Do routers lose strength over time?

[brucet9]

My existing router (D-Link 601) delivers poor throughput in certain areas of my house, although it is located as close to the center as possible. From reviews here, the best candidates to get good throughput at 45 feet through one floor and two walls are Belkin 750N+ and Netgear WNDR 4000, (the latter featuring a lifetime warranty) and a small step below is Linksys EA4200.

An IT professional I met this week told me that Netgear routers lose signal strength after 6 months or so, but he was unable to explain why. This does not make sense to me, unless perhaps they tend to run hot and certain components become damaged. Or maybe the guy doesn't know what he is talking about.

Do routers in general degrade performance over time?

Are certain brands more susceptible to performance loss?

I wall-mounted my existing router, but I could as easily stand it on end with air circulation on all sides, if that would be better.

Thanks

 

[NXIL]

Magic Smoke?

An IT professional I met this week told me that Netgear routers lose signal strength after 6 months or so, but he was unable to explain why.

Um, because that is hooey? It sounds like this IT professional adheres to the "magic smoke" theory: computers are filled with "magic smoke" that makes them work. When this smoke leaks out, computers don't work any more.

This does not make sense to me, unless perhaps they tend to run hot and certain components become damaged. Or maybe the guy doesn't know what he is talking about.

Well, poor quality capacitors (full of magic smoke) could degrade and make a router's performance degrade over time--but I doubt Netgear is more prone to this than anyone else.

Heat is the enemy of electronics, but, six months is a pretty short MTBF (mean time between failures--usually a few years.)

Do routers in general degrade performance over time?

As far as I know: no. In general. However: see below.

Are certain brands more susceptible to performance loss?

Not to contradict myself, but there was a series of Linksys routers that got really hot, and seemed to last about as long as fruitflies, i.e. MTBF was not measured in years. I have not heard complaints about that for a long time--though maybe because everyone is complaining about the Linksys "cloud connect" fiasco.

I wall-mounted my existing router, but I could as easily stand it on end with air circulation on all sides, if that would be better.

Thanks

Of course a cool place with good air circulation is best--and wall mounting can be good for that.

Maybe others here have some experience in this regard. I had one of those Linksys WRT54Gs (v1.1) that lasted a very long time--they still sell them, but's it 2.4ghz band only.....

 

[stevech]

I've not seen slow degradation in transmitted signal strength. It may happen rarely of course.

 

[NXIL]

Same question posted on Slashdot

Figure the odds: someone just posed the exact same question on Slashdot.

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/10/21/1335208/ask-slashdot-why-does-wireless-gear-degrade-over-time

Consensus is that wireless performance itself does not degrade, it's increased noise since now everyone and their brother has a device on the 2.4 band: the background noise has increased greatly.

bruce, you might find some of the replies there interesting.....

Capacitor theory is mentioned....heat....power supplies....

 

[sfx2000]

Noise floor perhaps... esp. in high density environments like apartments and the like...

What I've seen first hand is cheap power supplies going soft - it's a $0.75USD part and they do go bad from time to time.

When I was designing HW - I used to spec twice as much as what I really needed, mostly because the accounting folks would cut it in half anyways

What I've seen from Linksys/D-Link/Netgear/most other consumer grade gear - PSU's that are barely nominal. A 12VDC/1.2A PSU is barely enough - considering manufacturing variance and all...

Truth be told - key indicators of a bad/soft power supply - wireless dropouts when wired is fine, reboots, failure to assign DHCP addresses for dynamic clients, failure to get a valid DHCP lease from upstream (Cable/DSL) -

If the home AP/Router has media serving/NAS functionality mounts suddenly disappear, flaky stuff in general - it's usually the power supply.

Rather than spend money for a new AP/Router (yes, that will also get you a new power supply) - go to Fry's or Radio Shack and get an upgraded wall wart - it's cost less than $20... much less in most cases.

 

[NXIL]

Approaching 600 comments

There are now almost 600 replies to the "weakening wireless" post on Slashdot:

http://ask.slashdot.org/story/12/10/21/1335208/ask-slashdot-why-does-wireless-gear-degrade-over-time

sfx--I think my old WRT54G v1.1 was still good--its wall wart died. When I looked for a replacement, they were all pretty expensive, and made getting a new router more cost effective it seemed.

It lasted about eight years, and put out a strong signal until its unfortunate demise.

 

[jdabbs]

I never throw anything away. I have a 54GS stashed in a box somewhere--I'd like to compare it to an identical "atrophied" router.

 

[stevech]

The range achieved by an OLD 802.11b WiFi system will greatly exceed that of 11g/n. At the expense of speed. Laws of physics at work!