ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Is it just me, or is it a little bit poo?

Just had one fitted after some network dimwit messed with my connections in the green box at the end up the street and fecked up my upstream power levels in the process.

Its happened before, as there is a problem with the cable under the footpath somewhere (not the part that goes under my drive, thats been replaced three times now), so my connection has to be at the top to get the least signal loss, as its the weakest...engineer's put another do not move tag on it now as the last one mysteriously disappreared.

Anyhoo. Seeing I'm due to get a superhub anyway he took out my nice little old Ambit 255 modem and replaced it witha netgear suberhub.

First impressions are not good...First off is the awfull squeel from the powersupply...oh joy another cheap ****ty switched mode thing with noisy inductor coils, just when I thought I had eradicated them all from my setup (including the PSU in my PC and monitors). Just by the complaints in the VM's forums I'm not alone, and replacments don't fix it, so I've since found another old 12v quiet PSU and used that instead. Runs cooler too.

Next the design of the thing...ultra bright LEDs..FFS WHY. I don't want a christmas tree on my desk! Then worst, the cable layout. Why does it have to be upright? And why are all the connections on the large flat side instead of the edge like pretty much every other bit of network equipment?

Anyhoo, after dimming the LEDs with a black marker pen, the flashing was still annoying me so I've stuck it under the desk. Bit tricky as it stands upright.

Next ....Wifi, it connects to the phone and laptop. Cool. Walk down stairs....one bar. WTF! Thats on wireless-N! Even the old VM supplied WGR614 managed better (that was under the desk too). Which was a non-diversity(no MIMO) Wireless-G, so on paper should be inferior, obviously not.

Then I tried the Wifi on the TV, two bars on...wireless-N. Acceptable. Would it connect? Would it hell. I managed to get three bars by holding the WiFi dongle in the air, it still wouldn't connect.

So either the TV or the SH is not liking the encryption. Again, WPA2-PSK like before.

Finally...no dyn-DNS, the old VM supplied WGR614 had it. OK not the end of the world, but its handy for those running a VPN server off a computer. I'm also yet to sort out the VPN passthrough, but after having a nose about the net, it look like it doesn't always passthrough properly either...the old WGR614 did it quite happily.

Oh and I'm still on 10MB down 1MB up. So basically all I've gained is a squeeling load of christmas tree lights and half a Wifi network. Lovely.

One positive is full gigabit wired LAN. Although a bit usless when the Wifi can only throughput 5MB due to the signal loss.

Ant

Mine doesn't sqeual , as for wireless I have that switched to 5ghz for the iPad and mac and use my other other wireless router on 2.4ghz this set up works perfect for me

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I've got an old unbranded wifi router in a box somewhere, it had pretty good reception (owing to it huge aerial ), so I'm going to try that on the TV in bridged mode.

The one Laptop's 2.4Ghz, so that'll mean getting the WGR614 running again if I lock the SH to 5GHz....and then I've ran out of ethernet ports on the SH, so need to dig out a switch.


This is going to get messy

MDS_WRX

iTrader: (1)

Nope, it's not just you. Put it into modem mode, hide it under something and put your own wifi setup in (that's what I've gone back to). I used to have to reboot it at least daily, the coverage around the house was awful and it constantly dropped connections and/or refused to connect back up to it until rebooted.

Happy with it in modem mode though, apart from it being the biggest modem I've ever had!

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Its looking that way; I did have a vigor 2820n and it was the danglies barring one issue.

...For some reason it doesn't like iPhones so I went back to the WGR614....and work has since nicked the Draytek so I'm tempted to have another one.

I would go out and get a new 2830n so I can get a proper VPN server running again. But its going to be a waste of money if it plays funny beggers with the iPhone like the 2820n did...it just comes up with a can't connect error, even when signal and settings are fine...reboot phone, or reboot the router and it works ok until it does it again...a few hours or a few weeks later .

Why can't things just work like they should?

Littleted

ALi do as follows

Pop in Modem Only Mode
Wire in Linksys top of the range baby

its bullet proof then m8 wifi range is great and ive been totally stable for 6 months now on 120mb

bigsinky

thought about this as well myself. modem mode with another router but why are those Draytek wireless routers so damn expensive?
are thet that good?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Drayteks are more business orientated. So have alot of features, many you'd probably never use;

The 280x0n series have dual WAN ports, plus can take a USB 3G dongle. Data logging (to USB or a server) email alerts, load balancing, fail-over protection, VPN server, user acess control, remote admin, and a load of other stuff, Plus the facility to use specialist aerials to help the signal.

Only one flaw....my 2820 (now at work) is a bit iffy with iPhones...and I'm yet to find out why.

2830n is the updated version that has Gigabit LAN....don't know if that is iphone friendly (hope so, as I'll be probably buying one).

