Help/suggestions for a Router

[James1776]

I am having serious problems with my rather aged router, a Linksys E2500. It is a constant battle to avoid the dreaded 'buffering' thing on video. I am getting 40 mpbs to the router but by the time It gets to the rest of the house I am lucky if I see 12mpbs and often, of late, under 3 mpbs. Try streaming a Netflix film at that speed. Half the time is the buffering icon...

 

I have tried other Linksys and Belkin products and all cut the input signal more than half before they get to the rest of the network....

 

So, is there a single router out there that will reliably send the signal received to the rest of the network without gutting it? I am on a budget and do not desire to buy another expensive device that works no better than what I have.

[wgscott]

I've had flawless performance from Apple's Airport Extreme. It is pricey, however, and if you aren't using Apple devices, has features that might not be of much use.

 

However, before you spend more money, try changing channels on your existing router. It may well be that you are on or near a neighbor's channel, which would result in interference and the slowdown you describe.

[Old Listener]

I've had flawless performance from Apple's Airport Extreme. It is pricey, however, and if you aren't using Apple devices, has features that might not be of much use.

 

However, before you spend more money, try changing channels on your existing router. It may well be that you are on or near a neighbor's channel, which would result in interference and the slowdown you describe.

 

I've used an Airport Extreme router for years. No drama.

[James1776]

No Apple gear except as a music server hard wired to the DAC and the rest of the system...My home network is almost entirely built around PC's and Android devices and is used mostly for video entertainment like Netflix and normal internet use.

[bikemig]

The apple extreme is, as others have noted, excellent.

 

There are software programs out there that you can use to figure out which channels your neighbors are using. You may be getting some interference. Check out istumbler which is freeware; there are other programs out there as well. istumbler.net Netspot also has good diagnostic tools. FREE Wireless WiFi Site Survey Software for MAC OS X

 

A dual band router is also helpful in avoiding interference.

 

The house may be a problem. Some building materials are really tough on wireless networks. I live in an old brick house and the router is sitting in the family room which just happens to be an add on so the inside wall is what used to be the outside brick wall of the house. I have a lovely view of the yard on one side and an equally lovely view of a brick wall on the other. The acoustics are pretty bad for the HT and the brick wall just wreaks havoc on wireless as well.

 

There are things you can do to get a stronger signal to the rest of the house. A wifi repeater can be a big help. I have one in the living room which is the only reason we get a decent signal in the house.

 

Also check out a product like netgear's powerline adapters that allow you to use the electrical wiring in the house as ethernet. If you check out the reviews on Amazon, you will see some folks that love the thing and some who hate them. YMMV but it worked like a charm for my office. It is in what at one time had been the garage many years ago and so I have a brick wall between my office and the rest of the house. There is no way in heck I was going to get a good signal into the office and I didn't want to pay for ethernet cabling. The netgear powerline adapter worked like a champ.

 

 

Good luck and keep trying. There is little science to this but more than a little madness.

[James1776]

Here is where I show my ignorance...The signal might be weak BUT the speed should be unchanged. Your post sounds like the speed of the delivery varies with the environment while all I thought was happening was the strength of the signal was reduced. I go from 5 bars at the modem to 3 downstairs but the signal speed goes from 42mpbs at the providers output at the modem but becomes 3 mpbs when passed through the router. The 3mpbs is the issue....and that number varies throughout the day while the physical environment remains the same.

 

What is a good modem that will not gut the signal fed to it??

[Old Listener]

My Airport Extreme router works fine with my PCs and an Android tablet. I don't have macs or iPhones/iPads.

[wgscott]

Here is where I show my ignorance...The signal might be weak BUT the speed should be unchanged. Your post sounds like the speed of the delivery varies with the environment while all I thought was happening was the strength of the signal was reduced. I go from 5 bars at the modem to 3 downstairs but the signal speed goes from 42mpbs at the providers output at the modem but becomes 3 mpbs when passed through the router. The 3mpbs is the issue....and that number varies throughout the day while the physical environment remains the same.

 

What is a good modem that will not gut the signal fed to it??

 

To a first approximation, the data transfer rate will decrease with decreasing signal strength. In practice, it won't decrease until the router becomes rate-limiting rather than your ISP. Mine does this in an upstairs bedroom.

 

What I have found in most cases is that other interfering signals (neighbor's routers, even in my rural area where everyone has a minimum 1 acre lot) are much more likely to be the problem, and that changing the channel usually resolves the problem.

 

Also, with my dual band router (5 GHz and 2.5 GHz), the 2.5 GHz signal appears to have an effective longer range.

