Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Thermopyle
Jul 1, 2003

...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. —Bertrand Russell

Does Youtube Red work for iOS devices? If so, that's probably the best option for getting rid of ads.

Youtube Red is loving awesome...particularly so as it comes with Google Play Music All Access.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

some kinda jackal
Feb 25, 2003

 
 
Even if it was available for iOS, it's not available in Canada :(

Thanks though.

Moey
Oct 22, 2010

I LIKE TO MOVE IT

Thermopyle posted:

Does Youtube Red work for iOS devices? If so, that's probably the best option for getting rid of ads.

Youtube Red is loving awesome...particularly so as it comes with Google Play Music All Access.

Seconding this. They even have a "friends and family" plan for 15/month.

Mr. Funny Pants
Apr 9, 2001

I just got WoW internet installed (110/20, which is light speed compared to what it replaces, Time Warner 20/2).

My setup is an Arris cable modem hooked up to a plain old blue on black Cisco/Linksys 2.4 ghz broadband router (I'd give you the exact model, but, and I swear this is true, my 22 month old snagged my reading glasses and I can't make out the number. Because I'm old), with the router feeding four TP Link power line networking modules. At two of the modules, switches feed various devices (DVRs, Roku, PC, PS4, etc.).

Prior to the new internet, both wireless and wired connections worked fine. After the installation, speed was almost identical to the old setup, both wireless and wired. When I called support today, they had me connect my laptop directly to their cable modem and it delivered the promised higher speed.

So apparently the router is the weak link in the chain. Is this a common issue, I mean, is there a setting that can be changed or something? Or is the router too old or somehow not compatible with the cable modem or some other aspect of the WoW setup? Those routers are or at least were so ubiquitous it's hard for me to believe there's a compatibility issue.

Rexxed
May 1, 2010

Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

Mr. Funny Pants posted:

I just got WoW internet installed (110/20, which is light speed compared to what it replaces, Time Warner 20/2).

My setup is an Arris cable modem hooked up to a plain old blue on black Cisco/Linksys 2.4 ghz broadband router (I'd give you the exact model, but, and I swear this is true, my 22 month old snagged my reading glasses and I can't make out the number. Because I'm old), with the router feeding four TP Link power line networking modules. At two of the modules, switches feed various devices (DVRs, Roku, PC, PS4, etc.).

Prior to the new internet, both wireless and wired connections worked fine. After the installation, speed was almost identical to the old setup, both wireless and wired. When I called support today, they had me connect my laptop directly to their cable modem and it delivered the promised higher speed.

So apparently the router is the weak link in the chain. Is this a common issue, I mean, is there a setting that can be changed or something? Or is the router too old or somehow not compatible with the cable modem or some other aspect of the WoW setup? Those routers are or at least were so ubiquitous it's hard for me to believe there's a compatibility issue.

You probably have the old WRT54GL or something which was pretty reliable 10 years ago but doesn't have as much bandwidth as a modern router. You'll want to replace it with an Archer C7 or something like that to make use of your new connection.

Mr. Funny Pants
Apr 9, 2001

Rexxed posted:

You probably have the old WRT54GL

Boom. Found my glasses and you guessed correctly. Looked it up and I've had it for five years, which seems insane.

quote:

You'll want to replace it with an Archer C7 or something like that to make use of your new connection.

Thanks, I appreciate the response!

Edit: Just out of curiosity, what kind of shelf life should I expect on the C7 or are things moving too fast in home networking to know?

Mr. Funny Pants fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Sep 28, 2016

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry

Mr. Funny Pants posted:

Boom. Found my glasses and you guessed correctly. Looked it up and I've had it for five years, which seems insane.


Thanks, I appreciate the response!

Edit: Just out of curiosity, what kind of shelf life should I expect on the C7 or are things moving too fast in home networking to know?

WiFi tech is the current driving force, and 802.11ac adoption is really only starting to pickup this year. The next future standards are still being hashed out, but are so far focused on higher bandwidth and shorter range. I'd say you should expect at least 3 years out of a current router, assuming the maker keeps updating firmware for security patches etc.

SeaborneClink
Aug 27, 2010

MAWP... MAWP!
I would rather have to buy an extra AP to cover my apartment/flat, or two extra to cover my house and be able to stream 720 from the internet than buy one AP and suffer through the horror that is the 2.4 GHz spectrum in anything you could consider "population dense" in the US.

