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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- Gary, one of the points being made is that with wireless especially, it can look like it isn't broke but is. I've read lots of posts on other sites about the radio going south in routers but they appear to be fine. Things like not putting out the power they're supposed to.
- Sgoshe
That is why I am thinking of running a cable instead of wireless I mean I have over 500 feet of cat5 so it is just a matter of building a cable. If there is a noticeable difference I'll post it. What got me thinking is the wireless signal is varying quite a bit. I noticed today it has been changing like from 70 to 85 percent. It isn't going past 85 normally hovers around 81. The router is like 5feet away from the PC so that has got me wondering where the signal loss is going. - Yea, that doesn't sound good. Could be the wireless receive or transmit going bad in the router.
- well when a old ancient Dell 2300 with 64 mb RAM seems to connect as well or better than my hyperthreaded Dual core Acer there may be a problem I'll let you know. Hey Alan thanks for this post.
- That would also eliminate the DHCP Lease problem with some routers since the modem would now be serving up the IPs instead of the router. That would be a good thing.
- That's because you're a "Power" user :)
- I am against Hughes building in ANY wireless functionality UNLESS the customer gets complete control over it, such as, being able to disable it entirely. I rather prefer having my own network equipment and then a basic modem from the ISP... Letting the ISP handle my network addressing would cause me headaches, then again, I also have 30 or so devices total on my network.
- Well, you are a geek freak. :)
My new main PC uses wireless and shows only 70 to 85 percent signal.
Those signal readings can be deceptive. Many of our customers think that it's an indication of Internet strength or browsing speed but it's not. It only indicates the strength of the wireless signal between the router and the device.
Normally, a decent router will pass data far faster than HN's 15 Mbps, even when the wireless signal is low.
(Please bear with me. I know a lot of you already know this stuff but I'm posting it for the benefit our other "non techie" readers)- Maybe they could build in an option in the control settings to disable wireless, just like disabling web acceleration.
