Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

[c_hegge]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

^
This, plus I lack the desk space for another PC

[c_hegge]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

I re-capped the DGN2000 a few days ago, and it seems to have been fine so far. I haven't had a wireless or ADSL dropout since. Still, Netgear should be ashamed of themselves for using Lelon.

[severach]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

Build that router out of an i3 and most of those complaints are no longer true.

[momaka]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

Still, Netgear should be ashamed of themselves for using Lelon.

Meh.
My Netgear 802.11 B router has Stone caps in it. Stable as a rock, though (pun intended?). It crashes very very rarely - maybe once every 3 months on average (usually after a major thunderstorm), sometimes even less. It sees quite a bit of use, too - both the wired and the wireless connections. I'm using remote desktop on my computers more than half the time while my family is using the wireless for surfing. Sometimes, I even have uTorrent on with the above situation and still no problem whatsoever.

My cable modem likes to drop the connection a lot, though, and that thing has Rubycon MCZ caps. So it's not all about the caps, although they do matter. I'm guessing my Netgear router just doesn't stress those caps that much.

Build that router out of an i3 and most of those complaints are no longer true.

Why waste an i3 just for that? If I had an i3, I would actually use it. The best I got here is an AMD Athlon 64 3200+. Most of my other computers are Pentium 3 or early Pentium 4 era. Although, come to think of it, I do have a dual Pentium 3 HP Netserver with several PCI and PCI-X slots. I think this idea would be interesting with that computer. I might later this year make it into a headless server, though.

[999999999]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

Build that router out of an i3 and most of those complaints are no longer true.

i3 CPU based system? It'll still be a waste of power, space, time, and money unless you need very comprehensive routing and firewall features. Plus there's maintenance. You either have to clean dust out every now and then and have downtime during this, or at least an increase in time to clean filter panels, OR a significant increase in cost and/or time to design it to run with only passive cooling, no fans.

The power consumption of a modern (power state reduction on low load capable) consumer grade 11n router w/integrated 4+1 port GbE switch is under 10W average measured at the wall outlet, or in most home use scenarios would tend to be under 5W average.

Last router I bought was not to replace a failure but as a backup, then decided to deploy it anyway so I had a chance to open and inspect the existing router's caps without more than a half minute of network downtime in the process. I did to the new router what I always do:

1) Test router to establish it works out of the box, no major flaws surface yet.

2) Upgrade firmware to DD-WRT. I don't buy consumer grade routers that don't support it.

3) Check processor, if no heatsink then add one.

4) Mark a grid on the upper half of the router case and add extra ventilation holes on a drill press.

5) Replace any questionable quality capacitors with polymer capacitors... I value the router warranty less than increasing the odds of avoiding premature failure.

I have had power surge damage to router PSU but have never had any router I did the above to, fail yet... though in the past I sometimes had to swap in a quality electrolytic cap for the first cap after the power socket as they weren't available in the typical 25V, ~ 470uF values (on 12V input models) until recently, AFAIK. Some might argue there is no need for 25V rating on a 12V input but I like to keep all specs as good if not better on replacement parts.

IMO, the only thing significantly more durable than a consumer grade router with polymer caps and good ventilation would be a mil spec router using leaded solder, gold plating or at least (better) fully sealed chassis with internal heatsinking to it, and its own commercial quality surge protection built in. That's going to cost $1000 or more while my refurb'd Cisco Valet + with polymer caps cost me about $27 including the caps from digikey.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

Build that router out of an i3 and most of those complaints are no longer true.

yeah that is a little too much for a single connection. A medium sized business, maybe

I would use, like an atom D525 for a single connection. But the last thing I used was a Athlon T-bird 1ghz /w ECC PC 133 ram

[mariushm]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

I've used a single core Barton (1.2-1.4 ghz) to route an university campus building with about 100 computers to a 100 mbps fiber, with no problems at all.

Before that, there was a cheap Socket A processor - both had absolutely no problems handling the traffic of so many computers.

Even a 486 will be enough to do routing, but you'd want something with MMX and SSE simply because it's easier to compile modern operating systems and install them on such hardware.

You can find cheap socket 478 mb and cpus and you can downclock them to use them with passive heatsinks and you have a stable router.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

also, use pfsense with ether a low capacity ssd or if it has a pata slot an CF-IDE converter and CF card

[BigTroll]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

I got a netgear 3500L its a nice router, I wanted a linksys with a USB port but they were so much more money then the netgear for a similar model, I still have tons of older linksys routers but that cloud shit they pulled really turned me off on them. working for an ISP i get calls all day long, "HEY I CAN"T GET ONLINE" me "HMMM your DigitalPath Antenna seems to be up, Do you have a wireless router" them "yeah" me "what brand is it?" them "dlink or belkin" oh no wonder they love to drop lan leases all day long.

[c_hegge]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

Looks like I spoke too soon. The wireless is dropping out again. Time to ghetto mod it with some better cooling methinks.

[1supertech]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

Looks like I spoke too soon. The wireless is dropping out again. Time to ghetto mod it with some better cooling methinks.

I have my router and modem on a laptop cooler may be silly but works

[shovenose]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

my Netgear WNR2000v3 is very solid never crashed or rebooted. And I use the Thing a lot!

[c_hegge]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

It already had decent heat sinks on it. I ran it with the cover off for a few days, but it's still just as unreliable. Maybe this is not an overheating problem.

[c_hegge]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

And it just died altogether. Won't even connect to DSL now. I've ordered the SMC Barricade.

[Blargh523]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

Go with a classic, find a Linksys WRT54GL and install dd-wrt.

This is what I did after the over-rated D-Link I had turned out to be flaky as all get out (DNS issues in the firmware).

No Cisco spyware in DD-WRT

[Rulycat]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

I have a TP-Link PCI-Express N card in my desktop and it's perfectly stable. Surprising given TP-Link seemed like a D-Link Chinese knock-off brand to me. I'd definitely consider other equipment by them.

[Shocker]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

I don't know about that. I found Leaguer caps in a router I have from them.

[999999999]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

Almost every consumer grade router or switch I've ever bought had questionable caps in it, with the exception of a Buffalo HP-something-or-other with Sanyos... and they weren't exactly top shelf for the application either. I'm cheap though, never spending a lot on networking gear so I don't know as much about high end consumer equipment. Jump up to business class equipment (or $$$ Apple) to find tantalum (now rarer), polymer, and/or ceramic caps.

Then again, there's nothing stopping us from buying some caps at digikey et al...

[c_hegge]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

I've got the Barricade now, and I'm back online. The PSU for it weighs a ton.

[Phaihn]

Re: Stupid, Unreliable, Evil NETGEAR!!!

Go with a classic, find a Linksys WRT54GL and install dd-wrt.

i have one that took the shell off of just got the guts of it i might do something with it.