Router Power Supply Upgrades?

[DaveMcLain]

Do you think that this has any validity?

Thread from DD-WRT forum:

http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=54242&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Is it really possible that router power supplies could be designed so close to the minimum amount of amperage required that they can cause router instability and or wireless signal problems?

This might be an interesting topic to test sometime. Do any of these mods really increase the wireless throughput under real world testing conditions. Or do they simply increase the amplitude of the signal while degrading it's quality/data rate...

Either way this thread is some interesting reading.

 

[thiggins]

I read partway through the thread. The gist of it seems to be that people see problems when using DD-WRT's ability to change TX power settings.

It stands to reason that using higher transmit power will cause higher power draw from the power supply. So there is a good chance that you need to increase the current available from the power supply when trying to run higher-than-designed TX power.

I may have missed it, but I didn't see anything that said using a higher wattage supply would improve performance / stability for a stock router or one that was not set to higher-than-factory transmit power.

 

[DarcyWood]

get a multimeter plug the power adapter in and test the voltage without the router plugged in, then test it with the router plugged in and working its arse off, to avoid cutting your wires just crack open the router. if you don't want to open it use two pins in the wires. pins are lazy avoid doing that if you can.

if the voltage drop is less then 8% your psu is fine. if its higher "not much" and spikes you can sometimes add a capacitor to help it.

its best to do this with a analog multimeter not digital they respond to slow to spikes, some digital ones are fast but are not cheap.

you can also read the manual and do a load test with most digital multimeter's but its slower to set up and you will need a more tools to remove and attach the dc socket from the pc board in the router. or you will have to cut in to the cable =(

 

[DaveMcLain]

Another test that would be sort of interesting would be to take a scope and use it to have a look at the power supply wave form with the router at idle and then at full power under heavy use. Theoretically it shouldn't have any waveform to speak of but be smooth DC right?