The Home Networking Megathread - Yes the OP is out of date

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Home Networking Megathread - Yes the OP is out of date

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DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

WastedJoker posted:

forgot to mention it needs to be a combined router/modem which rules out the TP-Link one.

Combined router/modem are always horrible and you wont find any recommendations on that in this thread. Especially since modem can be ISP specific most of the time with their settings locked/loaded.

Get a modem-only device then attach a good router to it.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2011 16:32

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 13:49

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

WastedJoker posted:

Fucks sake

that Buffalo router had good specs but it didn't let me spoof the mac address of the router which meant it was totally useless for my o2 broadband

Ended up getting a NetGear DGND3700 which was so easy to setup.

You sure you couldn't flash that buffalo with DD-WRT which will allow you to change ANYTHING you want?
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Buffalo_WZR-HP-G300NH

# ¿ Nov 29, 2011 07:01

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

I really need to get a 5GHz router for my girlfriend's apartment.

Get a DD-WRT/tomato router and use channel 13, which is usable by all of apple's devices :getin:

# ¿ Jan 23, 2012 02:21

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

MMD3 posted:

So I still can't figure this out

I pulled the mac address off of the box and manually set the IP for the router's mac address to 192.168.1.3, but I still can't connect to the router by going to 192.168.1.3

am I missing something? Why can't I connect to the Wireless N router?

A few things:

Make sure all of the devices are connected via their LAN ports and only the modem is connected to one device's WAN.
Make sure your modem isn't in router mode and giving the router's WAN port an internal ip address.
Make sure Wireless Isolation is disabled in your wireless settings for each wireless network you have enabled.
Leave 192.168.1.1 unused, start your devices at 192.168.1.2 eg. set your primary router/gateway to 192.168.1.2.
If you can't connect to certain devices while it's on the network, then manually set your computer's IP address (to anything that's on the same subnet, something like 192.168.1.45) and use a single ethernet cable to directly connect the device to your computer. Make sure your computer is the only thing that's connecting to this device and vice versa. If you still can't see this device, use the reset button and try again. Remember to change the computer's IP address back afterwards.
Set the DHCP address starting point at something higher, like 192.168.1.100
Since you have your DHCP-given addresses starting at something higher, manually set the ip address on your router/wireless access points to something between 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.99.
Only have 1 DHCP server on the network

I'd recommend you to go through every devices and set them up one by one.

DaNzA fucked around with this message at 10:17 on Jun 28, 2012

# ¿ Jun 28, 2012 10:15

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

ultrabay2000 posted:

My tomato based router seems to drop my IRC connection every three hours on the dot. It's probably dropping other connections too, but it's harder to monitor those.

Is there some setting causes this? I think my DD-WRT router was doing the same thing, but not other routers.

Check the tcp/udp timeout settings and tweak them to something longer.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2012 17:58

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

Or accept that your Xbox and phone will never get over 15-20mbps, which is more than enough for those kinds of devices. The only one you should really be worried about maxing your connection with is probably your computer.

Yeah, IIRC the flash/cpu on those smaller devices can't even handle past a certain speed for times when you load stuff onto it through usb, let alone through wifi. I think the highest throughput you can get using wireless connection on a tablet/phone right now is around 40~50Mbps.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2012 00:25

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Feenix posted:

I've officially got a bonkers problem...
I just moved into our new apartment and its a BRAND new building (finished in July.) It's a nice building, too. Not crappy.

Well I plug my iMac in and go wireless. All is well. When I use my TRENDnet 500Mbps Powerline Ethernet... about 5 minutes into usage my circuit breaker trips. Flip it, power on... Same thing.

Go back to wireless... no more tripping. Any thoughts? Anyone ever even HEARD of this or had it happen?

It worked ok in a 30 min test in my last building.