Lolcano Eruption
Oct 29, 2007
Volcano of LOL.
Yeah but if you live in a house in a suburban area, like a lot of US people do, then 2.4 GHz isn't a big deal. For example, I do not see any other 2.4GHz networks other than my own. Therefore, an upgrade is only necessary once I need speeds above what wireless N can provide.

Craptacular!
Jul 9, 2001

Fuck the DH
Help a newbie understand: I use free wifi in a place where these forums are outlawed, but have often used privacy focused VPNs to get around it. I set up OpenVPN on my home router, can login fine and see devices on my home network as if I was logged in locally, but it seems all my internet traffic isn't being rerouted through my home internet connection like a commercial privacy VPN because I still get the forbidden message when I try to come here. What am I not seeing here?

Sentient Data
Aug 31, 2011

My molecule scrambler ray will disintegrate your armor with one blow!
It could be a couple things. Can you ping/access your server when connected by openvpn? If you go to a site like whatismyip.com, does it show your openvpn's external ip or your own free wifi ip?

If no to the former, then your connection isn't working at all (which is unlikely since you'd see connection errors).

For the latter, if you're seeing your free wifi's ip, then you probably just forgot to push the gateway route in the server's config - https://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/documentation/howto.html#redirect

If you're seeing your openvpn's external ip but you're getting the restricted page issues, then it's probably a dns issue. Make sure you're pushing a dns ip along with your network settings; either your own openvpn's [gateway's] ip if you're doing local dns, or a "clean" dns server like whatever you use at home or the google dns servers

The Electronaut
May 10, 2009

The Electronaut posted:

So Ubiquiti has like no inventory on their 8 or 16 port poe switches in either the Unifi or EdgeMax lines.

I need at least 8 ports (4 ip cam, 1 ap, 2 drops, 1 backhaul to the bonus) right out of the gate in my house and at least 4 (with at least one port being POE, prefer to keep injectors out of the picture) in my detached bonus. What are my other options? Cisco SMB line, like the Cisco SF302-08PP?

Ended up getting a Cisco SG300-10PP for $220. Not as slick as some of the Catalyst big iron I've worked with on jobs, but not bad for home.

TheShazbot
Feb 20, 2011

Hi, a coworker asked me about an L-shaped house - where the router would be on one side of the L and he wants coverage in his garage (obviously on the other side). Will the Archer C7 be sufficient for this purpose or will he continue to need to use his range extender?

He's currently using the ISP garbage all-in-one package which historically has terrible range.

I know what I would do, but I need something low-tech and low-upkeep and my projects are typically not that.

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





Exterior walls are going to murder your coworker's signal. It should either be put on the "joint" part of the L, or they should have ethernet cables run (or use ethernet-over-power / or MOCA) and use two separate WAPs.

MrMoo
Sep 14, 2000

Plume when it's available or just AmpliFi would appear to be ideal choices for a small space unless the price of Eero is not unreasonable.

MagusDraco
Nov 11, 2011

even speedwagon was trolled

Internet Explorer posted:

Exterior walls are going to murder your coworker's signal. It should either be put on the "joint" part of the L, or they should have ethernet cables run (or use ethernet-over-power / or MOCA) and use two separate WAPs.

Yeah with my experience even buying one of those dumb 4/5 antenna Asus routers won't get you signal through the entirety of the house (my house is also L shaped). You'll need a way to extend it. It may be able to transmit through the entire house but your devices may not be able to transmit back to it reliably.

Inverness
Feb 4, 2009

Fully configurable personal assistant.
Great, starting to have a new problem.

A different desktop computer in the house with a different wireless card no longer even connects to my network. Not even rebooting fixes this one.

It detects the home network but when I try to connect it seems the wireless card restarts. A red X is shown over the network icon on the bottom, and the device list in the device manager refreshes twice. It then tells me connection failed even though it can still detect the network.

Well it was behaving like that until a few minutes ago when I decided to give it one last shot. On my seventh reconnect attempt it is suddenly working again properly and I have no idea why.

My phone's Wi-Fi connection continued to be unaffected.

At this point I believe it is some sort of interference issue or a problem with the modem. I currently have AT&T's U-Verse service and the router/modem they issued me. Either that or its a problem with a Windows 10 update. My computer and the other desktop are the only two systems running Windows 10.

Edit: Well the modem is clearly hosed. Using the computers or my phone I'm rarely able to make a connection and it often rejects it immediately even when the indicator shows a good signal strength. A factory reset didn't help either. My replacement modem arrives Friday. Until them I'm just going to tether to my phone.

