Upgrading to a new router

vivek.krishnan

vivek.krishnan

BLR~ZRS-TX-1-MX
Skilled
Its been about two years since I procured the ASUS N13U-B1. Planning to upgrade to a newer router.


Initially, I bought it purely as a router+torrent downloader, and it was something new at that point. And worked great, I no longer had to keep the PC on for torrenting. The ASUS download master stuff was crap, and moved on to DD-WRT.

However, was not happy with the speeds over LAN from USB. Also, when starting the router after a power failure or when downloading heavy files - found that the router used to lag a bit.

This I solved by gettting a GoFlex Home, courtesy varkey. This solution let me use the router purely for routing, and the goflex as a downloading device. I kept the stock firmware on the GFH, as I saw no need to switch to ArchLinux, plus the media capabilities work fine.

Then felt that 10 MBps was not enough. Felt the need to increase the speed. Backups took too much time from the 2 laptops to the desktop. Removing downloads from the GFH to the desktop took too much time too. This made me get a TP-Link 5port GbE switch about 5 months back. This got me speeds of about 60MBps, which was way better than the 10MBps.

Now, both the switch and the router are on, always - except for last month for the switch only - since I did not need backups and the GFH was not downloading much.

My requirements ATM :

Gigabit enabled router.
Good WiFi range.
2.4GHz N300 or higher.
Clean stock interface. OR an aftermarket OS like DD-WRT (Preffered) OR Tomato.

Optional :
5GHz WiFi. I have only two 5GHz devices.

Budget: 5K Max INR. Can increase by 10-15%, but dont want to spend too much.

Shortlisted devices

1. ASUS RT N15U - http://wikidevi.com/wiki/ASUS_RT-N15U

Uses a Broadcom chip, so apparently no DD-WRT support. Tomato builds by Shibby are working fine, apparently.

Has two internal antennas. So a 2T2R MIMO.

2. TP-Link WR-1043ND - http://wikidevi.com/wiki/TP-LINK_TL-WR1043ND_v1.x

DD-WRT support, however has some weird WiFi bug. Apaarently, the WiFi goes off after about 3-4 days, and a reboot is needed. Also, installing DD-WRT is a bit problematic.

Has 3 external antennas. But the middle one is transmit only, not recieve. So a 3T2R MIMO (Weird)

3. TP-Link WDR3600 - http://wikidevi.com/wiki/TP-LINK_TL-WDR3600

DD-WRT support, 5GHz N300, However, the Atheros chip used is old and does not support all 5GHz channels. Or so it seems.

Has 2 external antennas. 2T2R MIMO.

I did not look at the Netgear or Belkin devices because of the poor WiFi range. I was planning to get an Apple router, but ditched it, its a hit or miss apparently.

Costwise the 1043 is the cheapest and the other two are similarly priced.

Any suggestions?

@blr_p Thread created.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Crazy_Eddy said:
Isn't your current setup with the Gigabit switch already optimal?
Click to expand...


Not really. The GbE switch consumes power and has to be ON to get full speed from the GFH (around 30~50 MBps). As the devices are always ON 24x7, need to reduce that, plus I forgot to mention that there is one more switch between the WAN port and the ISP (an N13 issue, limitation of cable). This serves another purpose, apart from giving the much needed connectivity to the N13, lightning protection which I have already faced.

Also, another issue with the GbE switch is that since there is only one line from the N13 to the GbE switch, it kinda gets choked when watching YouTube streams and when WiFi clients pull in data from the GFH or the PC.
 
Have a look at this

With discount coupons it will be 1K above your budget. TP-Link routers are generally well supported by Openwrt. The openwrt support status is available here
 
Wondered the same thing Eddy did ?

vivek.krishnan said:
Not really. The GbE switch consumes power and has to be ON to get full speed from the GFH (around 30~50 MBps). As the devices are always ON 24x7, need to reduce that, plus I forgot to mention that there is one more switch between the WAN port and the ISP (an N13 issue, limitation of cable). This serves another purpose, apart from giving the much needed connectivity to the N13, lightning protection which I have already faced.
Click to expand...
What is GFH ?

vivek.krishnan said:
Also, another issue with the GbE switch is that since there is only one line from the N13 to the GbE switch, it kinda gets choked when watching YouTube streams and when WiFi clients pull in data from the GFH or the PC.
Click to expand...
Your setup as i understand it ?

isp--->switch---->N13--->GbE switch---->wired clients

which gbE switch do you have
 
Am still wondering why you need a replacement :)

vivek.krishnan said:
Also, another issue with the GbE switch is that since there is only one line from the N13 to the GbE switch, it kinda gets choked when watching YouTube streams and when WiFi clients pull in data from the GFH or the PC.
Click to expand...
youtube getting choked while downloading torrents isn't unusual. Why do you think different ?

