EnGenius ESR9850

[Unregistered]

Don't think Sitecom is part of Senao as they have products that Senao doesn't make.

They're probably just one of their ODM/OEM customers.

 

[tipstir]

Don't think Sitecom is part of Senao as they have products that Senao doesn't make.

They're probably just one of their ODM/OEM customers.

This was posted on DD-WRT forum
Source code: http://www.sitecom.com/download/4391/WL-351.htm

## Embedded Target Makefile (ISD2)
## Platform: Ralink RT3052 2*2 11n SOC Router
## Product: ESR9850 SC (WL-351)
## Author: Jimmy Ho
##
#######################################################################

PRODUCT_NAME=ESR9850-SC
CONFIG_ESR9850-SC=y

CONFIG_VLAN_SUPPORT=n
CONFIG_WSC_UPNP_SUPPORT=y

Based on the senao esr9850 sc

Link here:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=67827&highlight=esr9850

 

[tipstir]

Issues Big time

Have to report that I been having way to many dropped connections. This started over the weekend. Non-stop performance then bang! 802.11n and 802.11g dropped so poorly. I had to quickly change things here. I have tried everything but there has to be some issues with using these ESR-9850 as AP/Router or AP/Repeater. Even setup them up as 802.11n only or 802.11g only and no dice. Gone back to Belkin N+ for 802.11n only in AP mode. and Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 using DD-WRT firmware for 802.11g only in AP mode. I'll leave it at that for now for wireless management. For the main DHCP Server that will be handled by ESR-9850. No wireless will be used by that device. To me there are still some glitches in their firmware causing issues with setup the wireless correctly or getting it to work. If you go from 802.11/b/g/n and you want 802.11n it still hows that b/g/n is still active.

Throughput on the Gig LAN to Gig LAN on 1.66GB file in transfers was in less than 3 seconds.

For now this is it goes until something better comes along?

 

[tipstir]

Trying to rig something up see the image below.. As you can see even with the 9850 running in 802.11n AP/Repeater it still dropping connections even linking to Belkin N+ in 802.11n AP mode. Seems it changes channels way to often or some weird spike drop at 12:37am.

 

[Unregistered]

The ESR9850 seems to have auto-channel selection which will scan the surrounding wireless signals at certain time intervals.

It will then select the channel with the least interference.

Both the AP/Router and AP/Repeater will disconnect and reconnect when it does the auto-channel selection. Please disable this feature and manually select and lock a channel.

Also make sure that the Power Saving feature is turned off, as the device will start powering down the wireless radio when there isn't any wireless traffic.

 

[saturation]

Trying to rig something up see the image below.. As you can see even with the 9850 running in 802.11n AP/Repeater it still dropping connections even linking to Belkin N+ in 802.11n AP mode. Seems it changes channels way to often or some weird spike drop at 12:37am.

Thanks for those heads up, Tipstir.

What happened with that drop? It looks only like a momentary reduction in signal strength, but as the graph continues, was connection still on?

 

[tipstir]

Thanks for those heads up, Tipstir.

What happened with that drop? It looks only like a momentary reduction in signal strength, but as the graph continues, was connection still on?

Keeps doing it still still no matter what I do. I just upgraded the firmware on the Belkin N+ AP/Routers. One is the main and the other one is on the second floor. Both are in 802.11n AP mode and running stable no real issues with them. But if I add the 9850 into the mix as a AP repeater it's dropping the signal down like crazy every second. Remove one Belkin N+ AP and just have the 9850 AP/Repeater Zonk! It's shame really though the chipset reaches -40dBm most the Belkin N+ do -50 to -60dBm.

I had thought about buying the Buffalo WZR-300NH since Tim has that rated high signal for 802.11n. Since I already use the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 with DD-WRT for 802.11g the signal is from -40 to -60dBm

Anyway ESR-9850 DHCP Router is running the works here but all wireless radio on it disabled. Throughput has been excellent so that will make a good wired gig router.

Looking at my Wireless Graphic chart I see that most in my area have Cisco Linksys G and Netgear N and 2Wire. Ad Hoc just appeared showing Free Public WiFi No Security but its on 802.11b

 

[iSniffDataCuzItSmellsGood]

Hello everyone! I've been lurking in this thread for a while now because this EnGenius ESR9850 router has caught my attention. I want to get a new N router because
1) My Belkin N router keeps on disconnecting
2) I want an N router with replaceable antennas (to extend the range)
3) Better performance

Tipstir, your recent posts kind of scares me because that is exactly what I don't want! A wireless router that is unreliable. Darn, it seems impossible to find a router that is reliable. Why is it so hard in this day in age to master wireless routers? I've had about 4-5 routers and each one had to be gotten rid of because of the router failing, freezing, or restarting itself. I have a feeling it has to do with heat, which begs the question, why don't ANY router manufacturers have cooling fans? I've read mods online where people have added fans to their router, and their router changes heart, and stops dropping connections. End Rant.

