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jeeves posted:How exactly would these work in a non-residential area, like my aforementioned hellish restaurant? Would all of the power breakers and such stop these from working? Also, would the building's already existing and lovely power (which goes out like every two or three days) constantly cause these to crash? If the wiring is crappy, powerline networking isn't going to work well. Your best bets are either to see if theres coax you can use with a moca adapter, or run a network cable at least to the outside of the office.
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Jan 20, 2012 08:02
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Where does the network of powerline adapters end? At the pole? At the nearest transformer? Can you share a coax cable between MOCA and digital TV/cable internet, or does it need to be a dedicated MOCA-only segment?
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Jan 20, 2012 08:12
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The wiring in this house is like 40 years old and weirdly set up (a switch in the back of the house turns on the front entrance light for example) so this is not exactly the most perfect infrastructure. Outages would obviously gently caress it up but then again they would also gently caress up any router not connected to a UPS. Not really sure how these behave on outages tbh but I would imagine they reconnect once the power is back, will have to check for that. This is my first experience with this method so maybe someone else has better answers.
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Jan 20, 2012 08:17
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Ninja Rope posted:Where does the network of powerline adapters end? At the pole? At the nearest transformer? It can be shared, its how verizon wires their fios installations. As long as they all meet at the same splitter it works.
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Jan 20, 2012 08:25
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Router upstairs, computer downstairs, under a desk. Should I get a PCI wireless adapter or a USB one with a separate antenna that I can run into a better position if necessary?
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Jan 20, 2012 15:30
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The latter. (Some) PCI wireless adapters have the antenna coming right out the back, and having an antenna right next to a big hunk of metal isn't great for signal propagation. vvv AOL Dialup still exists! vvv devmd01 fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Jan 20, 2012 |
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Jan 20, 2012 15:53
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My parents have a summer cottage out in the boondocks and they'd like to get at least rudimentary internet access on their laptop for checking email, weather, etc. They have a phone line and cell coverage but no cable, and since they're only there a couple of weeks out of the year they'd like to avoid having to sign a year-long DSL contract that would go mostly unused. I checked around for free dialup providers like Juno but can't find anything in their area. What other options exist? Is is possible to set up a tether to their cell phones that would be easy enough for their tech-illiterate selves to use? (They have some kind of RAZR variant semi-dumb phones) PDP-1 fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Jan 20, 2012 |
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Jan 20, 2012 16:04
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If anyone is running the latest OpenWRT build (10.03.1) can you please install snmpd and see how fast the counters are updating? On my RouterStation Pro it's for some stupid reason only updating the counters every 15 seconds, so my real-time SNMP monitoring displays no longer give me an accurate set of bandwidth numbers but instead a series of spikes every 15 seconds that far exceed the capacity of my line. The OpenWRT forum has so far been completely useless on this.
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Jan 20, 2012 16:42
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I am hoping that this is the right place to put this. If not then  Basically, I live on a farm with most of my family. There are about 18 people who live here in total in a wonderful hippy commune type scenario without the drum circles or hemp. Despite not being the only person who can use a computer at a reasonable level, it has been tasked to me to install and maintain the communication networks of this property. It is a simple home network, but dispersed to the various buildings and dwellings on the farm. The furtherest the network reaches is approximately 230 meters from the ADSL modem. For three years this setup has worked well. I have deployed a few switches which seem to have boosted the 100m ethernet limit and the Wifi fills in the holes. The ping has been adequate and speeds have been around a tolerable 2-4 mbps throughout the network. To help, I have drawn a very crude and not-to-scale diagram of our situation:  There are also LOADS of devices on this little network: Top house:
House 1 (Left):
House 2 & 3(Right):
House 4 (Bottom right):
Communal building (Bottom left):
I have also somehow fluked a wiring job where I spliced the telephone line with the Ethernet line and sent that through the switch at the top house so that we could have a phone down at the middle houses. Clearly, I do not know much about network design or networking in general. This setup has been working quite well until recently. There amount of devices on the network must have an effect on the network performance but I dont know for sure. There are also concerns about data management. There are new laws in this country where you get warnings and then a disconnection if you are believed to be downloading copyrighted material. With such a large home network that is dispersed into several different buildings, it is difficult for me to manage this. Also this country is so horrid that most ISP's employ a data cap on their plans. The monthly cost of this setup is huge as I can not find a way to manage who is using the data and I don't know of a way, other than to tell people to stop downloading (i've done this, many times) to limit this. My questions are:
Thanks for reading.... 