[Bob Stern]

There are software programs out there that you can use to figure out which channels your neighbors are using. You may be getting some interference. Check out istumbler which is freeware; there are other programs out there as well.

 

I concur that iStumbler is excellent. However, I'm using Mtn Lion and have not tested iStumbler on Mavericks.

 

WiFi Scanner is only $3 and also is excellent.

WiFi Scanner Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks

 

For interpreting your own network quality rather than observing neighbors, WiFi Scanner is more helpful because it displays the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) in dB, whereas iStumbler merely displays signal and noise values as percentages of some reference level.

 

Neither utility reports data transmission rate.

[Bob Stern]

Network Sniffer built into OS X

 

I forgot that Bill Scott educated me on the somewhat hidden Network Sniffer built into OS X:

1. Hold down the option key and click on the wireless menu bar icon.

2. Click on the menu item "Open Wireless Diagnostics". *A dialog may request your administrator name and password.

3. When that application has focus, go to the "Window" menu item in the main menu bar.

4. Go to "Utilities" (command-2), and open that window.

5. Click on Wi-Fi scan.

[SoundQcar]

James...

 

To expound on what a few others have suggested about network traffic and changing channels, seeing as though you have an Android device, there is a free app called 'Wifi Analyzer' in Google play that might help you. It will show you all of the wifi networks in your vicinity, what channels they're on....including yours, and what channel setting you need to change to in order to get some breathing space for your network. Channel 6 is a very popular channel, and if the analyzer app shows that to be the case, then you'd want to move to either extreme...say channel 1 or 11. You want as little overlapping with other networks as possible.

 

To change your channel, just type 192.168.1.1 into your URL, press enter, and that will get you into your router setup and settings. Go to Wireless and change it there.

 

Doing the above has gained me quite a bit of speed and range each and every time I've utilized it.

 

Best to try that before outlaying some cash on a new router.

 

Good luck...

 

Bob

[Paul R]

No Apple gear except as a music server hard wired to the DAC and the rest of the system...My home network is almost entirely built around PC's and Android devices and is used mostly for video entertainment like Netflix and normal internet use.

 

Yep, but an Apple Airport Extreme will do the job with no pain, fuss, or other drama. It's a good investment. (A NEW one, not a 10 year old model! )

 

A couple less obvious things to check - ensure that your network connection to the internet isn't stuttering and causing grief. We have a 117mbs circuit and when it gets loaded, the cable company falls down on the job.

 

Secondly, as Bill suggested, have you manually changed the channels on your router? Can it dual broadcast on the 5ghz network? If so, try using the 5ghz channels. They can be "bonded" to give you much faster bandwidth. Typically, I see 130mb/s or better on internal wireless transmissions within the house. Again, Apple Airport Extreme base station will do all this, with multiple antennas no less, with very good reliability. Some DNet gear seems to do a good job too, but it is kind of a crap shoot with Linksys or nonane brands.

 

-Paul

[mourip]

No Apple gear except as a music server hard wired to the DAC and the rest of the system...My home network is almost entirely built around PC's and Android devices and is used mostly for video entertainment like Netflix and normal internet use.

 

+1 for Apple Extreme. Drama-free rock solid performance.

 

BTW. The Apple gear is device agnostic and so will work with everything else. We have Windows(7 and 8), Android, and Apple(ML and IOS7) devices at home all working very well.

 

For a while I had the Extreme doing the heavy lifting for wireless from our FIOS router and then an Express bridging to the basement for all of the multimedia goodies down there. Was very solid with buffering mostly gone. I did replace the Express with a MOCA adapter which got the full Internet signal from our FIOS cable which was in the basement also. If you can use a MOCA adapter it is the next best thing to fully wired ethernet. Lots of choices...

[jcbenten]

I have a couple of AE's (previous model) and while they work, I found the range to be less than stellar in my house. I went through a couple of the latest ASUS models and they either fried (literally) or required constant power-cycling. But the range is pretty awesome. I went to a Netgear R7000 and it is much more stable though not the range of the ASUS units. I still use one of the AEs as an access point.

[ErikM]

I'd suggest that you take a look at Cnet for some reviews.. I like the Apple except for some reason they only give you three lan ports wtf?? I just bought the new Netgear R7000 Nighthawk.. The Asus RT AC 68U looks nice and so does the new Dlink DIR 868L

[designmule]

The website smallnetbuilder regularly reviews wifi routers and has lots of good tips on optimizing your network. I think you can not even sort their router charts based on the performance factors which are important to you. The site has a fairly active forum where you can get advice as well.