Any more info on your EnGenius ESR9850? I'm not sure what N router I should purchase.

 

[tipstir]

Hello everyone! I've been lurking in this thread for a while now because this EnGenius ESR9850 router has caught my attention. I want to get a new N router because
1) My Belkin N router keeps on disconnecting
2) I want an N router with replaceable antennas (to extend the range)
3) Better performance

Tipstir, your recent posts kind of scares me because that is exactly what I don't want! A wireless router that is unreliable. Darn, it seems impossible to find a router that is reliable. Why is it so hard in this day in age to master wireless routers? I've had about 4-5 routers and each one had to be gotten rid of because of the router failing, freezing, or restarting itself. I have a feeling it has to do with heat, which begs the question, why don't ANY router manufacturers have cooling fans? I've read mods online where people have added fans to their router, and their router changes heart, and stops dropping connections. End Rant.

Any more info on your EnGenius ESR9850? I'm not sure what N router I should purchase.

Well you know I don't want to scare you. I had got this because of the performance and full throttle over the Gig to Gig LAN that Tim had reported on SB Router Charts. I just like it to work with wireless 802.11g & 802.11n. I not a huge fan on SoC where everything is on the one chip. It was working fine for couple of days and Zonk! Dropping on the scale. On the laptop you can notice the issue. Like a sudden freeze then release. On the router side using the wireless would be fine, but that's all the way in the basement family room. When the signal hits the main floor it doesn't go any higher than -50dBm.

If I put the second one on the main floor about 25 feet where the main router is housed, then that hits the second floor about -40dBm. For some strange reason it drops down to -80dBm. Thens goes back to -40dBm. Both of them on the same channel. It automatically changes the channel. Could be the firmware you know? I am still on the first firmware 1.09 and the repeater is using 1.10 thus using that firmware the live monitor for LAN and WLAN isn't active under AP/Router mode only under AP/Repeater Mode. If I go manual on the channel it's the same.

Then under Windows 7 Network Map drawing it shows both devices images as first a question mark or hub or signal wireless AP. Funny how Senao Engineers didn't fix that issue in the 1.10 firmware. 1.09 firmware it looks like a switch.

In your case you don't need to buy two of these routers. I think Senao really wanted it's EnGenius customers to buy the EAP9550 to use with this AP/Router/ WDS AP/Repeater. EAP9550 is just AP no router features.

Beside the wireless issues, wired on P2P connections is so quick! I thought about the R450G Router but I not going to get that I see that has some glitches I was reading on their site. I just wish this router would be stronger in the wireless department. Belkin N+ AP is mix the best I can get out of both on the same channel same SSID is -50dBm to -60dBm. The Buffalo is 5 years old still works but the hardware isn't that hot. Poor Router but AP was better.

Anyway the routers under my sign below shows you what I've used. The best one out of the bunch was the Buffalo WZR2-300N that had performed so well with it's 500MHz NPU throughput was very strong. The firmware was terrible. Back in the Winter of 2007 I had purchased two of them almost $200 bucks and both failed with the firmware. I was lucky to get my money back! I know that Buffalo has WZR-300NH but I think about the nightmare I had with it's prior cousin. I was so go ho on the Dllink DIR-615 another one with the 500MHz chipset that was very quick but again A1 with it's firmware even Dlink CS India told me to take it back. They don't support A1 hardware. What the heck is this. DIR-655 was good until the firmware update 1.3x then the issues. Trendnet TEW-652BRP over heats with the Atheros 400MHz chipset that has 32MB of RAM I did everything to that even installed my own heatsink and still it locked with the overheating. I can go on and on. Too bad Belkin N+ didn't have more mW transmitter would be a very good router. It is slow when you compare it to the ESR-9850 in routing performance. ESR-9850 in wireless performance is slightly faster although both Belkin and ESR are Ralink chipset on the ESR it has 32KB I/D 16KB as the Belkin it is 16KB I/D 16KB over the the wireless. 266MHz vs 384MHz for MCU.