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Jan 21, 2012 01:44
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Ninja Rope posted:Where does the network of powerline adapters end? At the pole? At the nearest transformer? MOCA you will get 100mbps MAX between 2 different adapters. the "270 mbps" you see on moca adapters is the max throughput of the entire system (if you had 2-3 systems attached). New wireless adapter question: Linksys AE2500 refurb, and e4200 refurb (v1 I believe)/ or e3200 refurb: good bet? OP doesn't have anything over the E3000 listed, unsure if that's because it's just out of date or they're not reliably good.
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Jan 21, 2012 02:54
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Trying to help my parents out with their wireless situation. Currently they have an old Linksys wireless G router upstairs and in the corner of the house. I am going to move that and the modem to a more centrally located spot on the second floor. My goal is to set them up with 2 wireless N routers with DD-WRT or Tomato, and have them use WDS. The routers will be right above/below each other, one on the first floor and one on the second. Would like to save running ethernet as a last resort. Any potential problems? Was thinking about using this - http://www.amazon.com/Buffalo-Technology-AirStation-Wireless-WHR-HP-G300N/dp/B002WBV2T8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327164282&sr=8-1, unless someone has a better suggestion?
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Jan 21, 2012 17:49
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I'd like to ask about what you guys know about modems cause I wanna see if I can squeeze the most out of my connection possible. I currently have the Thomson/RCA DCM425 Modem and I use TekSavvy's (my current ISP) 12mpbs/512kbps cable package, and I rarely see anything download faster than 1.8mbps at best and certain online games I play have some lag issues that I couldn't solve by plugging my PC directly to my modem. So I began wondering if its my modem or my ISP. This is my ISP's list of approved modems: quote:List of Approved Modems - (modems are subject to change without notice) Looking online turns up bad reviews about the DCM 425, and when I called up my ISP to ask them about how much of an improvement I could get if I switched to a DOCSIS 3.0 modem, they said I might see an improvement and that a DOCSIS 3.0 modem is future-proof. I heard good things about the Motorola SB6120, so would it be worth it to buy it?
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Jan 21, 2012 20:00
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mikecj posted:I am hoping that this is the right place to put this. If not then I'll make a few assumptions with the first being that due to your remote-ish location you get low ADSL speeds. I'm assuming you can't get ADSL 2+ speeds. You are using an ADSL/combo router which would normally be a problem but if your connection is as slow as you've described it's probably not the bottleneck. Note that the PSPs can slow the wireless network down considerably as they are 11 mbit/s devices. Though if they use them as little as I do that won't be a major issue. They should stop moaning at you as you're getting a 2-4 mbit/s connection and 18 people are using it. This gets bandwidth per person down to 100-200 kbit/s per person. It is their fault that the connection is slow. In terms of the existing internal layout there's not much to improve on due to the slow external connection. Externally there's a bit you can do. Go to the op and check out pfsense.org. You would need to build a pc with at least two network connections, run pfsense and this will give you a decent firewall/router and access to data management/ping response times. So it can provide considerably routing performance which may or may not help but it will help you check where some of the problems may be when people complain. It will give you throughput on a per interface basis so you may be able to track which computer(s) are hogging all the data. At worst you could add a computer running wireshark to do serious analysis on what's going through the modem. The other benefit of pfsense is that if they are willing to pay for an additional connection you could run load balancing on two internet connections. The current situation with 18 people is like it or lump it unless a faster connection is available.
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Jan 21, 2012 20:59
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JDRockefeller posted:I'd like to ask about what you guys know about modems cause I wanna see if I can squeeze the most out of my connection possible. You should switch off any additional modem functions such as wireless, firewall and other features that you may not be using on the modem. It's probably at capacity if it's in firewall mode. Try this and see if you get an improvement. If you do you could consider going to a new modem or buying a router to provide firewall and wireless (if needed).
