Stable replacement for R7000

[Carnagerover]

You'll probably be fine with the R7000 set as an AP and wired to a solid router. Looking a bit more into the LRT224, SNB reviews it pretty favorably, there are a few decent Amazon/NewEgg reviews, some good, some not so good... Here's the UI demo. It does look to be decently supported (live chat, phone, email). With many SMB-type products, firmware updates are few and far between past the initial round of obvious bug-squashing, and if it doesn't work the way you're hoping at the time of purchase (running the latest firmware version), assuming it's not user error, you're usually better off replacing it with something else, rather than hoping or waiting for a fix to be pushed out. Enterprise-class stuff, different story, but then again that kind of immediate care is what you're paying for. If it were my $200+, a nice middle ground might be a Zyxel USG40(-NB variant without the security license). You can see the interface here (user: demo pass: demouser). A heavier UI (on initial load, at least) and a bit higher learning curve, but the USGs have been rock solid stable for me (*knock on wood*). Zyxel also seems to be pretty good about firmware update releases and their telephone support is usually pretty good. Overall, it's not until you really start pushing the functionality and/or throughput limits that units like these start to falter. In your case, I'd expect either to perform as well and most likely way better than your current setup.

EDIT: I don't know what the ceiling is for your budget, but another powerful option might be a Netgate APU2. A dual-core single-chip platform like many of the "high-end" consumer routers, but ready to go with pfSense, fully supported for 1 year, for $299, and an option for a 2nd year as well. If you read up on pfSense, you'll see it's approachable for novices, very customizable with different packages as well. Just another option to look into.

Thanks for the reply again,

Due to the time difference, me being from the UK I had already bought the Linksys 214 VPN router when you replied to me, went for the 214 as I am not likely to ever have use for a second internet connection.

This is how I have it setup up currently;

Linksys 214 >GS108T
Linksys 214 > Netgear Nighthawk which is in AP Mode

I have noticed a few odd things in the log though so far;

upnpd[437]: Failure obtaining ip address of interface eth1

This comes up a lot

Also;

upnpd[437]: UPNP Rule is not FULL!!!

Not sure what the failure to obtain ip address is all about, I'm assuming the UPMP rule is just something that it is saying after creating an entry.

 

[Trip]

Cool - good luck with the 214. That bug looks like a leftover from the Cisco RV architecture, upon which the LRT is built -- the bug throws errors when devices try and register via UPnP, and can quite often lock up the router under certain circumstances. If you don't need UPnP, I would disable it if possible. Moving forward, I would keep a close eye on how it performs over the next week or two, so you're still inside the return window if, heaven forbid, you should need to replace this one with yet another.

 

[Carnagerover]

Cool - good luck with the 214. That bug looks like a leftover from the Cisco RV architecture, upon which the LRT is built -- the bug throws errors when devices try and register via UPnP, and can quite often lock up the router under certain circumstances. If you don't need UPnP, I would disable it if possible. Moving forward, I would keep a close eye on how it performs over the next week or two, so you're still inside the return window if, heaven forbid, you should need to replace this one with yet another.

Hi,

We do tend to use UPNP as quite a few programs use random ports and the like, I have just spoken to Linksys support who say that disabling UPNP is the only solution to stop the errors. However it shouldn't affect the stability of the router

Here's hoping it will be fine as I would prefer to leave it on

 

[Trip]

That's kind of thing I was talking about before... and the kind of response you'll get quite often for devices of this class. That said, $175 might be pocket change in the world of trouble-free networking, but in my opinion, stuff like this should be flushed out in QA testing before release. Alas, many of these "small business" products are just as plagued by half-baked development as the consumer stuff. Not saying you should return it right away, but just be attentive moving forward. GL!

 

[Carnagerover]

That's kind of thing I was talking about before... and the kind of response you'll get quite often for devices of this class. That said, $175 might be pocket change in the world of trouble-free networking, but in my opinion, stuff like this should be flushed out in QA testing before release. Alas, many of these "small business" products are just as plagued by half-baked development as the consumer stuff. Not saying you should return it right away, but just be attentive moving forward. GL!

Yeah, its a shame no doubt, and I know from reading my fair share of articles on here that this is also a view that Tim shares about equipment being released in a state, and people just lapping it up. The R7000 and the LRT-214 are the last new networking gear that I am going to buy, you pay more and are beta testers for equipment that should work and be 98% bug free on arrival, I as well as other people get excited about networking gear which is great but after what happened with the R7000 I have more than my fill.

I hope that it remains stable but turning off UPNP is not much of a fix if any, something like UPNP should just work, I can't see that my setup is so complex that this issue would not arise on other peoples setups or a in a QA lab for instance.

 

[Carnagerover]

First problem encountered,

My iPhone 5s has been connected to the new system for about 9 hours now I think, however it will no longer work on the Internet, on both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz I have a full signal but no internet. I am typing this on a iPad mini that is connected to 5Ghz fine but I have rebooted the iPhone as well as forgetting the network and re setting it up.



Its not looking good for the new system, uptime of 10 hours 8 minutes and I have had to reboot the LRT-214 in able to get the iPhone 5s to connect to the internet again, firstly I rebooted the Nighthawk and that didn't cure it so I rebooted the LRT-214 and the iPhone 5s is now back on the network working fine.