Cisco WRT400N

[Brian]

Anyone else have this router? Mine has to be restarted twice a day due to complete signal loss. I've discussed this with Michael and was told I could install DDWRT to alleviate the issues. Anyone else have experience with DDWRT? I'll probably install it on my router in the next day or two after I get some other work done. Any recommendations for a different brand of router?

[Michael]

the best router you can buy today would be the netgear wndr3700. its also a dual radio design and it has amazing wireless speeds. I am getting around 10-12MB/s on wireless consistently. it also is supported by ddwrt and by openwrt.

I promise you though that once you install ddwrt you will not want to buy a new router.

[unreal25]

I am contemplating on snatching that one WNDR3700 (or its "Lite" version) of eBay as soon as I figure out what my tax return is going to be. I think my WRT54GL isn't really working well anymore. (I tried doing a hard reset and the same problems. Only Skype connects and the WiFi works a little then stops until I reconnect.) Besides, I only ever got up to 1-2MB/s on WiFi.

Edited April 7, 2011 by unreal25

[Michael]

you'd love it.

I installed openwrt on mine just so I can tweak it some more. great piece of hardware.

btw, you could try ddwrt to remedy your current router before you get the wndr

[unreal25]

Yeah Ill give it a shot. Thanks!

[unreal25]

Question: any thoughts on (seller or manufacturer) refurbished routers? Good/bad idea to get those? One could snatch WNDR3700 for about $80 (vs $120 new) off eBay.

Edited April 12, 2011 by unreal25

[Michael]

i'd go for such a deal. Refurb should be 1 to 1 with new minus the fancy box i guess

[unreal25]

Thanks. I used a gift card I got through some giveaway few weeks ago and knocked down the price to $70. It should be on the way soon!

[Michael]

first thing when you get it - install openwrt on it !! https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=27722&p=1

[mw86]

Great to know, I use a very basic Netgear WNR2000. Seems okay, used as a secondary one that uses internet provided by my TDS internet reuter that is by Adaptec... before I just used the internet providers Adaptec alone it was always resetting itself and the internet would just quit and I would have to reset it manually. Netgear WNR2000 Wireless N Router - 300Mbps, 802.11n, 4-Port, Recertified at TigerDirect.com $24

Edited April 14, 2011 by mw86

[unreal25]

Eh I got tons of problems with this router. Serial number is also missing from below (?!) so I can't login to the netgear website to download the stock firmware. -.-

EDIT: After some interesting black magic, I got the some older stock firmware back. Now it seems the speeds and connection are decent.

Edited April 16, 2011 by unreal25

[Michael]

Eh I got tons of problems with this router. Serial number is also missing from below (?!) so I can't login to the netgear website to download the stock firmware. -.-

EDIT: After some interesting black magic, I got the some older stock firmware back. Now it seems the speeds and connection are decent.

great

lemme know if you need any help. I've tinkered enough with it to be able to help. but seriouly, openwrt is the way to go with this one. wireless speeds improved quite well on it.

[unreal25]

Thanks! I am gathering my strength now after this epic battle, for round two. Btw, the stock firmware looks like it was made by a 10 year old boy, 10 years ago. I get about 9-10MB/s on WiFi now. Then I remembered I forgot to order a Gbit NIC, so that will be coming next week. I actually planned to flash openwrt-northamerica but then my gf decided to come in so I just left it.

I think I downloaded the wrong openwrt so maybe that's why it didn't work - I didn't know "North America" has a special firmware. I flashed it and then it just didn't want to connect to the internet. Since it works now, the plan for this weekend is to do the Ashtefere's M17x cooling mod (got both paste now) and do my taxes.

P.S. I already got it completely covered in fingerprints. I wonder whos brilliant idea is to start making all electronics glossy?

[unreal25]

The router started lagging again (dropping connections, high latency etc.) so just flashed to OpenWRT, this time "NA" version - and it works! It seems it works a bit smoother now, but I will give it a day before I am sure it works better. This firmware is much more responsive than the stock one too.

[unreal25]

I think I got a lemon. With OpenWRT I get different - mainly LAN problems. The router chokes when I put some load both on WiFi and wired connections. But even just streaming mp3s doesn't work well - every song I hear an interruption at least 2-3 times. I am certainly not keeping it, since it has only 30-day warranty. I think I'll just send this one back with the stock firmware flashed back and grab a new one next week.

Missing serial number on the bottom of the router certainly does not improve my impression.

[Michael]

I think I got a lemon. With OpenWRT I get different - mainly LAN problems. The router chokes when I put some load both on WiFi and wired connections. But even just streaming mp3s doesn't work well - every song I hear an interruption at least 2-3 times. I am certainly not keeping it, since it has only 30-day warranty. I think I'll just send this one back with the stock firmware flashed back and grab a new one next week.

Missing serial number on the bottom of the router certainly does not improve my impression.

yeah, that does sound fishy. return and get a new one is what I'd have done.

sorry mate, was hoping you can save some $$

the bright side is that you saw what this router can so and yo already know how to mess with openwrt!