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Jan 21, 2012 21:04
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Devian666 posted:You should switch off any additional modem functions such as wireless, firewall and other features that you may not be using on the modem. It's probably at capacity if it's in firewall mode. Try this and see if you get an improvement. If you do you could consider going to a new modem or buying a router to provide firewall and wireless (if needed). My modem isn't wireless. And I don't believe it has any firewall mode. I was able to access the diagnostics page of my modem though I'll admit I don't know how to interpret these numbers to know if they're good. I saw no option for disabling firewall mode if it indeed as one:  Also, looking around online, it seems that the particular Modem I have (RCA DCM425) seems to actually be only DOCSIS 1.0 Certified. If thats the case, should defintely upgrade?
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Jan 21, 2012 21:38
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Hey, thanks for your response. All very interesting. When it got to the Linux stuff on the OP I kinda got scared off. I am rather green when it comes to networking. In all honesty I am amazed I got this set up working in the first place. One thing I did want to do was to replace the old ADSL modem, you are right by the way; we only have the good ol' ADSL1 here. But the modem looks very old and...well used lets say. But I do like the look of the pfsense but I am hesitant to go through with it as I do many stupid things and as I said before, networking isn't my strong point. But essentially what I would be using would be a machine with two NIC's? Devian666 posted:The other benefit of pfsense is that if they are willing to pay for an additional connection you could run load balancing on two internet connections. The current situation with 18 people is like it or lump it unless a faster connection is available. This would be quite interesting.
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Jan 21, 2012 22:51
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JDRockefeller posted:Cable modem issues Very important: do you know the difference between Mb (megabits) and MB (megabytes)?
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Jan 22, 2012 00:27
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Vaginal Engineer posted:Very important: do you know the difference between Mb (megabits) and MB (megabytes)? ...I can't believe I never made the distinction till now. I feel so embarassed. 12 Mbps / 8 = 1.5 MBps 512 Kbps / 8 = 64 KBps This changes things with regards to my issue then. Obviously now I see I'm at top speed, sometimes even higher! In this case then, I only have one question. DOCSIS 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. What are the differences, and how much does that matter in terms of stability?
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Jan 22, 2012 03:53
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JDRockefeller posted:DOCSIS 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. What are the differences, and how much does that matter in terms of stability? Not much, each version is obviously better but if you're not having any problems then there is no real reason to change. DOCSIS 3 supports multiple channels, allowing much faster speeds, but I'd only upgrade if your connection is 30mbit or more. It also supports IPV6 which you'll need to upgrade to eventually, but not now 
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Jan 22, 2012 04:01
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I hope this is the right place to ask this. I just got a new desktop set up and it doesn't have wireless capabilities. For now I'm just running a Cat5 cable from the router to the computer. I have a network setup too though because I have a laptop on wireless. I'm confused though, because while the internet is working on the new desktop, there is no indication that I'm on my home network. It didn't even ask for a password. I'm just a little worried because I can't tell if my desktop is secured or not and also my download speeds seem a little slow compared to the laptop. I'm assuming there is a setting I need to change with my router but I know nothing about networking and I can't seem to find anything online.
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Jan 22, 2012 05:59
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Wired connections to routers require no passwords. If you're physically plugged in to the router and the desktop has internet access, that's all you need worry about. As for download speed discrepancies, what are you using to test the DL speeds? Bear in mind that many factors such as antivirus, etc. can be of issue. Tapedump fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Jan 22, 2012 |
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Jan 22, 2012 06:20
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PDP-1 posted:My parents have a summer cottage out in the boondocks and they'd like to get at least rudimentary internet access on their laptop for checking email, weather, etc. They have a phone line and cell coverage but no cable, and since they're only there a couple of weeks out of the year they'd like to avoid having to sign a year-long DSL contract that would go mostly unused. Best bet is probably dial-up. Tethering isn't impossible in theory but can be a real snakes' nest technically particularly once you step outside of the android/ios space, and that's assuming their cell carrier a) allows it b) doesn't bone them hard on extra fees. I needed dialup for a couple weeks a few years back (long story) and these guys were alright: http://www.basicisp.net/ cheap (I think it was $7 at the time, closer to $9 now, for a month), no bs at least in my limited experience. El goog gives this site as a big directory of free/cheap dialup isps: http://www.freedomlist.com/ If you're willing to spend a bit more in exchange for (maybe) faster speeds, you can get dedicated 3g/wifi routers that you'd plug a usb cellular modem dongle into and it shares that out over wifi. eg http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=105&cp_id=10521&cs_id=1052102&p_id=8069&seq=1&format=2 (Never used it, just noticed it on monoprice looking for something else) The expensive part here is going to be whatever your cellular carrier wants you to pay for the usb modem and the data access fee, heh (and furthermore whether they'd sell a block of access time without ongoing contract is another question).
