Need a router with serious cpu. Hopefully 802.11ac

[rahlquist]

Hello,

I am in the market for a wifi router again. Here are the issues I have with my current setup.

I have a long 2 story home. The layout is thus;

The Red circle is in the basement, this is where my cable modem and Linksys e3000 wifi router are. The home was build very well in 1999 with lots of wood and hardwood floors for the entire upper level. This I think has a negative impact on my wifi. The area with the yellow circle (on the upper floor) we had so many issues/disconnects there is now an Asus RT-N12B in that location on the upper floor. It is hardwired to the E3000 in the basement over DirecTv DECA network. This has cut back on the disconnects. It would be nice to be able to use one wifi router though.

The other issue I have is lots of devices. We have over 30 items with DHCP reservations in the house. When we have a lot going at once, even if we aren't coming close to taxing the bandwidth, things slow to a crawl. It seems to be tied to how many devices are using the network at once. This leads me to think the CPU in this router is under-powered for the use I need. Both routers are on fairly recent DD-wrt builds.

So here is what I am looking for something with a beefy CPU if at all possible, a minimum of 4 or more gigabit ports, simultaneous dual band n if possible. 802.11ac too ideally.

Does such a beast exist?

Thanks!

 

[stevech]

best is to move the cable modem and/or WiFi router to a more central location. then add an Access Point if need be.
See also the forum section on MoCA and IP over power wiring.

Don't waste money on expensive WiFi router expecting better coverage.

multiple devices... only big issue of course, is if any are streaming video a lot. Or doing big downloads a lot. that's a fairness issue.

 

[rahlquist]

best is to move the cable modem and/or WiFi router to a more central location. then add an Access Point if need be.
See also the forum section on MoCA and IP over power wiring.

Don't waste money on expensive WiFi router expecting better coverage.

multiple devices... only big issue of course, is if any are streaming video a lot. Or doing big downloads a lot. that's a fairness issue.

Relocation is the least favorable option for me. In the room the E3000 is in I have 4 pc's all hardwired gigabit. If I cant get wifi strong enough to deal with the whole house so be it. The primary need is for somethin that can handlelots of IP traffic, which is something the E3000 seems to get bogged down with even when bandwidth is well below 50% of my internet speeds. I have no issues with leaving the ASUS in place to handle the other end of the house, its just acting as an AP anyway. The E3000 is doing the DHCP/FW/DNSMASQ etc. As for streaming vid its less than 10% of my network traffic. Thats why I was looking for something with a little more oomph.

 

[kamaran]

The ASUS RT-AC68U and Netgear Nighthawk R7000 meet your criteria.

Let me know how you get on!?

 

[thiggins]

The other issue I have is lots of devices. We have over 30 items with DHCP reservations in the house. When we have a lot going at once, even if we aren't coming close to taxing the bandwidth, things slow to a crawl. It seems to be tied to how many devices are using the network at once. This leads me to think the CPU in this router is under-powered for the use I need.

The E3000 is an N600 class router. This means it supports a maximum 130 Mbps link rate in 2.4 GHz, assuming you are not bandwidth-hogging with 40 MHz bandwidth.

In our testing, it produced top bandwidth of around 60 Mbps. If you have even 20 devices trying to split that bandwidth, each gets 3 Mbps. If you have 802.11g devices mixed in with N, the available bandwidth is even lower.

Internet wired routing throughput tested at 250Mbps + up, down or simultaneous up/down. So I doubt that is the problem.

Best solution isn't a more powerful router. Best solution is to more evenly divide your wireless traffic between the router and upstairs AP and possibly add another AP where the highest concentration of devices is. Make sure each is set to a different channel 1, 6 and 11 and 20 MHz bandwidth.

 

[remixedcat]

Use QoS and VLANS.

 

[thiggins]

Use QoS and VLANS.

To do what? That won't address overtaxed wireless bandwidth on an AP.

 

[remixedcat]

It would divide the traffic. The AP should support it. I use it and it helps a lot.

I use it on both my Amped RTA15 and my Meraki MR12 AP. I got my server and the streaming devices on higher priority then the other devices. Works great.

 

[rahlquist]

The ASUS RT-AC68U and Netgear Nighthawk R7000 meet your criteria.

Let me know how you get on!?

The ASUS is what I am leaning toward. I have never had a bad ASUS product but have had issues with Netgear once or twice. Also I like that the ASUS can use 3g/4g modems on its USB in case of an outage of my primary cable provider.

 

[rahlquist]

The E3000 is an N600 class router. This means it supports a maximum 130 Mbps link rate in 2.4 GHz, assuming you are not bandwidth-hogging with 40 MHz bandwidth.

In our testing, it produced top bandwidth of around 60 Mbps. If you have even 20 devices trying to split that bandwidth, each gets 3 Mbps. If you have 802.11g devices mixed in with N, the available bandwidth is even lower.

Internet wired routing throughput tested at 250Mbps + up, down or simultaneous up/down. So I doubt that is the problem.

