Best 2.4 GHz router with storage?

[sfx2000]

And with RF interference, I would even consider that maybe you've got a bad WiFi card in one of your devices attaching to the Router/AP - I've seen this in the past...

 

[SunrisePro]

One of the Lenovo laptops has a crap wifi card - it can only do B/G. I got a usb wifi for it a couple of weeks ago to bump it up to N.

I did manage to get the 2.4 signal to stabilize with the Linksys but not yet with the Netgear. I haven't tried adjusting settings much because 1) damn the Netgear takes forever to update settings and 2) it's a much lower priority to DLNA.

As far as DLNA goes, I got it semi-working last night without flashing the firmware. Turns out that sharing the whole drive without making it admin only makes other shared folders not available (wth!).

The continuing issue is that the connection the tv (a Samsung SmartTV) is spotty - the tv keeps getting kicked off the network. The rest of the devices in the house are great.

I'm looking into whether AdvancedTomato or xVortex are better for DLNA and then will try one of them out.

 

[thiggins]

Why don't you try a wireless bridge on the TV if that is your main problem?
I doubt the router is "kicking" the TV off the network. More likely the TV is losing connection to the router.

 

[SunrisePro]

OK - AdvancedTomato is installed & I'm pretty impressed at the overall feature set. The main weirdness: the 2.4ghz network is working but not broadcasting. It's set to broadcast & I tried turning broadcasting off & on again, but no dice. Anyone else experience this?

The 5ghz network is the steadiest I've ever seen it - it fluctuates very mildly, extremely pleased about this. I can only presume how well the 2.4 network is doing - all devices are attached & online but without the broadcast I can't see how it's doing.

The tv connection to the 5g network was spotty. Last night, it was online & Netflix was having issues, which I chalked up to it being Friday night. Today it was having a lot of trouble connecting & staying connected to the 5ghz network (even before flashing the firmware). After flashing I even tried connecting to the 2.4 network but it refused.

So I decided to try a wired connection to the TV to skip all these networking issues and ... voila. TV is online and all streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Youtube) stream *pretty* well. It seems that it's not totally 1080p but I'm guessing there are settings that can improve. This could be just me as I'm scrutinizing like crazy but once the stream catches up it doesn't look as good as a local 1080p file played on the tv.

And speaking of that, DLNA works! It didn't on wifi but on the wired connection it's rock solid - and files load faster.

Maybe I could have avoided all this by just switching to wired in the first place? Now I have to figure out how to make the ethernet cable as unobtrusive as possible...

 

[SunrisePro]

After watching a movie for nearly an hour, the TV's connection to the storage dropped. It was fine after restart - what could it be if the connection is wired?

 

[L&LD]

After watching a movie for nearly an hour, the TV's connection to the storage dropped. It was fine after restart - what could it be if the connection is wired?

Try it and you can tell us.

 

[thiggins]

It was fine after restart

Restart of what? The TV?

 

[SunrisePro]

Yes, restart of the tv.

I have to figure out what's up with the 2.4 radio - the lack of broadcasting means that some devices can connect (phones & ipads) but our printer & Kindle can't connect to it at all (and can't see the 5ghz network). When I was setting up Tomato the 2.4 signal was visible, so I'll try resetting & reconfiguring Tomato.

The TV's connection to the storage is odd too - I'm going to get a new cable &see if that helps.

 

[SunrisePro]

2.4ghz signal problem solved - I had it on Channel 13 instead of 11. With great power comes great responsibility - including knowing what channels are used in North America

The signals of the two networks overall are not as strong (according to Acrylic) but both are nice & steady, a huge improvement from before. And I know I can boost the signal via Tomato if needed

@Trip - much thanks for the firmware suggestion. AT rocks and I may be a happy camper

 

[xtremesniper]

@SunrisePro So from my understanding of your posts, you were not happy with either the WRT or the R7000 stock firmware, but now with AdvancedTomato you are good?

I'm wary of installing 3rd party firmware because I don't know if it can be reverted back to default stock firmware, and because it doesn't seem to be open source. Why do we trust the firmware if it's closed source?