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

And so I grab my old Tenda router thinking I could use it as a access point downstairs. Only to find it only supports bridging in WDS mode....The superhub doesn't support WDS bridging FFS

Yup, sod the gigabit LAN and Wireless-N: This thing's going into modem mode, that's all its good for

bigsinky

but why do you need the adsl version if you have a superhub. surely you just need the 2930n which is just a gigabit router if using it in bridging mode?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I don't. But last time I checked, the 2820n version was cheaper than the 2920n. And to me it was more flexible, incase I need it elsewhere or moved house etc. When it was at home, I just disabled the WAN1 port.

Think the 2930n has only just come out as I can't see it stocked by anyone, haven't a clue what difference it has over the 2920n

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

After a fair load of farting about as a last gasp attempt before I go out spending money; I've managed to get the TV to connect on wireless-N. Not sure what it was as I've fiddled with that many settings I'm not entirely sure what did the trick. All I know is the TV starting connecting when I switched to 5Ghz.

Unfortunately. iPhones don't support 5Ghz, so I switched back to 2.4Ghz, yet the TV still works

Phone's still on one to two bars downstairs, but I'm getting about 8Mbps through it over the 'net, so its acceptable.

Found the internal aerials by looking inside the vents with a torch. Two pieces of PCB stuck to the rear cover at the top. From looking it, it appears the main PCB is acting as a shield and is probably blocking signals comming out the front of it. So just by rotating it does improve the signal strength - not easy with the way the connections go to it.

Only problem now is the TV can't see the internet...I have internal network (can see the music/videos on my NAS etc.) But the streaming stuff like Youtube and Net radio won't work. So it looks like the firewall is blocking something

Ant

I've not had to reset my router hardly ever , my uptime is months iirc.

If you switch it to modem mode the gigabit ports don't work.

That's why I've set that up to run 5 ghz and my other router 2.4ghz best of both worlds

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Well, I tried it Ants way and now after wasting god knows how many hours I'm just about ready to launch it through the window. OK the Wifi is on 5Ghz..TV works great (it started crapping out again on 2.4Ghz)...nothing else does as nothing else is 5ghz compatible. So dig out another Wifi router. Hook it up on to 2.4Ghz, everything connects, far better range than the Superhub. So everything is connected, but....

One problem....slow data throughput. Internet is bit laggy, but when transferring stuff from the NAS, its no faster (i.e barely 5 megabits - 600k/sec)! Figured it was my Nettop on a go-slow (even though the Wifi is connected at 48mbps).

So tried it on wired directly connected to the superhub... and its fine. Maxes out at 200megabits (25MB/sec) which is as fast as the NAS goes.

Then I plugged it into a spare port on the 2.4Ghz Wifi router....now I'm getting only 10megabits. Mmm, oKay I should be getting 100mbits, looks like its auto-negociated to 10baseT.

So I get another Wifi router (different brand). Set it all up and it does exactly the same!! Tried different etherent cables, different ports you name it, no difference....all the Superhub wants to do is connect to the switch/routers at 10Mbits...yet it connects to the PC and NAS at 1Gbits

Ok the switches/routers aren't gigabit...but the Superhub should auto-negociate to 100megabits....not 10!!! And I can't find a setting in there to fix that.


What a pile of shyte.

Littleted

http://homestore.cisco.co.uk/store/c...ctID.236645300

Buy that and do as i said, Ive done everything youve done and yes its utter and total ****e.

One thing Ali, ring Virgin and explain your having to put the router in Modem Only mode to get a stable connection, and ask for the dlink router.

They then send you a little Dlink 615 gig router, i have that on the end of a Powerline ethernet device to populate my 3rd floor. the rest of the house is fed from the Linksys and all my switches are 1gig, but you can use the dlink as your router, its a great router and wireless is actually stronegr than the linksys for some reason.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Cheers for that. I didn't think that VM would even acknowledge my LAN/WAN/throughput issues (i.e my LAN/WiFi...my problem). From looking at the VM forums with people that have similar issues they seem to get fobbed off blaming the other equipment etc. Yet in many cases it all worked ok before the SH came along into the equation. Currently I'm in modem mode and on 100Mbits via wired LAN (with 11.5MB/sec or 92Mb/s wired LAN throughput), but even then that was problematic.

Still going to have a chat with them, once I've compressed all my problems into a condensed script (rather than ranting like above ).

If I am going out spending money on more new equipment i'd rather get something with a standalone VPN server again. Not a good time of the month as I've just blew £800 on A/V gear

Plus the last thing I want is to find whatever I buy won't work properly with the SH...even in modem mode I've had issues - it wouldn't give a WAN IP address to the router, causing it to default to 192.168.x.x. This is with a router that usually works perfectly on every network I've tried it on and usually sorts it self within seconds of booting, this time it took minutes and four attempts...the last attempt I changed nothing, just rebooted as a last gasp.


Its still not quite right as the WAN led isn't lit and I swear it used to stay on when it was connected ok, but its working, google feels snappier than before and speedtest is proof of the pudding (10Mbit service):