This is quite interesting, some people complains the breaker will attenuate the signal:

quote:

Most homes built after 2004 have Arc Fault Interrupters installed on all circuits serving bedrooms. Is the breaker that trips is an Arc Fault Interrupter or a Ground Fault Interrupter you might have to replace it. Please specify the company that manufactured the breaker. Some Arc Fault and Ground Fault Interrupters attenuate the HomePlug Signal. Square D, Eaton and Cutler Hammer breakers will pass the homeplug signal. Eaton makes a Classified Breaker that can be used in service panels other than Eaton Service Panels. I had to replace my Siemens Arc Fault Interrupters because of signal attenuation issues, with Eaton Arc Fault Interrupters in order to use HomePlug Adapters in my master bedroom. Unless you have had a lot of experience doing electrical work, have a qualified electrician replace any breakers that attenuate the homeplug signal.

while others complain about AFCI breakers tripping when there is a large amount of data going through it

quote:

I would gander that the high frequency two-way data communication is likely screwing with the electronics in the AFCI itself. I'm guessing they were probably only designed to be used with 60Hz, so here is possibly another application from advances in new technology that AFCI�s were never intended to handle.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2012 00:13

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Four ports each room seems a bit excessive. Just do 2 cat6 port each room (maybe a coax port too) and add a switch to one of the port later if you need more ports in the room.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2012 23:25

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

devmd01 posted:

Dropping in a switch off of a wallplate to handle a room is a piss-poor excuse for not doing proper planning of a wiring job to handle current and potential future needs. Do it right, or don't do it at all imo.

A single cat6 can have a 1000Mbps throughput in one direction, two of them gives you 2000Mbps, which seem to be fairly future proof enough for most people unless you are really moving some serious data around.

If you do need 4ports/4000Mbps into one room then it's probably not home networking anymore :v:

# ¿ Dec 5, 2012 21:51

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

lazydog posted:

It's not about throughput, though actually cat6 can be used for 10 gigabit ethernet.

It's about having a nice, clean installation. A 5 port switch adds a rat's nest of cables behind your tv.

The cost of the extra cable and jacks will be about the same as the cost of an extra switch later, so why not make it look good?

Yeah I was gonna say that but 10GbE is only 30m on cat6, and in-wall wiring are usually quite long :v:

not to mention the fact that something like a 5 port 10GbE switch in a small size will be a while off.

I guess either way would work fine and it's just a personal preference.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2012 01:41

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

webmeister posted:

I've just moved into a new house, and I'm having a few issues visualising exactly what the optimal network setup will look like. My house is a long narrow terrace-style house with a series of rooms running off one corridor. My ADSL is connected via the only phone line in the house, in the main bedroom right at one end of the house. I've set up my computer in the study about halfway along the house, and my TV/media centre is in the loungeroom at the other end of the house.

At the moment my network is up and running, but I get only average reception in the study, and really lovely reception in the loungeroom. When renovating, the previous owner has hard wired LAN cables between the bedroom and the loungeroom.

From a bit of basic research, it looks like I need a wireless bridge? That way I can plug it directly into the router via the hard-wired LAN cables, and it'll solve the wireless connectivity issues, right? If yes, are there any recommended brands/models?

Have two airport express on each end mounted fairly high on the wall behind a curtain or something and set them up with the exact same wifi settings/password while having them both connected to the LAN with ethernet cable.
Now you should be able to roam between them automatically and seamlessly without dropping connection at all.
Also adjust one of them closer to your study accordingly so you still get a decent connection there instead of being constantly switched between the front/back AP.

IIRC wireless bridge will connect back to the original AP with wireless and essentially halfing the bandwidth. It can be a bit dodgy and there's really no need for that since you have ethernet cable setup already.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2012 21:25

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

UndyingShadow posted:

Not the exact same settings, you need to put them on non-overlapping channels.

Good catch, either leave the channel on auto or just manual select separate channels :v:

# ¿ Dec 18, 2012 09:25

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

IOwnCalculus posted:

Yeah, I'm ashamed to say I've never specifically tested them, at least not in any way that could be conclusively linked to wireless performance and not bottlenecked by something else. Point taken!

At any rate, the WRT320N has been resurrected after all - turns out the 12V brick it's been plugged into will only hold up 12V to the very lightest of loads. After plugging it into the WRT320N, the load voltage plummets to around 3V. Found another compatible 12V brick and it's back in business.

What made you pull out the multimeter to check for that kind of stuff? Otherwise great to hear though!

