tired of resetting my router

[xr4man]

i looked through the first 5 or 6 pages here, but didn't really find what i was looking for.

i've gone through 2 or 3 routers now, all different brands, and they all seem to work for a while and then start dropping the signal and i have to go down and turn it off and then back on again. i've read reviews on newegg for new high end routers and they seem to do the same thing as well. work for 6 to 12 months and then have to be power cycled about ever day.

what causes this? i did see a thread that mentioned something about heat build up. but my routers are always placed either on a hard flat surface or standing upright in their cradle.

is it a problem with the processor or memory in the router, or is it due to dust build up and it over heats or what?

does anyone have an idea?

i was thinking about taking one of my old routers and extracting the board and putting it in a custom case with some fans it see if that helped as teh first step and then next oi thought i'd try that dd wrt stuff i've been hearing about.

any suggestions?

[Fuganater]

Not sure why yours are going bad but I've had the Verizon Modem/Router for like 5 years and have had no issues.

I use a have a linkysis router and haven't had any issues. Had it just over 2 years now.

[Drum Thumper]

I'm thinking dust as well. I've got a v3 Linksys that has been 24/7 since Lewis and Clark discovered the Great Falls in what is now Great Falls MT.

[xr4man]

yeah, when i get home tonight i'm going to rip open my netgear router and see what it looks like inside. then the modding begins. if it all works out, then i may tackle my linksys router which is a nice N router. so i want to make sure i can do some good with the old netgear one before i screw up something that was a touch more costly.

[SXRguyinMA]

:whistler:

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26461

[xr4man]

i had forgotten about that thread, but it won't help anyway. it would have to monitor the wireless led, which doesn't go out. it just sits and blinks when i loose connectivity.


last night i dug out my older netgear router, but it uses torx screws and i couldn't be arsed to walk out to the truck to get my torx bit set. i know it's all of 30 feet to the truck, but i'm a lazy bastard when i get home from work. i'll start taking it apart tonight to check for dust build up.

[SXRguyinMA]

so is it the wireless or the actual DSL connection that goes out?

[xr4man]

just the wireless. usually the wired portion still works. it happens, but is pretty rare that i loose both wired and wireless. if i remember right, that is usually when i loose the cable connection to the modem.


from you question about dsl, i guess i should have explained my setup.

i have comcast (xfinity) cable internet. so the signal comes in to my cable modem, then straight to a linksys (right now anyway) router. from the router i have a hard wire going to an 8 port switch which then goes to all the rooms in the house. i installed all the wiring back when wireless was just beginning to become popular and i didn't want to use it yet. right now i have only three pcs hooked up to the wired portion and of them only 2 are on regularly.

for the wireless connections, i have 3 laptops (1 is my roommate's) and 2 pcs. the 2 pcs are off about 90% of the time, so really only the 3 laptops count as far as wireless usage.

2 laptops are at the furthest points from the router but one is almost directly above it maybe 10 or 15 feet away.

[Konrad]

I'd suspect power supply or overheating.

A dirty power supply which delivers too many occassional dips and surges will place a little electrical strain on the hardware, cumulative derating of the weakest component until it ultimately fails. Perhaps try plugging it into a different outlet or through a power conditioning or surge protection device or toroids or UPS or whatever; it could simply be inferior service quality and have nothing to do with you, or it could just as easily be caused by the dishwasher or furnace or power tools turning on in another room.

Overheating a WiFi router is really another way of saying "cheap/flawed design" if you're operating the device within specified temp/humidity parameters. Mine gets pretty warm at times, I placed it away from the television and pvr box (it's a cable modem) and keep it propped up over a pair of fat felt pens to allow for slightly better airflow.

You could always lay down some network cabling, bring the box to a more accessible location (possibly also a different outlet and cooler area). Or if you're convinced the box will fail every year anyways then just rent it from your internet provider, they'll send a tech guy to replace it every time you complain about it failing, if you're lucky they might supply you with a high-end unit.

Final option is modding. Improve the cooling, even if you just stick a heatsink on the controller chip or beef up the electrolytics or mount a quiet wimpy little fan. Can't hurt.

[diluzio91]

Also, make sure to update the firmware. even new routers often ship with old firmware that can cause an awful lot of issues.

[xr4man]

yes, i keep forgetting that i should do that.

