Wired Routers

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Fort Erie, ON
Earlier this year, I was having trouble with mobile devices connecting to my home WiFi and often my desktop computer (connected via Ethernet) would seem to not connect to the internet. Being in a rural area, I've got wireless (radio tower) internet and the router connects to a switch inside the house. I have a D-Link DAP-1650 as the wireless access point, which is connected via Ethernet to my switch . My ISP checked my connection and it found no issues and none of the other customers using this tower were reporting any issues either. They told me that the only way to test the router is to bypass the router and connect directly into the modem to see if there is any difference. My ISP does not like D-Link and recommended any router made by Asus or TP-Link.

Since I was using an old D-Link EBR-2310 router located in a detached garage beside the tower, it was a bit inconvenient for me to try bypassing the router. I found that Amazon had a cheap wireless router for $20 (TP-Link N300 that appeared to have really good reviews so I thought I would try it instead. The TP-Link N300 was a big improvement in WiFi connectivity but my download speeds are verrry slow. This morning, I've been trying to download a large file and the download speed is around 20-40 KB/s and the process has already failed several times. I used to get 5-10 Mbps when the EBR-2310 was working better. Sometimes, rebooting the N300 improves its performance.

I thought I would go back to a wired router because I my DAP-1650 works fine in the house and I can use the N300 as an outside WAP. Having checked around, it looks like there are very few wired (ie, no WiFi) routers for the consumer market.

Any advice about getting a good router for home use?
 
I should come down to visit you from the Hammer and help you.
grin2.gif


Those $20 routers IMO would be an issue, they aren't full duplex on the wired ports. If you look they will be missing pins where the ethernet cables go and this would restrict bandwidth. Further they really are for light cable / dsl packages and minimal traffic.

You want something more memory and a faster processor. All TP-Link routers offer much better range I have found over D-Link etc. I think you just picked the wrong one. Get something from their Archer Series. Like this one...
https://www.amazon.ca/TP-Link-AC1900-Smart-Wireless-Router/dp/B00PDLRHFW/

Also it could depend on what channel you were broadcasting on and if there was interference on whatever channel it was using. Sometimes the auto-channel feature in routers isn't the best and it's better to perform a wireless site survey and pick the best channel that isn't in use and there is no noise on. Forcing it to use a channel you decide versus the auto-scanned channel can make a tremendous difference.

The last is always make sure the firmware is up to date on the router when you first take it out of the box. It's possible this was creating the problem and there is a fix but it hasn't been applied because the router spent a lot of time on the shelf sort of thing before you purchased it and it has outdated firmware with bugs.
 
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The problem I'm having is with the wired connection speeds. With the EBR-2310, I was getting over 5 Mbps when it was working well. I haven't checked the WiFi speed but it seems quick enough.

I just checked the firmware version and it looks like my router has the latest firmware installed. I don't think it was on the shelf very long because it appeared to be a popular item that already had several thousand reviews when I got it and has over 17,000 reviews right now.
 
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I would check your cables and the switch. You could bypass the switch. They haven't made any routers that have half duplex ports for years. Any cheap router will be able to pass the speeds that your internet is, so has to be something other than the router.
 
Go to speedtest.net and run a speed test using multiple servers in your area and see what the best download/upload is.
 
He started by saying he had problems downloading a large file so it will troubleshoot that. If his wired connections are the problem they will also show up in this test because he depends on that connection for the downloading.
 
Try a different ethernet cable for starters, you could also try bypassing the switch and seeing if that yields the results you are looking for. I wouldn't suspect the router if wireless speeds are fine, since they are both passing through the same device.
 
Originally Posted by tmorris1
I assume your wireless AP has DHCP server turned off?


Yup, this. Sounds like a conflict.

I presently have two TP-link routers-- one in my basement with the wifi turned off that has DHCP duty and runs a couple wires to important wired things in my house. The other is only a wireless access point (at a better altitude for reaching everything) and has no routing or DHCP duties. They run DD-WRT firmware, FWIW, but you could do this with the stock version.
 
Originally Posted by eljefino
Originally Posted by tmorris1
I assume your wireless AP has DHCP server turned off?


Yup, this. Sounds like a conflict.

I presently have two TP-link routers-- one in my basement with the wifi turned off that has DHCP duty and runs a couple wires to important wired things in my house. The other is only a wireless access point (at a better altitude for reaching everything) and has no routing or DHCP duties. They run DD-WRT firmware, FWIW, but you could do this with the stock version.