# ¿ Dec 20, 2012 18:50

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

SlayVus posted:

I'm looking for bulk Cat6 for running the network for my family's business. Where an I find good prices on it?

I can find 1000' of Cat6 STP for $155 from Monoprice, not including S&H. Is this as good as it get?

STP might be kinda terrible since it will also require proper grounding with specialized jacks. Just go with the regular UTP cat6.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2013 04:21

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Devian666 posted:

It don't really get this. Why would you want to ban towns from building their own network infrastructure. It's like someone hates competition and the free market (has been bribed by a large ISP).

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/georgia-bill-no-muni-broadband-in-areas-with-at-least-1-5mbps-service/

Whereas in NZ the Government is funding 150 mbit/s uncontested fibre to the entire country.

You'd want to ban it too if they are bribing/lobbying you with lots of money and you don't give a poo poo about what people actually think of you since you got into the position of power with helps from the same people who are asking you to do these thing.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2013 07:57

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

If you get something with QoS you can prevent the upload choke and at least let the traffic flow a bit better.

I noticed that QoS helps a lot especially on connection with low speed. Just cap the upstream to 90% of total bandwidth in the QoS setting and at least traffic will still flow through. Without QoS the internet would just freeze every time someone tries to load something and basically become unusable till they stop what they were doing.

It's the difference between ping timing out completely and a spike to around 100~200ms

# ¿ Feb 26, 2013 23:21

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Can you trace the drop all the way from the pole and see where it leads to inside the house?

Devian666 posted:

Pretty much any switch is fine these days. They do the same job until you start adding commercial requirements.

I'd probably avoid the cheap d-link or cisco/linksys one. And once you do that you'll end up in the 50~60 buck range for an 8 port, so you may as well just get the HP Procurve which is much better than the consumer grade stuff

http://www.amazon.com/HP-J9559A-ABA-Procurve-1410-8G/dp/B003N1ZTC2/

# ¿ Feb 27, 2013 09:32

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Is the pi using a static IP? IIRC the client bridge mode on dd-wrt is a bit funky and doesn't pass dhcp through it too well.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2013 19:53

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Dont get the e3200, dir 655 is really really old, the rt-n16 will work pretty nicely if you put tomato on it for qos and dont care for 5ghz wifi.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2013 19:40

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Seems like the RT-N66U (2.4+5Ghz) supports tomato too, and tomato firmware for RT-AC66U is in the works (802.11ac)

# ¿ Mar 14, 2013 02:12

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Secx posted:

I'd like to know how much traffic each physical port is using (in real-time).

Are there consumer grade switches/routers that can do this?

Optionally: same thing, but for wifi. I'd like to know how much bandwidth each connected device is using.

One version of the tomato firmware (on RT-N16 the last time I saw) has a way to show exactly which ip is doing at what speed.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2013 06:49

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Three-Phase posted:

I'm dumping AT&T's DSL here in awhile and moving to cable. I have two choices:

1. Get a gateway (modem+router)
2. Get a modem (probably a Motorola surfboard) and then add an external router

I used to be deadset on option 1, but I'm leaning much more towards option 2. What do you guys think?

Also, are WPS pin (aka "Reaver") attacks still a thing, or have all the router manufacturers fixed that vulnerability by now? Very few people seem to know about it. I'd love to get a wireless router that simply doesn't have WPS, period.

Always 2.

Even the Motorola modem+router combo device is a pos while their modem-only SB6141 is quite excellent. Also remember to get a router that can handle the speed of cable. Some old routers are actually not fast enough to route packets from wan to LAN for high speed cable.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2013 06:48

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Three-Phase posted:

Sorry about this, I'm just giddily happy that this worked so far. Did go through the security stuff, WPS pin OFF, guest network OFF, changed default password (WPA2-PSK) and SSID for my network, turned on wireless isolation mode because I'm paranoid as hell, changed default router administrative password, did a scan with Shields Up (I am completely cloaked), and turned of UPnP. Am I missing anything here?

One other question - if there are no apparent security vulnerabilities for my router (I checked), how critical is it that I update my router firmware? I'm in this sort of "it's not broken, don't fix it" mode, and I'm not sure if that's bad.

