Forum Discussion
The Main Router Discussion Topic
Non-techies, please bear with me on this. I'm starting a discussion about router technology here which may quickly get hard to follow in places. We have a lot of Techies on these forums, and their knowledge is extremely valuable in solving problems. I'm hoping we can concentrate some of that knowledge here on the key role that wireless routers play in overall system performance and maybe provide some useful information that could help you troubleshoot your own connectivity problems.
I know there's a lot of information and discussions spread all across these Forums about routers. And dwelling on routers frequently gets dissed as just some ruse to ignore the "real" problem. But the router is the piece of gear that is the first and only "point of contact" for most customers' iPhones, tablets, laptops, and you name it. Connect a bad $40 router to a good $600 system and you have a bad $600 system.
I was reminded of this today when I visited a customer's home to figure out why they were having problems with their 1-month-old Gen4 system. Ready to have the whole system ripped out, they were.
Frequent disconnects, buffering, slow page loads, you name it, we've read these same symptoms described in these community forums over and over again.
Plugged a LAN cable into the router, a new, Linksys E1200-NP N300 we installed with the system. Took 30 seconds for a page to load. Bypassed the modem and plugged my laptop directly into the modem, and everything came up immediately.
Traded out the Linksys with a Netgear N300 WNR2000100NAS and that did it. Ran three speed tests and came up with consistent 20 Mbps downloads on a 10 Mbps plan. BTW, this is on Beam 19, one of the most crowded beams on HughesNet's Jupiter platform. Everything normal. Customer reassured.
This isn't the first time we've seen this problem, and I can't stress it enough. Here are a couple of cheap $40 routers, one good - one bad, serving up the business end of several hundred dollars of HughesNet gear. This has to be frustrating to HN Tech Support staff and out of their control, so it's no surprise it would be one of the first things they try to eliminate while troubleshooting and so should you.
I should point out the E1200 is on HughesNet's list of approved routers. But that list can't anticipate some approved routers being bad. Just because a router is listed doesn't mean it's working.
So, let's open this up to some more observations and "Best Practices." I'd be interested in hearing from anyone about their experiences with routers, good and bad, and perhaps we can come up with some ways to help others quickly diagnose router problems, instead of simply "blaming the system." Certainly OK to point to other topics and use this one as a central "jumping off" point.
I know there's a lot of information and discussions spread all across these Forums about routers. And dwelling on routers frequently gets dissed as just some ruse to ignore the "real" problem. But the router is the piece of gear that is the first and only "point of contact" for most customers' iPhones, tablets, laptops, and you name it. Connect a bad $40 router to a good $600 system and you have a bad $600 system.
I was reminded of this today when I visited a customer's home to figure out why they were having problems with their 1-month-old Gen4 system. Ready to have the whole system ripped out, they were.
Frequent disconnects, buffering, slow page loads, you name it, we've read these same symptoms described in these community forums over and over again.
Plugged a LAN cable into the router, a new, Linksys E1200-NP N300 we installed with the system. Took 30 seconds for a page to load. Bypassed the modem and plugged my laptop directly into the modem, and everything came up immediately.
Traded out the Linksys with a Netgear N300 WNR2000100NAS and that did it. Ran three speed tests and came up with consistent 20 Mbps downloads on a 10 Mbps plan. BTW, this is on Beam 19, one of the most crowded beams on HughesNet's Jupiter platform. Everything normal. Customer reassured.
This isn't the first time we've seen this problem, and I can't stress it enough. Here are a couple of cheap $40 routers, one good - one bad, serving up the business end of several hundred dollars of HughesNet gear. This has to be frustrating to HN Tech Support staff and out of their control, so it's no surprise it would be one of the first things they try to eliminate while troubleshooting and so should you.
I should point out the E1200 is on HughesNet's list of approved routers. But that list can't anticipate some approved routers being bad. Just because a router is listed doesn't mean it's working.
So, let's open this up to some more observations and "Best Practices." I'd be interested in hearing from anyone about their experiences with routers, good and bad, and perhaps we can come up with some ways to help others quickly diagnose router problems, instead of simply "blaming the system." Certainly OK to point to other topics and use this one as a central "jumping off" point.
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- My broadcast OTA television is great. Get the major stations and anything else I can find online. Don't need no stink'in statelliet TV. :)
Alan, sorry for trashing your post. We'll get back on track eventually. :) eventually :)
Getting back on track ....
From an "average" customers perspective, Hughes is already "riddled with problems" (forget that computers in themselves are complex) but imagine Hughes taking on the burden of "Networking Support" with its current lower tier scripted approach. As it stands now, they have plausible deniability when it comes to networking issues.
- I have DTV but only due to my Wife likes some of the channels like VH1 MTV Bravo and others. So I have one receiver for her and I just use OTA myself. Now I do admit on Monday night she will let me watch Street Outlaws without griping to much. I also watch Fox News Channel in the morning and at 18:00 for Greta.
- So were back on topic my Wife allows me to be routed into the living room once a week and for an hour every night.
Poor Alan's well thought out post has been derailed and re-railed more times than a HO Gauge train set (and by his fellow Hughes regulars too)
I watch very little TV myself.
Paying all that $$$ to DTV as wife is addicted to the western and mystery channels.
Oh well, as long as the Internet works, I'm good.
- that was not a derail , this is a two train collision !!! sgoshe i really don't either of them two trains righting their selves !!!!!
- Having done a speed test today (19446 down, 674 up) and not having visited here for a while, in looking at this thread was surprised to learn of the HT1100's built-in "LAN Speed Test" which I'd never noticed before. OK so I run it for grins and it says 56Mbps which sounds right, but then I click on it again and it comes-up as 0.0 Mbps. Hmmm so I switch off'n Firefox and try IE11 and it too now says 0.0 Mbps, as though I broke something in the HT1100. Clearly everything is still working, I can surf OK. So how'd I break the LAN Speed Test? What does the (apparently) 5-step LAN Speed Test actually do? Usually speed tests require another bit of software on the other end of the cable to work properly.
Any ideas? - you did not break nothing !!!you already know 192.168.0.1 in the address bar
If I recall correctly it is due to some java issues.
The test checks your LAN side connection speed (computer>router>modem) not your connection speed from the modem>satellite>gateway server.
- your Java probably updated from version 7 to version 8, its a well known issue but no one seems to care about fixing it