Best solution isn't a more powerful router. Best solution is to more evenly divide your wireless traffic between the router and upstairs AP and possibly add another AP where the highest concentration of devices is. Make sure each is set to a different channel 1, 6 and 11 and 20 MHz bandwidth.

I so appreciate the well thought out answer. Your site has always been one of the best.

Yes I have too much congestion. The interesting thing is, now that I think of it I dont have anymore permanent wireless devices in the basement. Maybe like one other suggested I should move the e3000. Here is a typical nights connnections;

I believe I currently have a total of 12 wifi devices of which probably at any given time 6 are in use. I guess I need to spend some time cleaning up and consolidating.

 

[MaxGrit]

Fast CPU and RAM matters for responsiveness. I was able to soft-crash my TP-link WDR-4300 N900 by overloading it with data transfers. I noticed connection was unresponsive after prolonged periods of data download @15MB/s. DL speed was not affected.

A power cycle would bring it back to normal.

Currently using the R7000 with DD-WRT. DD-WRT turns the R7000 from a tiger to a monstrous beast that eats tigers as snacks.

 

[Elisha]

Fast CPU and RAM matters for responsiveness. I was able to soft-crash my TP-link WDR-4300 N900 by overloading it with data transfers. I noticed connection was unresponsive after prolonged periods of data download @15MB/s. DL speed was not affected.

A hard reset would brings it back to normal.

Currently using the R7000 with DD-WRT. DD-WRT turns the R7000 from a tiger to a monstrous beast that eats tigers as snacks.

Can you link me to the DD-WRT fw for the R7000?
I can't seem to find it from their main site.

 

[MaxGrit]

http://www.desipro.de/ddwrt/K3-AC/

or

http://www.myopenrouter.com/downloa...TGEAR-R7000-Nighthawk-WiFi-Router-Kong-build/


Do a hard reset by holding down the reset button for 15 seconds after FW update. You can increase the TX Power if there's a range issue.

 

[TonyH]

Hi,
I just don't understand people locate their router in a wrong place and trying to improve whole house coverage. During planning phase first thing is to decide where router is going to be. When I moved into this newly built house, all cable entry(phone, ISP cable, electrical feeder) was in the basement. So I decided to station modem/router on the top floor loft using one cable outlet already prerun in every room. We have quite a few PCs, laptops, Macbooks laying around the house from basement to top floor loft. Never had coverage problem. Most important is son''s recording studio in basement, wife's networked home theater, no problems. So bite the bullet and rearrange things for the last time. Every one in the family will live happily ever after. Poor initial planning will cause trouble forever.

 

[MaxGrit]

bite the bullet and rearrange things for the last time

Blasphemy. A man does not move stuff around until he is forced to do so or suffer unending annoyance by nag.

 

[RogerSC]

Can you link me to the DD-WRT fw for the R7000?
I can't seem to find it from their main site.

To find the R7000 forum on dd-wrt, just look for the "Broadcom SoC based Hardware" subforum, and the R7000 is one of the threads there. Then look for Kong's postings, and click on "K3 AC Arm Builds" in the .signature for Kong's posts, and you're there at the R7000 dd-wrt release repository.

Kong is the developer for dd-wrt firmware on the R7000.

Good to know something about the structure of the dd-wrt forums, too, so that if you're looking for something else, you know where to look.

On the other hand, here's a link for you:

http://desipro.de/ddwrt/K3-AC-Arm

 

[Elisha]

Thanks guys.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[stevech]

I was able to soft-crash my TP-link WDR-4300 N900 by overloading it with data transfers.

IMO, that's bad firmware design, lack of testing by designer (who is probably not TP-link).

Low price: caveat emptor

 

[MaxGrit]

IMO, that's bad firmware design, lack of testing by designer (who is probably not TP-link).

Low price: caveat emptor

Actually, that router is pretty good @ that price, given that it has Gigabit ethernet. I would recommend it over the Medialink. I own both.

The WDR-4300 is very stable for 99% of users. I'm going to install it at my parents house when I visit them for Christmas. I'm confident it's better than whatever junk modem/router combo Uverse gave them.

Anyways, not a lot of people pulls 15MB/s through the WAN for prolonged periods. I do know soft reboots wouldn't do anything to fix the lag after a long DL session. Power cycling worked every time.

I also neglected to do any hard resets after FW updates, but I doubt that would fix the lag issue. I had no problems until I started loading it with more WiFi clients + WAN->LAN maxed.

A lot of highly rated routers have this same issue, going back many years. It's only very recently that SoCs have been powerful enough to handle high load and still remain responsive.


More CPU + RAM is always a good thing in hardware that experiences high load.

 

[Sky1111]

Currently using the R7000 with DD-WRT. DD-WRT turns the R7000 from a tiger to a monstrous beast that eats tigers as snacks.

Have you tried to overclock the beast? It might start eating elephants

On a serious note, I am dying to try to OC it and see how DD-WRT VPN client performs comparing to my AC56U...