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Jan 22, 2012 06:38
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Devian666 posted:I'll make a few assumptions with the first being that due to your remote-ish location you get low ADSL speeds. I'm assuming you can't get ADSL 2+ speeds. I have had a read through the thread after receiving your reply and there is a lot to consider. The main gripe I suppose I get from the network users is not the download speeds - they are dumb enough to realise the limitations of a country ISP (they should thank their lucky stars that we aren't on satelite) - it is the ping and by association the jitter. After reading the thread I believe jitter may be an issue. We can get decent pings of 50-60ms, however the jitter usually hangs around the 150 mark. This is a typical ping test on a Sunday night at 10pm, when a lot of the adults are online (some are believe it or not, gaming):  Maybe the first thing to look at would be getting this jitter down. I assume that this is a PPP thing? Please forgive me I have pretty much zero networking experience and I am learning this all on-the-fly, including terminology. Another matter which I had not considered was that firewall suggestion. One of the residents on the farm is my cousin, who has many ASD, mainly Aspergers. He is older than I am and is incapable of looking after himself. We are his full time carers. He is addicted to the net, mainly Anime and emulated games from obscure gaming consoles, and japanese games (He has become a fluent reader of Japanese). In order to get to what he wants he goes through some of the more undesirable avenues of the internet and has little regard to the security of his system - basically if his computer breaks, someone will just have to buy him another one. He has a lovely Norton firewall on his computer courtesy of the New Zealand Ministry of Health to help prevent him from breaking anymore computers with lovely  , but they seem to forget that he isn't stupid, he has Aspergers; he just runs the computer as Admin. He either cracked the password or worked out a way around it.so from what I am reading here, the pfsense maybe another layer of security for all the other people who use the network. I only hope it is user friendly enough for me to use, and secure enough that my cousin can't break into.
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Jan 22, 2012 10:14
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I just configured PXE booting/CentOS kickstarting off of my RT-N16 using TomatoUSB and Optware, any interest in a write up?
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Jan 22, 2012 18:33
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So I was running speed tests at around 13 megabits downstream from my upstairs computer, which was connected via wireless. Ran Cat 6 upstairs today, and this was the result:
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Jan 22, 2012 20:17
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mikecj posted:I have had a read through the thread after receiving your reply and there is a lot to consider. The main gripe I suppose I get from the network users is not the download speeds - they are dumb enough to realise the limitations of a country ISP (they should thank their lucky stars that we aren't on satelite) - it is the ping and by association the jitter. Well its good to know that our ministry of health is spending money on something as ineffective as Nortons. You could try something like spybot on his computer as I believe it still has a dodgy IP list that you can set to block automatically. The firewall will only be effective against random attacks rather than something that is requested by the computer. Before getting into pfsense have a look at some tutorials to see how to set it up. That will give you an idea if you are in over your head or not. In terms of stopping your cousin from getting onto it use a 16 character password and don't have it written down anywhere. Jitter is just variation in ping. If people are gaming you will probably get a fair amount of jitter on your connection. Depending on the game you will be using 50-100 kbit/s per person playing. The problem is this will be both downstream as well as upstream. On ADSL your upstream will be a lot less than downstream and if upstream is clogged it's hard to achieve good download speeds. You may be at the limit of what is possible with people gaming. If you're out in Takaka/Golden Bay I'm surprised you're getting the speeds that you are.
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Jan 22, 2012 20:50
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pliantkitchen posted:I just configured PXE booting/CentOS kickstarting off of my RT-N16 using TomatoUSB and Optware, any interest in a write up? I know I would like to hear about it.