Inverness fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Sep 29, 2016

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




I'm writing in this thread so I (hopefully) remember and so that anyone who reads it might find it handy:

LCD monitors can block wifi in a pretty meaningful way. If you have a desk with a big LCD, a macbook and a router, try to keep the macbook on the side closest the router, so the LCD isn't between the two.

Might be basic knowledge for some, but it hosed with my head for a bit. Other solution is to always use cables, but that's sadly less & less viable.

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry

well why not posted:

LCD monitors can block wifi in a pretty meaningful way. If you have a desk with a big LCD, a macbook and a router, try to keep the macbook on the side closest the router, so the LCD isn't between the two.

Yup. WiFi is not magic. The higher the frequency, the more "things" will block it. Just like putting an FM radio in a coffee can (faraday cage), metal is really good at blocking wireless signals, and a monitor is filled with metal. Also 5.8ghz wifi has less penetration than 2.4ghz, which has less penetration than 900mhz. This is also why cellphones operate on 800mhz and 1800mhz bands.

People block WiFi pretty well too; we're all basically walking/talking large bodies of water.

CrazyLittle fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Sep 30, 2016

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




Hours on this today, hours. The more you know, I guess. At least now I know why every other device was working OK.

Sky hub still sucks, however.

Oddhair
Mar 21, 2004

well why not posted:

I'm writing in this thread so I (hopefully) remember and so that anyone who reads it might find it handy:

LCD monitors can block wifi in a pretty meaningful way. If you have a desk with a big LCD, a macbook and a router, try to keep the macbook on the side closest the router, so the LCD isn't between the two.

Might be basic knowledge for some, but it hosed with my head for a bit. Other solution is to always use cables, but that's sadly less & less viable.

That reminds me, this is barely network related but don't discount the possibility of cross interference between 2.4 GHz devices. I had a Class 1 USB Bluetooth adapter in the front of my PS4 so I can use my Bluetooth headset instead of the spindly little thing that comes with the PS4. It worked okay for a few weeks, but then I started having trouble with the wireless controllers. One the Square button simply wouldn't register even though it is brand new. Both of them would repeat input, so I'd be running around in circles in Battlefield for 3-5 seconds. I moved the AP further from the PS4 as they were only ~2.5' apart (and the PS4 is wired in anyway) but no dice. Removed the USB adapter and all the controller problems magically went away.

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




Yeah, there's an audio interface, the monitor, some speakers and lights around. I've moved it so that there's a straight shot line to the router, about one metre, total. Shouldn't happen again.

CrazyLittle
Sep 11, 2001





Clapping Larry

Oddhair posted:

That reminds me, this is barely network related but don't discount the possibility of cross interference between 2.4 GHz devices. I had a Class 1 USB Bluetooth adapter in the front of my PS4 so I can use my Bluetooth headset instead of the spindly little thing that comes with the PS4. It worked okay for a few weeks, but then I started having trouble with the wireless controllers. One the Square button simply wouldn't register even though it is brand new. Both of them would repeat input, so I'd be running around in circles in Battlefield for 3-5 seconds. I moved the AP further from the PS4 as they were only ~2.5' apart (and the PS4 is wired in anyway) but no dice. Removed the USB adapter and all the controller problems magically went away.

Absolutely. Put your router behind a microwave oven, and then try surfing while making popcorn

Twerk from Home
Jan 17, 2009

This avatar brought to you by the 'save our dead gay forums' foundation.
I saw a pretty surprising to me wireless interaction when a passenger was uploading a decent sized file while another phone was playing a podcast via bluetooth. Even though the podcast was saved on the device, not streaming, whatever wireless activity the file upload was doing was able to disrupt the bluetooth playback.

Also it's pretty crazy that it's no big deal to be using a phone as a hotspot, connected to VPN, getting more than 20mbit up and down while hurtling down the freeway at 75mph.

Ynglaur
Oct 9, 2013

The Malta Conference, anyone?

Twerk from Home posted:

Also it's pretty crazy that it's no big deal to be using a phone as a hotspot, connected to VPN, getting more than 20mbit up and down while hurtling down the freeway at 75mph.

This stuff is basically magic.

blackjack
May 22, 2004

The World's Mightiest Puppet!
I'm being asked to tweak the home network I installed in my family's house a couple of years ago. It's basically a new Arris SB6183 and a RT-N16 running Easy Tomato. They're experiencing a lot of issues lately with streaming on sites like Soundcloud and Spotify requiring some buffering, reloads on certain pages being necessary and such. The system used to be stable, if not the fastest, covering 2 floors and a basement.