NetGear WNDR3700 through-put over the Gig to Gig LAN is not the same as ESR 619 vs 4xx mbps. The price is more too. There is ESR-9855 but not sold in the USA. on the Senao Asian site that has 300,000 connections has 3 ANTs don't know much about that one looks like it has the same Chipset in there so it's 384Mhz with 32MB of RAM Senao EnGenius EAP9550 has the same chipset also. ANT system is 4-dbi design. Don't know if that would be any better in performance without buying it and testing it. Cost is $81 the cheapest I can find.

 

[tipstir]

SmartNAT Operation
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications require opening multiple sessions through the Router's firewall in order to establish multiple sessions with 'torrent seeds'. The multiple connections can typically grow to be very large in number and overwhelm the NAT firewall, causing the router to slow down or even crash. SmartNAT solves this problem by monitoring sessions and opening and closing sessions when needed. Regular traffic is not affected and up to 19,000 sessions can be open at one time without affecting the Router's performance.

This comes from Senao Asian site. I am trying to locate firmware 1.09 that came with the router. Might work better than 1.10.

 

[tipstir]

Firmware

Okay to match more of what Tim got, let me see how it goes now with firmware 1.10 on the main router. I started to get some slow down under 1.09. Which has forced me to upgrade the firmware which is in two parts. One applications then images.

I'll do so more test now that both devices have the same firmware. I'll see how it goes from this point on.

 

[Unregistered]

ESR-9850 and VPN(IP-SEC)?

Has anyone had any success with the ESR-9850 and VPN? I got one last week, and have been mostly happy with it until I had to do some work in my company's systems on Sunday morning. I was unable to connect either wired or wirelessly. I had to go straight to the cable modem to get it working. I made sure the VPN options were all enabled at the time, and since they I disabled and then reenabled them just to check if that made a difference. It did not.

 

[iSniffDataCuzItSmellsGood]

Well you know I don't want to scare you. I had got this because of the performance and full throttle over the Gig to Gig LAN that Tim had reported on SB Router Charts.

Ahhh, ok. After going back and reading his review it seems as though this router is more for wired routing between lan components.

Then under Windows 7 Network Map drawing it shows both devices images as first a question mark or hub or signal wireless AP. Funny how Senao Engineers didn't fix that issue in the 1.10 firmware. 1.09 firmware it looks like a switch.

That's funny because in one of Engenius's firmware descriptions it says that it was changed to be more compatible with Windows 7. It looks like they overlooked that component!

Beside the wireless issues, wired on P2P connections is so quick! I thought about the R450G Router but I not going to get that I see that has some glitches I was reading on their site. I just wish this router would be stronger in the wireless department.

Ya, I don't need it for that. Although the gig switch ports are greatly welcomed, I need superb wireless. After looking at Tim's review he even states that the wireless is not as reliable as other brands.

He says:

Throughput variation is about par with most other products, with some good-sized throughput dropouts in evidence in some of the tests. While I was able to get a connection in both 20 and 40 MHz bandwidth modes, speeds weren't as fast or reliable as I've seen with other products, such as the ASUS RT-N13U.

It's kind of hard to decipher what he is saying here. Some gramtical mistakes are present, perhaps a missing comma or period? Sounds like he is saying in his experience dropouts occurred. Then he brings up the ASUS RT-N13U. Which according to newegg users is abysmal. Constant dropouts and the whole nine yards.

I think with my next router I need to find something that is DD-WRT compatible and just mod the crap out of it. As far as I know the latest Engenius routers aren't compatible with DD-WRT. My search continues for that perfect router.... which I believe doesn't yet exist.

Okay to match more of what Tim got, let me see how it goes now with firmware 1.10 on the main router. I started to get some slow down under 1.09. Which has forced me to upgrade the firmware which is in two parts. One applications then images.

I'll do so more test now that both devices have the same firmware. I'll see how it goes from this point on.

I would like to hear your update. Perhaps focusing on the wireless reliability and the distance at which your devices are from the router? That would be cool. You know what I find hilarious? On Engenius's firmware page on their website, it says the following for firmware 1.10: "Release Date Jan 05, 2010_For SmallNetbuilder". They released a firmware upgrade JUST for smallnetbuilder? Lol? I wonder if Engenius is paying Tim... **conspiracy**

 

[jemz0r]

Hi Tipstir,

Auto-channel selection would not be helpful in your setup (AP/Router + AP/Repeater) as the link between those two would drop every time they did the auto-channel scan as they would constantly detect each other on the same channel and switch. Maybe manually setting a channel will resolve your connection dropping issue.