[unreal25]

Yeah that is true. I'll have to pay for the return shipping tho, but OK - I contacted the seller and explained. I got 12-13MB/s peak on WiFi. It was just ... beautiful. Too bad, the seller (etechdirect1) looked pretty legit.

I was thinking maybe a new WNR3500L for $70 from Newegg. On the other hand, I'm not gonna bankrupt for throwing in extra $50 for the better one. Hmmm choices, choices.

Edited April 16, 2011 by unreal25

[Michael]

Yeah that is true. I'll have to pay for the return shipping tho, but OK - I contacted the seller and explained. I got 12-13MB/s peak on WiFi. It was just ... beautiful. Too bad, the seller (etechdirect1) looked pretty legit.

I was thinking maybe a new WNR3500L for $70 from Newegg. On the other hand, I'm not gonna bankrupt for throwing in extra $50 for the better one. Hmmm choices, choices.

yeah. go for the king

openwrt rocks right?

[unreal25]

Yeah that's the funny thing. OpenWRT looks like a professional, commercial firmware - while stock Netgear looks like it was written by some guy during the lunch break in 10 minutes.

[unreal25]

Eh ok I'll be packing this router back tomorrow or the day after that. I've just been busy last couple of days. Meanwhile I found out there's a new version WNDR4000:

Newegg.com - NETGEAR WNDR4000-100NAS IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router

so I might go for that one.

[Michael]

Eh ok I'll be packing this router back tomorrow or the day after that. I've just been busy last couple of days. Meanwhile I found out there's a new version WNDR4000:

Newegg.com - NETGEAR WNDR4000-100NAS IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router

so I might go for that one.

cool. is it a dual radio design ? I couldn't find that into on amazon

[unreal25]

Yeah it supports both 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. The only difference I see is the 450mbps max WiFi but it's kind of new and I'd prefer older model that got decent firmware by now. I went with 3700 instead. Also snatched some cheapo $50 chair of Newegg - you'd be laughing if you saw what and how I am sitting when I am on M17x.

I mailed back the refurb to the guy from eBay - he apologized that it's not working and told me just to send it back then.

[unreal25]

Well got the new WNDR3700v2 today. Again dropped connections all over the place both WLAN and LAN. The router can barely survive after I start streaming 1080p video... and then keeps choking until I reboot it. Any internet test I do, I experience loads of dropped connections - e.g. youtube videos start loading then stop, speedtest.net the same it would just stop in the middle for 30 sec or so then continue. Needless, to say all those tests work flawless when I connect directly through my cable modem (Motorola SBG900).

Any ideas?

[4 hours later...]

EDIT:

Finally I seem to got it running. I tried to use WNDR3700 as a router, but there were some problems with it and SBG900 cable modem/router I have. (I didn't work even though I disabled NAT on the cable modem/router) So, I setup a WNDR3700 as access point only - and so far it seems pretty smooth. OpenWRT that I put was kind of buggy, it took few "Apply and Save" and reboot attempts to change few simple things so I switched back to stock firmware. I even thought I bricked it at some point - but all I had to do was a "hard reset": it's such a simple procedure - holding the reset button with 2 of my toes, unplugging the power cable with my other hand, holding the spoon with an egg in my other hand and singing Kumbaya... could it really be ANY easier? I think not.

Oh and btw, WiFi speeds are insane.

Edited April 23, 2011 by unreal25

[Michael]

Well got the new WNDR3700v2 today. Again dropped connections all over the place both WLAN and LAN. The router can barely survive after I start streaming 1080p video... and then keeps choking until I reboot it. Any internet test I do, I experience loads of dropped connections - e.g. youtube videos start loading then stop, speedtest.net the same it would just stop in the middle for 30 sec or so then continue. Needless, to say all those tests work flawless when I connect directly through my cable modem (Motorola SBG900).

Any ideas?

how do you get a ip from the cable modem? is it l2tp or something ? or is it dhcp ? it's really weird that it's the second one in a row with the same symptoms, must be something with your specific network configuration.

lol, the reset procedure is insane

[unreal25]

DHCP. Yeah it's odd. I spoke too soon tho... even as an access point I can't get this to work. The interesting part is that Skype connects, but I can't get anything else to connect. It is odd.... this is the new one.

EDIT: If I disable NAT on the cable modem you can access the internet fine from a single laptop - and works equally fine (the ISP IP is static but is obtained through DHCP and doesn't seem to be locked to particular MAC address; I tried playing with those too). If I try to connect WNDR3700 instead of a laptop (with cable modem/router NAT off) it doesn't seem to connect. If I set WNDR3700 to static IP and setup DNS servers and so manually, it can check for new firmware (running on stock now) - so I assumed the router is actually connected but the LAN isn't. However I couldn't get the LAN/WLAN working this way. Then I set it up as Access Point (connected internet connection in one of the LAN spots) and it worked fine in the evening but when I woke up you can't access anything except for Skype (?!).

I'll try to pop the question on some expert networking forum, once I find one.

Edited April 23, 2011 by unreal25