When the Time Warner guy came over, he recommended a Blackhawk router ($200+) if they were going to try to get a decent signal to all parts of the house. I'm really not sure what's appropriate and what's overkill. Any suggestions? I'm happy flashing stuff with DD-WRT over stock firmware if that's going to improve stability and QOS.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R2AZLD2/?tag=igndeals14-20

Would this monstrosity be an improvement?

Rukus
Mar 13, 2007

Hmph.

blackjack posted:

I'm being asked to tweak the home network I installed in my family's house a couple of years ago. It's basically a new Arris SB6183 and a RT-N16 running Easy Tomato. They're experiencing a lot of issues lately with streaming on sites like Soundcloud and Spotify requiring some buffering, reloads on certain pages being necessary and such. The system used to be stable, if not the fastest, covering 2 floors and a basement.

When the Time Warner guy came over, he recommended a Blackhawk router ($200+) if they were going to try to get a decent signal to all parts of the house. I'm really not sure what's appropriate and what's overkill. Any suggestions? I'm happy flashing stuff with DD-WRT over stock firmware if that's going to improve stability and QOS.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R2AZLD2/?tag=igndeals14-20

Would this monstrosity be an improvement?

Is it just wireless giving them issues, or wired, too? It could be a few things at play: the 2.4GHz channel becoming congested over time and the location of their equipment, or the RT-N16 just reaching the end of its days.

Give the OP a read over, but I think the first thing to focus on is getting an AC-capable router (Archer C5/7/9) or AP and getting some devices off the 2.4GHz band. Though keep in mind that 5GHz will have lower penetration, so if their equipment is off in a corner it may not reach the other side of their home like 2.4GHz can.

A quick fix would be turning off the wifi on the RT-N16 and using a Unifi AP AC-Lite to provide wireless. It'll give you AC wireless and you can move the AP to a more central location if need be. If you feel that the whole RT-N16 is suspect, you could get an Archer-series router to replace it, but they can be more difficult to move around, especially if you intend on plugging a lot of devices into its switch ports.

My go-to, set-it-and-forget-it recommendation for family members with larger homes has been a small UPS, ER-X, AP-AC-Lite, and a dumb switch if need be. It may look a little pricey, but some of the spaceship Asus routers are pushing $300-$400 anyway.

Fil5000
Jun 23, 2003

HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS

well why not posted:

Hours on this today, hours. The more you know, I guess. At least now I know why every other device was working OK.

Sky hub still sucks, however.

Have they at least upgraded them to gigabit LAN ports? I had one a couple of years back and they were still only 10/100.

bobfather
Sep 20, 2001

I will analyze your nervous system for beer money
Any good reason not to repurpose some old hardware into a pfsense device that acts as my primary router and firewall?

Sentient Data
Aug 31, 2011

My molecule scrambler ray will disintegrate your armor with one blow!
At $.12/kWh, each watt of 24/7 power usage costs about $1/year to run. If you're using an old desktop at around 200W-ish when running, is it worth the $200/year to you?

Thermopyle
Jul 1, 2003

...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. —Bertrand Russell

Sentient Data posted:

At $.12/kWh, each watt of 24/7 power usage costs about $1/year to run. If you're using an old desktop at around 200W-ish when running, is it worth the $200/year to you?

Try more like 50/year.

My server with 20 hard drives and desktop class hardware from 5 years ago uses about $6/month to run at $.12/kWh according to my kill-a-watt.

bobfather
Sep 20, 2001

I will analyze your nervous system for beer money

Sentient Data posted:

At $.12/kWh, each watt of 24/7 power usage costs about $1/year to run. If you're using an old desktop at around 200W-ish when running, is it worth the $200/year to you?

It was an always-on Core2Duo-era server with dual NICs that are supported by pfsense.

So the answer is, yes, it was fine to pay for it to be always on before. Considering the electricity a sunk cost already budgeted for.

Dogen
May 5, 2002

Bury my body down by the highwayside, so that my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride
Only reason not to would be that it's fiddly, which I think anyone knows getting into that kind of setup.

bobfather
Sep 20, 2001

I will analyze your nervous system for beer money

Dogen posted:

Only reason not to would be that it's fiddly, which I think anyone knows getting into that kind of setup.

Fiddly maybe on initial configuration, but only slightly more so than dd-wrt running on a linksys wrtsl54gs, which is what's the current router.