Trying to rig something up see the image below.. As you can see even with the 9850 running in 802.11n AP/Repeater it still dropping connections even linking to Belkin N+ in 802.11n AP mode. Seems it changes channels way to often or some weird spike drop at 12:37am.

 

[thiggins]

Hello there Mr. Sniff, welcome to the forums. Your speculation about whether Engenius is paying me isn't exactly the right way to start off.

I never have and never will accept payment for reviews, nor have any of the other reviewers on SmallNetBuilder. The only payment that I receive is from site advertisers and there is no quid pro quo. Some manufacturers also leave products with us after review, many of which we give away through our contests.

All you need to do is read the reviews to know that I treat advertisers and non-advertisers alike.

As for EnGenius' review notes, I don't know what the specific reference is about the release for SmallNetBuilder, but I'll ask EnGenius. We test only with publicly-available firmware so that there isn't any chance that we get results that can't be reproduced by consumers buying off the shelf.

Regarding my RT-N13U comments, I thought they were clear. In my experience, most 802.11n routers have higher throughput variation than 11g products. Main reason for this is higher packet loss, which is partly due to the fact that manufacturers optimize for peak throughput and not low throughput variation. Manufacturers tell me they do this because their customers are focused on highest throughput vs. consistent throughput and they are just producing what the market wants.

 

[iSniffDataCuzItSmellsGood]

Hello there Mr. Sniff, welcome to the forums. Your speculation about whether Engenius is paying me isn't exactly the right way to start off.

You're right... its the best way to start off! As with all the review sites on the internet, honesty and integrity is most important from the consumer perspective. Even if you were receiving payment from Engenious (or any other manufacturer) for your reviews, it's not like you would come out and say: "Why yes, in fact I do receive money for the positive reviews I give". That would give you give zero credibility... not even a talking Afghan Hound would do that. But there are ways for consumers to find out about things like this...

I never have and never will accept payment for reviews, nor have any of the other reviewers on SmallNetBuilder. The only payment that I receive is from site advertisers and there is no quid pro quo. Some manufacturers also leave products with us after review, many of which we give away through our contests.

I understand, nice to hear.

All you need to do is read the reviews to know that I treat advertisers and non-advertisers alike.

Nice to hear.

Regarding my RT-N13U comments, I thought they were clear. In my experience, most 802.11n routers have higher throughput variation than 11g products. Main reason for this is higher packet loss, which is partly due to the fact that manufacturers optimize for peak throughput and not low throughput variation. Manufacturers tell me they do this because their customers are focused on highest throughput vs. consistent throughput and they are just producing what the market wants.

How long do you run your tests for? Do you stress the routers to see if it will fail? I understand your review but these are questions that I ask myself when reading your reviews. I mean, if you test the router just once or a few times, it could act like an Angel. If you work that router long enough you may start seeing issues that you never saw when doing quick testing on it.

 

[thiggins]

Tests are run only as long as needed to get the data. We don't have the time to do stress testing on everything we test. We also usually don't do follow-up tests on new firmware revisions, which can turn angels into demons.

 

[tipstir]

Has anyone had any success with the ESR-9850 and VPN? I got one last week, and have been mostly happy with it until I had to do some work in my company's systems on Sunday morning. I was unable to connect either wired or wirelessly. I had to go straight to the cable modem to get it working. I made sure the VPN options were all enabled at the time, and since they I disabled and then reenabled them just to check if that made a difference. It did not.

I use VPN here I haven't tested that one yet though? I'll keep close eye on that issue. Which firmware are you using? I would recommend using 1.10 one as 1.09 seems to be buggy. Since updating the firmware late in last night. Today I can just zip through sites without waiting. I can't do the wireless test until I get back to my workshop (aka lab aka home network).

 

[tipstir]

Tests are run only as long as needed to get the data. We don't have the time to do stress testing on everything we test. We also usually don't do follow-up tests on new firmware revisions, which can turn angels into demons.

Tim you had EnGenius provide you with a newer firmware for ESR-9850 which is the 1.10 instead of the 1.09. I guess you found what I found out with 1.09. They have a note showing your SmallnetBuilder on the 1.10 firmware. Funny how there is not mention of this firmware on the Asian site. I did a lot of tracing to see what firmware was available. Anyway I like to test the wireless again later today!

 

[crashnburn]

Looking at your signature.. I am gonna ask you for my next Router recommendation