One other other question - I have a Motorola SB6180 (modem) and a Netgear router that does have some IPV6 settings page in it, but I have no idea how to configure it. Bottom line - will the SB6180 work with IPV6? I don't want to have to buy a new modem.

Yeah the security settings looks good. And usually the firmware upgrade can improve performance too besides fixing bugs.
You can just disable ipv6 completely on the netgear page and ignore it for now. That modem should work fine with ipv6 though.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2013 03:23

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

FISHMANPET posted:

What's the current hot poo poo DOCCIS 3.0 Surfboard modem? I think I'm tired of paying Comcast $7 for rental on a lovely Thomson modem, and they said I'd need 3.0 to take advantage of the latest speed boost, so sounds like as good a time as any to dive in head first.

Get the SB6141. 8 downstream channels which should give you at least decent speed out of the theoretical maximum of ~300Mbps.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2013 08:43

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Goon Matchmaker posted:

Is there any point in getting an SB6141 if the maximum speed my plan tops out on is 27Mbps/7Mbps? I have a SB6121 currently and I'm on comcast business class.

Rock stable speed at any time of the day where your speed is always a flat line at the capped maximum bitrate.

Also more neighbour friendly where it spreads the bandwidth usage across 8 channels instead of 4 :v:

# ¿ Apr 8, 2013 23:57

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Turnquiet posted:

Am I right in this thinking? If so, what is a good DOCSIS 3 modem?

Get the 6141. IIRC the 6180 mentioned earlier has 8 downstream and 4 upstream channels but is from ISP only, the 6141 has the same channel setup but you can also buy it from retail stores like amazon.

lonter posted:

Just bought an Asus N66U - anyone successfully got DD-WRT working on this?

Try the shibby tomato built if there's no DD-WRT on it yet.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2013 02:48

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Pretty sure comcast doesn't really enforce the 250GB cap unless you use like 1TB or something as a lot of people have gone over 250GB easily without warning.

The up-to 25Mbps does means 25Mbps with powerboost/burst speed that goes to around 40~50Mbps. Also most places with blast (old 'up to 25Mbps' tier) has actual speed of 50Mbps+ now that goes to almost 60Mbps with powerboost and then drops down to 52Mbps or so flat.

As long as you are using a decent modem like SB6141 and you have a decent line, which the installer should make sure of that before leaving. You should be able to hit those speed 24/7 without problems.

Also
https://secure.dslreports.com/faq/15643

DaNzA fucked around with this message at 09:08 on May 29, 2013

# ¿ May 29, 2013 09:05

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

IIRC att was dicking around with their peering connections and letting them get congested as poo poo. Someone posted earlier that their youtube loading will speed up if they ban certain IP range from their firewall list and force their att connection to go for a different server.
Pretty much everyone I know on ATT's ol adsl or uverse they all had extremely slow youtube loading time, and the fuckery is evident to the point where they can load the video faster or at full speed if they use VPN to connect back to their office/non-att connection and then load from there.

But hey from ATT's point of view 'more congested and slow loading of youtube videos' = less bandwidth cost to them so what incentive do they have to improve?

On the other hand comcast doesn't seem to have much problem with loading stuff like 4k video (click 'original quality') at full speed.

# ¿ May 29, 2013 10:43

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Jan posted:

Kind of a longpost, to lead to just three questions... I'm trying to get 802.11n working at full speed on my WNDR3700v4 running DD-WRT

Have you tried stock firmware? the stock firmware seem to be plenty stable while not having the fuckery that you have to do with wifi. IIRC the wireless have always seem to be kinda dodgy on wndr3700 when you use ddwrt with it.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2013 20:15

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Also what kind of wall does your new place have? if they are made of bricks then it's going to eat wifi signal like no other.
Couple that with a crowded environment where you will get random pauses/lags just from having multiple networks in the same spectrum, you are going to have what you've been describing.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2013 05:44

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

UndyingShadow posted:

.ac is just too new to have any reliable goon data, since a) it's not supported by the custom firmware that is a favorite around here, and b) most people don't have devices that really support it

Oh it is supported :q:

You can run Shibby's Tomato that came out about a month ago on the RT-AC66U.
They had some problem with the AC/80Mhz support but supposedly Asus/Merlin had a new WL driver that solved the speed and stability issue on the wireless side and it was added into shibby's latest build.
The router itself is pretty rock stable too with people getting more than 2 months worth of uptime, and supposedly it can do around 800Mbps of WAN routing throughput.