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Jan 22, 2012 20:52
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pliantkitchen posted:I just configured PXE booting/CentOS kickstarting off of my RT-N16 using TomatoUSB and Optware, any interest in a write up? Yes please.
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Jan 22, 2012 21:06
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Are there any more current recommendations for routers? I have a wndr3300 thats finally making GBS threads the bed, dropping connections and lagging like crazy and is due for an upgrade. I'm looking to spend no more than 60, and will be using it for fps games and stuff so speed/latency is key. Whats my best bet? Also I don't care about USB/print server/whatever, I just want the best speed.
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Jan 23, 2012 00:54
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Devian666 posted:I know I would like to hear about it. I wrote up a kludgy tutorial in the TomatoUSB forums. A lot of it is broken because I am a low karma user. For example, no URLs or screenshots.  I will repost here with URL corrections and better formatting sometime this week. Funny story - during the final steps of testing the config there was a typo in the /opt/tftpboot/default configuration file and it took the router down until I turned off the machine that was PXE booting. http://tomatousb.org/forum/t-436161/pxelinux-boot-server-on-rt-n16-with-optware-and-tomato-usb-u matato fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Jan 23, 2012 |
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Jan 23, 2012 01:11
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I really need to get a 5GHz router for my girlfriend's apartment.     Also poor college students use really lovely networking equipment; so many Belkin routers. 
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Jan 23, 2012 02:06
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edit: nevermind, I'm an idiot
WayneCampbell fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Jan 23, 2012 |
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Jan 23, 2012 02:11
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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 
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Jan 23, 2012 02:21
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Tom Steele posted:Are there any more current recommendations for routers? I have a wndr3300 thats finally making GBS threads the bed, dropping connections and lagging like crazy and is due for an upgrade. I'm looking to spend no more than 60, and will be using it for fps games and stuff so speed/latency is key. Whats my best bet? The recommendations in the op are current though prices may vary due to deals. Star War Sex Parrot posted:I really need to get a 5GHz router for my girlfriend's apartment. Looks like everyone is taking a crap over the entire 2.4 GHz spectrum all the time. Good justification for upgrading.
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Jan 23, 2012 02:46
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So, since I am pretty much computer illiterate when it comes to networking and the title really does seem apt, can someone explain to me why i have to reset my router and modem what feels like an increasingly frequent number of times in order to get my internet running at what should be a normal faster speed?
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Jan 23, 2012 05:59
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Ramadu posted:So, since I am pretty much computer illiterate when it comes to networking and the title really does seem apt, can someone explain to me why i have to reset my router and modem what feels like an increasingly frequent number of times in order to get my internet running at what should be a normal faster speed? Probably bad firmware and overheating due to bad cooling design. It may be possible that your router does not have enough ram. If the frequency of resets needed is actually increasing then it's either thermal damage to the gear or the net traffic has increased.
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Jan 23, 2012 06:14
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Ramadu posted:So, since I am pretty much computer illiterate when it comes to networking and the title really does seem apt, can someone explain to me why i have to reset my router and modem what feels like an increasingly frequent number of times in order to get my internet running at what should be a normal faster speed? The thread title says it all. Although, you may have a lovely modem and/or router. You should make sure that you're running the latest firmware for your router (in theory this is also true for your modem, but things are much more murky).
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Jan 23, 2012 06:15
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How the hell is the network "Softball" using up so many channels? At least I'm in the clear on 5 GHz.  
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Jan 23, 2012 06:49
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Star War Sex Parrot posted:How the hell is the network "Softball" using up so many channels? 300 mbit/s wireless. I use a similar number of channels so all of the strongest signals appear to be set to avoid my wireless.
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Jan 23, 2012 07:10
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Vaginal Engineer posted:The thread title says it all. Although, you may have a lovely modem and/or router. You should make sure that you're running the latest firmware for your router (in theory this is also true for your modem, but things are much more murky). Well the router is 4 years old now and is still at the default firmware. My roomate is an idiot and tried to log into the wireless network and ended up changing the login to the router so i have no way to get into it. The modem is also either 8 or 9 years old. I expect maybe its time to get new ones. Does anyone have a rough idea of how much new cable modems from Cox cost?
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Jan 23, 2012 07:16
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