[Twigsoffury]

have you tried hitting it?

[xr4man]

nope haven't tried that.


however, this weekend i successfully flashed my old netgear router with the latest firmware for that model. i haven't actually set it up yet to try it, but i will soon.

i also opened it up to check the dust level and it was perfectly clean. so that's not my issue with that router.

i'll post up once i swap out routers and then again after it's been running a while.

[xr4man]

i ended up giving the netgear router to a customer and he hasn't complained about it resetting yet, so maybe the reflash worked.

i also got a new asus n-16 router for my self. so far i only had to reset it once when it tweaked about having duplicate ip addresses on the network. but having a giga-bit network is real nice now.

[Twigsoffury]

getting 110v from the wall?


i know that i used to have a router i thought was trash, turns out i was only getting 98v from the wall outlet (have no idea why) and it'd reset at the slightest dip in voltage from the power company and would need to be power cycled in order to get its s@#t in order again.

[AmEv]

98v?

Or 9.8V when it should've been 12?

[xr4man]

nope, got 115-120 at the wall. power is good. still haven't had to touch the new router, but that always seems the case. it's not till almost a year later that they seem to start to go to ****. so we'll see then.

[AmEv]

OH! Thanks for the clarification!

98V when it should have been 115!

[nevermind1534]

nope haven't tried that.


however, this weekend i successfully flashed my old netgear router with the latest firmware for that model. i haven't actually set it up yet to try it, but i will soon.

i also opened it up to check the dust level and it was perfectly clean. so that's not my issue with that router.

i'll post up once i swap out routers and then again after it's been running a while.

I had a problem with my US Robotics router, where the DHCP would stop working a few days after being power cycled. I recently flashed a DD-WRT firmware to the router, and it's been working great since.

[xr4man]

yeah, i'n sure that's what the problem actually was. i've come across it before and been told that's it. i had just gotten tired of that happening with all the cheap ass routers i buy. so i got a nice high end one.

i know i could have flashed the old netgear with dd-wrt but the linksys that i was using at the time was not supported.

[AmEv]

Ah, DD-WRT.

The two routers I have don't support it.
One, because it's too small of a ROM chip.
The other, DD-WRT doesn't support the kind of chip.

[Luke122]

I had a similar issue with mine too, and ended up adding a UPS between the wall and the modem and router. THis way, I can keep my wifi up and running if the power dips.. the UPS is plenty big enough to keep things going for a few hours!

It also smooths out any power issues, so I've had far fewer problems since I did that.


One other thing to consider is interference from other wifi... with the constant dropping in price of wireless equipment, and the fact that many ISP's are now supplying a wifi router, there is a TON of interference out there. If your router has the option of auto channel switching, I've seen issues where the connection will "appear" to be good, but no throughput.

Some routers also have an option to scan and see what's out there, so you can choose a channel with the least amount of interference... the "channel switching" feature does that automatically, but it can wreak havoc with some wifi devices, which dont recognize that the router has switched channels, so they still see the router, but cannot communicate with it.

Try locking it to a specific channel (default is 6, which means there is tons of traffic on that channel wherever there are multiple wifi ap's setup), and see if it stabilizes.

I've had Dlink routers that would work themselves to death trying to switch channels constantly to find less interference, and eventually they just overheat and die. Sometimes you get lucky, and lock into a channel, and there's no problems until someone else's wifi gets reset, and it screws up the equilibrium. That could explain why they last for some time, then start to act up.

[xr4man]

i actually had that problem with the x-gf's router. i switched it to channel 11 and all was good.

i think i may have tried that with one of my old ones to no avail.

i actually have very few wireless devices in my house, so i don't think interference is too much of an issue.

[msmrx57]

i actually have very few wireless devices in my house, so i don't think interference is too much of an issue.

Your neighbors probably do. :whistler:

[xr4man]

i had a feeling someone was going to make that comment. however, i do know that the signals coming from the neighbors are extremely week inside the house. i attribute that to my aluminum siding acting as a bit of an rf shield.

[Luke122]

I would get ahold of a spectrum analyzer if you can.. it's possible that there is other wifi that isnt broadcasting the ssid, so it wouldnt appear, even if it is there. :)

[xr4man]

i suppose i could do that. since i'm in charge of the test equipment at work, i can check out a spec an pretty easily. have to find an antenna.