EnGenius ESR9850

[tipstir]

New Model 5 Network Design

http://www.techspot.com/gallery/data/501/medium/model52010.jpg

 

[tipstir]

ESR-9850 AP 802.11n off the radar scope!

This is crazy how can both routers exhibit the same behavior. Nether one wants to work too long in wireless mode before something weird happens. I had everything working all day yesterday no issues. Then this morning 802.11n ESR-9850 had disappeared off the scope. No matter 20Hz or mix 20/40Hz doing the same thing. First it there then it's not like the Movie The Final Countdown 1980.
The logs on the unit doesn't even show anything happening. Well I just use it as backup hardwire router which it does perform best at. Wireless just to many issues or the firmware 1.10 or it could be hardware? Frankly I don't care at the moment!

Belkin N+ in AP mode no issues. I've turned on the backup and reverse their locations for 802.11g and 802.11n. No mix mode here. Everything back to normal.

ESR-9850 DHCP hardwired router no wireless enabled
Belkin N+ AP 802.11g 20Hz channel 6
Belkin N+ AP 802.11n 20/40Hz channel 9

That's it I am out of here!

 

[saturation]

This inconsistent performance in a heavy interoperability test is concerning.

Would you modify your final review tipstir and rate it badly?

This is crazy how can both routers exhibit the same behavior. Nether one wants to work too long in wireless mode before something weird happens. I had everything working all day yesterday no issues. Then this morning 802.11n ESR-9850 had disappeared off the scope. No matter 20Hz or mix 20/40Hz doing the same thing. First it there then it's not like the Movie The Final Countdown 1980.
The logs on the unit doesn't even show anything happening. Well I just use it as backup hardwire router which it does perform best at. Wireless just to many issues or the firmware 1.10 or it could be hardware? Frankly I don't care at the moment!

Belkin N+ in AP mode no issues. I've turned on the backup and reverse their locations for 802.11g and 802.11n. No mix mode here. Everything back to normal.

ESR-9850 DHCP hardwired router no wireless enabled
Belkin N+ AP 802.11g 20Hz channel 6
Belkin N+ AP 802.11n 20/40Hz channel 9

That's it I am out of here!

 

[holland]

I saw this problem which went away when i tweaked the power settings on the adapters connecting to the router/AP. My belief, no real way to prove it with what I have, is that it takes longer for a response (an ack or whatever) and in those cases the adapters clock down and sync is lost.

I have set my adapters on medium or low power savings.

 

[saturation]

I saw this problem which went away when i tweaked the power settings on the adapters connecting to the router/AP. My belief, no real way to prove it with what I have, is that it takes longer for a response (an ack or whatever) and in those cases the adapters clock down and sync is lost.

I have set my adapters on medium or low power savings.

I've had no trouble with my 7750 since 3/10 but in setting it up it did seem more sensitive to position in getting best results; suggesting power output from the radio. Will try this and see if it makes better best.

 

[tipstir]

The issue is that the wireless light goes out and when it goes so does the wireless signal just goes POOF! Then in a minute or two it's back then goes POOF again and again repeats!. Both of them are doing the something. Nothing to do with wireless adapters. I have Belkin, Atheros, and Realtek either 802.11g and 802.11n. On the N it's the worst gone for good. G shows 9850 then that vanishes. Can't work like this.

ESR-9850 as DHCP Router, I am having issues on the LAN to WAN takes to long to open flash applets are not loading correctly. Under the Belkin N+ in DHCP mode that wasn't an issue. Must be DNS Relay problems like you have in the DIR-655.

I've started to look else where? I was going to pickup it up today I had it in my hands Belkin Play for $79, at Wal-mart the WNDR3700 was $149 but that has some weird issues on netgear forum with torrents and firmware is buggy. E3000 also had that in my hands at Samsclub that's too $149. I frankly don't need dual bands right now, USB waste. Don't worry I didn't buy either I was so tempted to do it! Returning computer items back to Wal-mart is a real pain in th neck.

 

[tipstir]

Gentlemen the party is over! I've pulled the trigger on two ESR-9850 for reasons posted in prior post from me) Today I decided to just get something completely out of the blue and I had ordered a brand spanking new replacement for the main DHCP router and some other features I might never use! But until that gets here Belkin N+ will be the stand-in for now along with it's brother for AP in N.

 

[tipstir]

I have retracted my prior review on SNB so Tim can you swap the prior for the new. It's shorter! Thanks

 

[db3l]

I was wondering if anyone knew if there was a place to retrieve an image of the 1.09 firmware and/or if downgrading is supported?

I upgraded my ESR9850 to 1.10 but after some testing am finding issues with inbound UDP port forwarding for VPN, and would like to try 1.09 (without the hardware NAT enabled) to see if that changes behavior. The support site seems to only have 1.10 at this point.

-- David

 

[tipstir]

I was wondering if anyone knew if there was a place to retrieve an image of the 1.09 firmware and/or if downgrading is supported?

I upgraded my ESR9850 to 1.10 but after some testing am finding issues with inbound UDP port forwarding for VPN, and would like to try 1.09 (without the hardware NAT enabled) to see if that changes behavior. The support site seems to only have 1.10 at this point.

-- David

You should contact EnGenius first, but for now use this link.. Read the readme first.
http://www.filefront.com/user/tipstir

 

[db3l]

You should contact EnGenius first, but for now use this link.. Read the readme first.
http://www.filefront.com/user/tipstir

Thanks - and yes, I've already been in contact with EnGenius, who are apparently looking into it. I asked if there was a way to disable hardware NAT in 1.10 but didn't get an answer to that, so I figured it couldn't hurt to give 1.09 a shot in the meantime.