What I'm saying is that get the Asus RT-AC66U if you want something with high throughput and good 5Ghz/AC to boot.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2013 10:58

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

RT-N16 is still cheap and yet powerful enough to route up to around 100Mbps with tomato.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2013 00:21

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Have you tried shibby's tomtato with it?
The latest version of 114 just came out not too long ago with the latest driver from Asus etc. and it's been running rock solid on a lot of them.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2013 06:49

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Ninja Rope posted:

Is there a good place for information about Tomato? The official Tomato site looks like it hasn't been updated since 2010 and the official Tomato USB site is in Polish. Also can you explain the 32k vs 64k thing? I looked that up and all I could find are forum posts that don't really explain what the deal is.

Yeah the tomatousb stuff is kinda dead now and shibby is the one I've seen that's been actively updated.
Linksysinfo is the forum where they talk a lot about tomato stuff with the newer routers.

Also seems like the newer builds such as the one I linked has embedded checks so you can just flash away and it should work fine. It used to be a some sort of boot loader that was shipped in difference sizes and might result in a brick with the older firmware.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2013 11:23

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

b0nes posted:

So my neighbor across the street and I have decided to share her internet connection. She has one of those mini Airport routers that really doesn't work reliably because the plug holding it isn't that good. What options do I look at? I can see her connection if I place my laptop right at the kitchen table. What is better to have: A bigger antenna on my end as the receiver or o her end as the transmitter?

Pair of this and then plug it into another wireless ap on your end?
http://www.wlanparts.com/product/AIRWIRE/

# ¿ Mar 11, 2014 08:20

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Also iphone will work fine with lease time as short as 30 minutes for anything newer than iOS 5.1 or so.

https://www.net.princeton.edu/apple-ios/ios41-allows-lease-to-expire-keeps-using-IP-address.html

While supposedly pre 4.x devices will hold onto the IP forever and cause conflict while 4.0.3~4.1.x android devices will request too many IPs too often.

http://www.net.princeton.edu/android/android-rapidly-repeats-dhcp-transactions-many-times-33590.html#issue

They haven't tested 4.2 or later either.

So just a few android devices on the network might be causing the ip conflict or requesting too many ips while having a standard 24 hour lease time.

# ¿ May 6, 2014 09:05

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

AC also improves the 5Ghz range by quite a lot even if you are just using N due to the beam forming in the spec.

# ¿ May 20, 2014 09:58

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

SB6141. Next caller.

SB6183 with 16 downstream channels is coming out. Probably more future proof if he can get one.

http://www.amazon.com/ARRIS-Motorola-SurfBoard-SB6183-DOCSIS/dp/B00MA5U1FW/

# ¿ Aug 10, 2014 09:22

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

It's most likely a bunch of other wifi networks near you that's interfering with your speed.
Unless you are living in the middle of nowhere with no house around you for miles or something, wifi will most likely to be terrible and should be used for light couch surfing or something.

If you are on OSX, try something like NetSpot and see how many networks are around you.

Also have you tried 5Ghz on the airport express? set it to create another 5ghz wifi network with a different ssid and try connecting to that.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 21:21

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 13:49

DaNzA: Sep 11, 2001; :D; Grimey Drawer

The newer wave two 802.11ac routers and some wave one 802.11ac router like the asus rt-ac66u has a thing called beam forming where it changes the beam pattern till you have the strongest signal.

This makes a huge difference in the 5Ghz range even for non 802.11ac device and doesn't have to blast the airwave with high transmit power.

So yeah get something with beamforming especially if you want to use 5Ghz.

DaNzA fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Sep 23, 2014

# ¿ Sep 23, 2014 06:34

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Home Networking Megathread - Yes the OP is out of date

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