EDIT: Nevermind on the source code comment. I found the source.

 

[SunrisePro]

I didn't like the WRT due to some issues that I ran into on 3 different devices. With the R7000, it was getting the tv connected consistently and the dlna working well. I do like Advanced Tomato WAY more than the Netgear firmware as it doesn't take nearly two minutes every time some settings are changed. That's one area where Netgear has always sucked (Linksys was way better in this regard).

afaik, resetting the router should revert back to factory settings. Can someone else confirm this?

I have one issue to resolve: the tv loses connectivity to the connected usb storage every so often - but it does not lose connectivity to the internet. If that gets resolved, everything will be perfect.

 

[Trip]

Excellent to hear re- AdvancedTomato.

Re- the USB issue, make sure of the following:
Under USB & NAS > USB Support
Core USB Support - checked
USB 2.0 - checked
USB Storage Support - checked
File System Support - all checked (or at least for the file system you're using)
Automount - checked
HDD Spindown - unchecked

Once you save those settings, you can try to Unmount, then Mount the attached drive. Perhaps reboot as well to make sure the settings go into effect.

I have an 8GB flash drive attached that never sleeps/goes offline with the above settings. Things may change a bit with a USB-to-SATA enclosure attached, but you should be able to get it to stay attached over the network eventually.

 

[SunrisePro]

Thanks - those are pretty much the settings I have. It's really only the media server - none of our computers lose connection to the usb storage. It's just the tv & the media server. I adjusted some of the media server settings but haven't tested it yet.

 

[Trip]

If you're not getting a persistent connection after adjusting, I'd lean more towards troubleshooting the clients, and/or just putting a actual server in play -- old desktop, NAS, etc. I know it doesn't fit the budget, per say, but all the time spent on this is an opportunity cost as well. Unless you like tinkering endlessly, of course.

 

[SunrisePro]

I hear you on the time spent! The media server issue is odd - it just seems like an issue that shouldn't be. I got a new network cable so that should not be at fault (the other one was 7+ yr old, 100 ft long & had been shipped abroad & back). The media server setting I changed (& have not tested yet) was to move the db from ram to a location on the connected storage. Let's see what happens there and then we'll see.

It's just odd that the tv loses connection to the media server but not the router/internet.

 

[SunrisePro]

OK - wife just started watching a movie off the media server and the connection dropped after 15min. The orange 'connected' light for the wired connection disappeared too, so it seems the complete connection the tv had dropped. What are some other ideas for testing this & pinpointing whether it's the router or the tv?

 

[SunrisePro]

The tv disconnected from the media server again - without losing connection to the router/internet. I had restarted the media server after the last disconnect; I set the media server db back to ram and restarted the router. Why would the tv only lose connection to the media server but not the router/internet?

 

[L&LD]

Try physically unplugging all your networked equipment (LAN and AC power cables) for at least 10 minutes).

Then, power up the modem (wait 5 minutes) and connect any LAN cable(s), power up the router (wait 5 minutes) and connect any LAN cables, power up any switches you use and connect any LAN cables, then, power up each client and after it is fully booted (I would wait 5 minutes for each), connect the LAN cables to them too.

In addition to getting a new cable for the TV to test.

 

[coxhaus]

Do you have a switch to add to the mix where you can plug the TV into a switch and then plug the switch into the router? Maybe with a 100 foot run the router is having problems. It is a simple test.

 

[SunrisePro]

Thanks - I will try the power down & reconnect method. FYI I did get a new cable (25ft cat6 instead of the old 100ft cat5).

After rebooting the router yesterday the movie my wife was watching played for almost an hour without a disconnection (then she stopped, it was a 3h movie). The only settings changes I made in AT were 1) for the media server, putting the db back in RAM instead of a folder on the connected drive and 2) in USB support, changing the NTFS driver from Open NTFS 3G to Paragon (just to see if it mattered).

Besides this media server issue, everything else is - knock on wood - rock solid.

@coxhaus I don't have a switch - how would it help the diagnosis?