cordless phones and went off to Argos to buy a shiny new set of equally expensive 'official' BT ones which did EXACTLY THE SAME FFFFFF THING!!!!!! Utterly bemused I pulled all of my equipment to pieces and tried this... I installed one crappy no-name eBay special clip-in ADSL filter which I connected the router directly to. I then fitted the new Netgear ADSL filter for the phone only into it and this surprisingly seems to have worked! I've no idea if there is any such thing as double filtering phones or whether in practice it does anything whatsoever, all I know is that it seems to have done the trick?!! So in the end I have replaced my router, filter (+additional filter!), all cabling, my phones and also I ended up buying a new wireless network card as my old one kept disappearing out of windows when the Netgear router started playing up (was fine with the Belkin?). Cost a bit in the end and I've still no idea what was really causing the fault but hopefully I've just found a workaround which if successful is surely a contender for bodge of the century! :)

Glad to hear you are all sorted :¬)
Hopefully you've tested thoroughly.

Yes you can 'double filter'.
Different makes of filter cope with different frequencies better than others. It's worth knowing that the ADSL side of your connection is 'straight through' (i.e. NOT filtered) - which is why I mentioned testing without a filter.

Shame things have taken so long to sort out though! The first thing to do with BB problems is to disconnect ALL other equipment - this is what the TEST socket does. If you haven't a modern socket then still remove all phones/SKY boxes etc. etc.

Anyway it sounds like things are better for you now.
[s]Hmmm...[/s]

Glad you seem to be sorted pete, but at a price ;¬)

Yep, it's certainly left a dent in my wallet! The thing was after 6 months of intermittent unusable speeds, web pages constantly hanging/partially loading and then constant dropouts with the new router I was getting really fed up with it TBH. The only real way of finding out which (if any) of my equipment was causing these issues was to replace everything (which initially still didn't do the trick). Still think there is some issue on my line/connection to be honest as I can't really see why 3 makes of router (and 3 makes of ADSL filters) would all react differently, a D-Link model I tried wouldn't stay up for anymore than 30 seconds even with the phone not in use. Anyway, in my new role as level 10 telecoms engineer I am currently working away in my secret laboratory on a device that should sort out even the worst of these issues. Can't go into specifics but the first prototype of the Octo-ADSL filter should be ready for taking on Dragons Den very soon...

pete_21 wrote:
Yep, it's certainly left a dent in my wallet! The thing was after 6 months of intermittent unusable speeds, web pages constantly hanging/partially loading and then constant dropouts with the new router I was getting really fed up with it TBH. The only real way of finding out which (if any) of my equipment was causing these issues was to replace everything (which initially still didn't do the trick). Still think there is some issue on my line/connection to be honest as I can't really see why 3 makes of router (and 3 makes of ADSL filters) would all react differently, a D-Link model I tried wouldn't stay up for anymore than 30 seconds even with the phone not in use. Anyway, in my new role as level 10 telecoms engineer I am currently working away in my secret laboratory on a device that should sort out even the worst of these issues. Can't go into specifics but the first prototype of the Octo-ADSL filter should be ready for taking on Dragons Den very soon...

Probably more relevant than the router/filter models is that a standard analogue phone didn't seem to cause an issue, but your cordless ones did.

Just a question, but does your cordless base unit stand near your router? (wondering if, perhaps, you simply "accumulate" errors due to interference...)

chasfh wrote:
Probably more relevant than the router/filter models is that a standard analogue phone didn't seem to cause an issue, but your cordless ones did.

Just a question, but does your cordless base unit stand near your router? (wondering if, perhaps, you simply "accumulate" errors due to interference...)

I actually thought exactly the same thing Chas so I ran a couple of extensions across the landing to get the 2 units as far apart as possible (one was right at front of house the other at the rear) and it made no difference whatsoever, as soon as the phone connected the connection was screwed. I have now returned all my equipment neatly in one corner of the same room (as it has been since I've lived here since 2009) and with my double-filter bodge (or DFB as I like to call it!) it's working fine? I appreciate that it sounds like I'm talking utter nonsense but it's actually true! I'm just glad that I've finally got a usable connection so I'm happy, thanks again for your help BTW.

If "DFB" is working, all good!

I'll keep an eye on the connection regardless, just to monitor for any changes, but hopefully we're there.

Not strictly nonsense as Hmmm pointed out, but unusual to say the least. I'll file this one under "Weird potential fixes" (or "WPF" if you prefer) for future reference...

Just happy we got a solution in the end!

DFB Update! Connection stayed up for 9 consecutive days, IP profile has now nearly doubled, one router reboot later and...

'Download speedachieved during the test was - 10.02 Mbps

For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 4 Mbps-21 Mbps.

IP Profile for your line is - 10.13 Mbps'

Not one web page loading issue over those 9 days and where the needle on the speedometer style speedtests used to look like granny pulling out of Tesco's car park it is now pretty much stable with only minor fluctuations.

In the words of the great Valentino Rossi 'I verrrrry appy' :)

Happy faces :¬D Netgear is cool with DFB ...

Looks like I spoke too soon, got home today and connection had dropped, rebooted got this.

'Download speed achieved during the test was - 0.83 Mbps

For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 4 Mbps-21 Mbps.

IP Profile for your line is - 8.3 Mbps'

:(