What might help here is Qos rules on the N13 to give more priority to the http streams over BT. You may even be able to streamline priority on the basis of mac address so this way you can seperate the GFH from your other youtube clients.

The marketing literature for your gbE switch make it a point to say its green and power careful. How much excess power is it drawing anyway, <5 watts. How a gbE+ wifi router will make a difference power wise is questionable.

if you want to combine switch & router into one yeah, but why. The way you have it partitioned as is seems satisfactory.

I cannot find a good reason for you to spend Rs.5k.
 
^ He wants to cut down power consumption. But as you said, 'green' switches these days are smart enough to power down inactive ports and keep power consumption minimal.

GFH is LAN traffic only. I'm guessing he means the 100Mbps N13 <-> GbE switch link is getting choked with GFH to N13(Wifi) traffic and and N13(WAN) to PC.
Is it possible to set it up like ISP -> GbE switch -> N13 ? That way the PC has direct access to WAN, and N13 has direct access to GFH. My bad, forgot about NAT
 
I don't think the 100Mbps link from router to switch makes any difference to internet browsing. Unless he's using a fios connection at 100Mbps. Most adsl connections Max out at around 8 to 16 Mbps. The 24Mbps speed is right next to exchange at less than 100 ft or something. Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Crazy_Eddy said:
^ He wants to cut down power consumption. But as you said, 'green' switches these days are smart enough to power down inactive ports and keep power consumption minimal.

GFH is LAN traffic only. I'm guessing he means the 100Mbps N13 <-> GbE switch link is getting choked with GFH to N13(Wifi) traffic and and N13(WAN) to PC.
Is it possible to set it up like ISP -> GbE switch -> N13 ? That way the PC has direct access to WAN, and N13 has direct access to GFH. My bad, forgot about NAT
Click to expand...
Do you have any idea what a router with a gigabit port will cost?
 
See if you can play with QoS to prioritise traffic. Else get the N15U. For some reason I kept thinking it had 100Mbps ports like the N16. The WDR3600 also looks compelling with its 5GHz radio.

6pack said:
I don't think the 100Mbps link from router to switch makes any difference to internet browsing. Unless he's using a fios connection at 100Mbps. Most adsl connections Max out at around 8 to 16 Mbps. The 24Mbps speed is right next to exchange at less than 100 ft or something. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
The internet traffic isn't heavy. There's heavy 'intranet' traffic on that link from the PC/GFH on the switch through the N13 to the wifi clients.
 
Crazy_Eddy said:
^ He wants to cut down power consumption. But as you said, 'green' switches these days are smart enough to power down inactive ports and keep power consumption minimal.
Click to expand...
Even if the switch was not green i have doubts he'll be saving on anything.

How long will it take to recoup Rs.5k if the watts conserved are in the single digits. And that's just to break even, to save requires going beyond. Hopefully way beyond.

What other reasons are there to upgrade.
 
blr_p said:
Am still wondering why you need a replacement :)


youtube getting choked while downloading torrents isn't unusual. Why do you think different ?

What might help here is Qos rules on the N13 to give more priority to the http streams over BT. You may even be able to streamline priority on the basis of mac address so this way you can seperate the GFH from your other youtube clients.

The marketing literature for your gbE switch make it a point to say its green and power careful. How much excess power is it drawing anyway, <5 watts. How a gbE+ wifi router will make a difference power wise is questionable.

if you want to combine switch & router into one yeah, but why. The way you have it partitioned as is seems satisfactory.

I cannot find a good reason for you to spend Rs.5k.
Click to expand...

The reason I mentioned YouTube choking is important because there is spare bandwidth to cache.google.com of about 6Mbps, wheras my web browsing/torrents are limited to 1Mbps. Even with torrents running at full steam I get good speeds and almost zero buffering. Torrents are not the issue. Its when WiFi streaming gets pulled in.

I will eventually use QoS, but for the time being, not planning to.

And finally, I can remove the currently ~10+ lights which keep flashing at night and make it 4 in all.

Power consumption is an afterthought, but I feel that every small bit counts.
 
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