Conflicting IP addresses don't create speed deficiencies, they generally produce non-connectivity for one of the two devices.
 
I have the DAP-1650 set up as a WAP so it should not have DHCP duty.

I did the speed.net (3 tests) just now and got:
Ping: 19 / 89 / 28 ms
Download: 2.75 / 3.68 / 3.40 Mbps
Upload: 11.18 / 8.85 / 9.08 Mbps

I then checked my DAP-1650 but was not able to find it on the network. I reset it and reconfigured it as a wireless access point. I can see it now but it didn't make any difference to my file download speed (as reported by Firefox).

My house uses a foil vapour barrier so the TL-WR841N has a very low signal strength in the house so DAP-1650 provides the WiFi connection.
 
Originally Posted by OVERKILL

Conflicting IP addresses don't create speed deficiencies, they generally produce non-connectivity for one of the two devices.


Running two is more than twice as complicated as running one.
lol.gif


OP should check everything out.
 
Originally Posted by fraso
I have the DAP-1650 set up as a WAP so it should not have DHCP duty.

I did the speed.net (3 tests) just now and got:
Ping: 19 / 89 / 28 ms
Download: 2.75 / 3.68 / 3.40 Mbps
Upload: 11.18 / 8.85 / 9.08 Mbps

I then checked my DAP-1650 but was not able to find it on the network. I reset it and reconfigured it as a wireless access point. I can see it now but it didn't make any difference to my file download speed (as reported by Firefox).

My house uses a foil vapour barrier so the TL-WR841N has a very low signal strength in the house so DAP-1650 provides the WiFi connection.


Has your connection always been that biased toward the upstream side?

Also, have you rebooted your ISP's wireless antenna to see if that has an impact?
 
Unplug all of your routers and test directly at the CPE cable with a laptop. I assume the ISP tech has already done this though.

Do you need Internet in the garage? If not you should just run a cable direct to the house and have all your equipment in there.

The cable from the garage to the house is suspect. Even "outdoor" cat5 should it get any water inside, its performance is ruined. If you can get good performance setting up the equipment in the garage, but not in the house, the cable is likely bad. Or run a temporary cable.

If the DAP can be configured to route, it should outperform the old router. Also in many cases the CPE at the top of the tower can be configured to also serve as a router, you can connect multiple devices and APs with only dumb switches.
 
I put the router in the detached garage because that building is between my 70' internet tower and my house. The ISP uses my tower as a repeater and has both a high speed antenna that communicates with another network tower as well as a couple of antennas that provide wireless internet service to other local users. All 3 antennas are connected to a switch mounted in a box on the back of my garage. From this switch, I have a cable that connects to the router in my garage. Because my router is connected to the high speed antenna via the switch, I should have much higher connection speeds than the other customers using this tower.

When I built the garage, I connected it to the house with a buried PVC conduit. I ran the same outdoor Ethernet cable that goes to the antennas on the top of the tower from my router to the distribution panel in the house via the conduit.

To check the various devices, I fired up my ThinkPad T30 (my newer laptop died this spring) and found that when I download that same large file, my download speed increased to 200-400 KB/s at both the router and the tower switch. I then went to the Ethernet distribution panel in my house and found that connecting directly into the cable coming from my router also gave me a 200-400 KB/s download speed.

I have 2 8-port switches at my Ethernet panel: a DLink DSS-8+ and a Linksys EZXS88W. When I plugged my laptop into one of the ports in the EZXS88W, my download speed dropped back down to the 20-30 KB/s range. Moving the router cable to a different port seems to have gotten my other devices to now have faster internet connection speeds.

IIRC, my upload speeds have generally been at least as fast as my download speeds. With the port change at my router, with speedtest.net I just got:

Ping: 16 / 80 ms
Download: 7.07 / 5.60 Mbps
Upload: 7.99 / 3.29 Mbps
 
The slow port on the Linksys made me think I need a new switch. I thought I would get a 16 or 24 port Gigabit switch to clean up my panel. Would this switch be suitable?
TP-Link TL-SG1024D 10/100/1000Mbps 24-Port Gigabit Switch

I asked my ISP about the speed discrepancy and he thought that the speeds are likely regulated from where I was getting the file or the software used to download it. If speedtest.net is reporting 5-10 Mbps, should I also be seeing this in practice at my PC?

Since my router seems to be working properly and not slowing my connection, I'll continue using it. However, the TL-WR841N doesn't have as much outdoor range as I would like. Does anyone have any experience with this AP?
Wavlink XQ-570HN2
 
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