-- David

 

[tipstir]

Thought I give it one more shot but this time both were used as AP. Results were almost good until one unit removed itself off the network as expected. Oh well no matter what firmware was used in this case downgraded from 1.10 to 1.09 (although more features appear that are removed in 1.10 firmware) If you need a 802.11g AP then this router will be a very strong signal AP. 802.11n is slightly below that of 802.11g AP but still good for that. But you can't run both of them no matter where I have them. This image below is daisy chained. Almost worked.
http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs281.snc3/27735_396682777948_579882948_4262727_7385464_n.jpg

 

[tipstir]

Mixed mode works!! - Although it's better to have N and G on their own but some hardware just doesn't play nice together or with other brands (turns off the wireless radio). I'll be running initial testing again with the second ESR-9850 as the main router compare with the TEW-673GRU then reverse their roles along with MSC see how they fair?

 

[tipstir]

Model Testing Week (AP Mix mode)

Okay I'll give it a week and see how it goes with just the one ESR-9850 in mix mode. So far both sides of the house first, second the signal is strong but this is in firmware 1.09 and not 1.10. Mix or not it has to be strong and through-put steady eddy!

 

[tipstir]

Everything wireless is connected to the ESR-9850 including the Wii (total 10 wireless nodes) Not a glitch nor drop out. I have it the port connected via Gig to Gig.

 

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

Is the dns relay for the ESR-9850 working properly? And still any wireless N problems ???

 

[Az Syndicate]

I am still having the DNS issue. I ended up going back to Dlink 655 and the problem went away.

Problem - on my two Win 7 computers and my Win XP computer - when I try to ping from one computer to a second. I get one of my COX ISP routers as the return address. This router is 4 hops away from me.


I tried several things
1.) reset EnGenius back to factory defaults. Reboot both PC. Same problem
2.) flashed firmware to 1.09 that tipstir linked. Rebooted both PC. Same problem
3.) reset cable modem Rebooted both PC. Same problem
4.) put DLINK 655 back in with a rebooted cable modem. Rebooted PC. Problem resolved.

So now I am going to send back the EnGenius. I am not sure if I had a faulty unit. I really wanted this router to work.

 

[Az Syndicate]

Well,

Problem is the EnGenius, but not a hardware issue it seems. I performed a google search for local 72.215.225.9 as I was seeing that IP when I pinged a local machine. I learned that IP was a COX unable to resolve IP that gets automatically returned when the COX DNS servers can not resolve a name. One of the pages I saw was http://dslr.net/forum/r23374827-COX-DNS-issue~start=20 which had the same issue I was having.

Solution:
1. I found out if I remove my own Domain suffix settings on my router and use the Cox default domain suffix (auto assigned), the DNS look up works as predicted, i.e. failure instead of a fix IP on my fake host names.

So I put ph.cox.com as my Domain Name. Local LAN starts working. Finally.

IMO, EnGenius needs to either make it an option to use ISP's auto assigned or make what ever the ISP gives as the default. My guess is that COX uses the domain name to tell its DNS servers what is on its customers LAN vrs what might be on the internet and needs to be resolved.



BTW when I down graded to 1.09 I saw an option for hardware acceleration. When I went back to 1.10 I see no options for hardware acceleration. Is this on by default in 1.10?

 

[tipstir]

I am still having the DNS issue. I ended up going back to Dlink 655 and the problem went away.

Problem - on my two Win 7 computers and my Win XP computer - when I try to ping from one computer to a second. I get one of my COX ISP routers as the return address. This router is 4 hops away from me.


I tried several things
1.) reset EnGenius back to factory defaults. Reboot both PC. Same problem
2.) flashed firmware to 1.09 that tipstir linked. Rebooted both PC. Same problem
3.) reset cable modem Rebooted both PC. Same problem
4.) put DLINK 655 back in with a rebooted cable modem. Rebooted PC. Problem resolved.

So now I am going to send back the EnGenius. I am not sure if I had a faulty unit. I really wanted this router to work.

Could have been faulty? I going to retest my other one today as the main router, just have to reconfigure it. I should be able to just pop it in and replace the TEW-673GRU. There is something odd going on on that one. I just want to see if the same odd issue going to happen on ESR-9850?

 

[tipstir]

Well,

Problem is the EnGenius, but not a hardware issue it seems. I performed a google search for local 72.215.225.9 as I was seeing that IP when I pinged a local machine. I learned that IP was a COX unable to resolve IP that gets automatically returned when the COX DNS servers can not resolve a name. One of the pages I saw was http://dslr.net/forum/r23374827-COX-DNS-issue~start=20 which had the same issue I was having.

Solution:
1. I found out if I remove my own Domain suffix settings on my router and use the Cox default domain suffix (auto assigned), the DNS look up works as predicted, i.e. failure instead of a fix IP on my fake host names.

So I put ph.cox.com as my Domain Name. Local LAN starts working. Finally.

IMO, EnGenius needs to either make it an option to use ISP's auto assigned or make what ever the ISP gives as the default. My guess is that COX uses the domain name to tell its DNS servers what is on its customers LAN vrs what might be on the internet and needs to be resolved.



BTW when I down graded to 1.09 I saw an option for hardware acceleration. When I went back to 1.10 I see no options for hardware acceleration. Is this on by default in 1.10?

Interesting about Cox I have that service also. Never bother to set the domain name. I just leave it blank. 1.09 offers you WLAN/monitor, that's disabled in 1.10. Hardware Network Tweak is enabled in 1.10. But then looks like in 1.09 if you disable it. You have the same effect. Crazy.