Pretend that I know an Edgerouter would be superior in terms of power consumption and almost as configurable, but that I don't care to spend the money and don't mind fiddly solutions, or paying a little extra for electricity. I guess what I'm saying is, everyone can agree that pfsense running on decent hardware makes for an excellent routing and firewall device, right?

Internet Explorer
Jun 1, 2005





I don't think anyone would disagree with that. It's just that if someone comes into this thread asking for networking advice, pfsense is probably not a great solution for them. One of those "if you have to ask, it's not for you" type of things.

well why not
Feb 10, 2009




Fil5000 posted:

Have they at least upgraded them to gigabit LAN ports? I had one a couple of years back and they were still only 10/100.

They haven't, no. There's only one device in the house with an ethernet port, anyways.

Dogen
May 5, 2002

Bury my body down by the highwayside, so that my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride

bobfather posted:

Fiddly maybe on initial configuration, but only slightly more so than dd-wrt running on a linksys wrtsl54gs, which is what's the current router.

Pretend that I know an Edgerouter would be superior in terms of power consumption and almost as configurable, but that I don't care to spend the money and don't mind fiddly solutions, or paying a little extra for electricity. I guess what I'm saying is, everyone can agree that pfsense running on decent hardware makes for an excellent routing and firewall device, right?

Right, I mean if you want to tinker and have basically the greatest level of control over it that you can a router, it's the best solution.

Robzilla
Jul 28, 2003

READ IT AND WEEP JEWBOY!
Fun Shoe
So I just replaced my old warhorse WRT54GL (with DD-WRT) with a TP-Link Archer C1900 router. Was quick and easy to set up but now for the past day or so that I've had it, I noticed the wifi dropping in and out even with 3-4 bars or really drat good signal strength while using my bluray player, roku, and/or smartphone. I've looked up the issue and I've tries a lot of things.

Using default firmware
Using the included CAT5 that came with the router to connect it to the modem.
Changed DNS to google's public DNS
My PC it's wired to it and it's working 100%

Anyone have any solutions I could give a whirl?

Also, should I think about putting DD-WRT on it?

Rukus
Mar 13, 2007

Hmph.

Robzilla posted:

So I just replaced my old warhorse WRT54GL (with DD-WRT) with a TP-Link Archer C1900 router. Was quick and easy to set up but now for the past day or so that I've had it, I noticed the wifi dropping in and out even with 3-4 bars or really drat good signal strength while using my bluray player, roku, and/or smartphone. I've looked up the issue and I've tries a lot of things.

Using default firmware
Using the included CAT5 that came with the router to connect it to the modem.
Changed DNS to google's public DNS
My PC it's wired to it and it's working 100%

Anyone have any solutions I could give a whirl?

Also, should I think about putting DD-WRT on it?

2.4GHz or 5GHz? If it's the former, it may be operating on a different channel (1, 6, 11) than the WRT54GL was, which may be more congested. When set to Auto, most routers are supposed to do a site-survey before choosing a channel, but some don't. You can find it under Advanced > Wireless 2.4GHz. You could also try raising the transmit power, but generally the default shouldn't cause any issues.

I can't find the dd-wrt page for the C1900, so it may not actually support it. Keep in mind that some routers actually perform worse when flashed with third-party firmware due to the coding for hardware acceleration being only available in the official firmwares.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Eletriarnation
Apr 6, 2005

People don't appreciate the substance of things...
objects in space.


Oven Wrangler

bobfather posted:

Fiddly maybe on initial configuration, but only slightly more so than dd-wrt running on a linksys wrtsl54gs, which is what's the current router.

Pretend that I know an Edgerouter would be superior in terms of power consumption and almost as configurable, but that I don't care to spend the money and don't mind fiddly solutions, or paying a little extra for electricity. I guess what I'm saying is, everyone can agree that pfsense running on decent hardware makes for an excellent routing and firewall device, right?

I've had great results for several months now using Ubuntu with iptables to do this, with the additional benefit that it can do fileserver, torrents, and any other light work that you might want a home server for. I used a $70 ASRock Celeron N3150 board with a 2x1G PCIe card to add a couple ports. I started out with an underclocked Nehalem Xeon but that was ridiculous overkill, never going over a few percent CPU utilization. Even with an 80+ Platinum supply, I couldn't get it below 70W or so. The Celeron board is passively cooled so there's just one big 200mm fan spinning at minimum RPM and the whole rig with two HDDs and an SSD uses around 20W max.

Eletriarnation fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Oct 2, 2016

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply