I Need A New Router

[upstatemike]

Every Once in a while my router locks up and refuses to route traffic to/from the Internet. I have to power cycle it to get it working again and I'm just not happy with this behaviour. I have seen commercial routers run for years without ever needing any attention and I don't understand why I have so much trouble with my Linksys/Cisco RV016. I need suggestions for a new router that I can count on to never lock up ever for any reason no exceptions period.

Also I am noticing another odd thing. When I stream Internet radio stations on Roadrunner, every once in a while the stream stops and I have to manually restart it. When I listen to the same station over my DSL line which supposedly has less bandwidth, the station plays all day, rock solid with no problems. Anybody know what might be causing the problems on Roadrunner?

 

[Digger]

In regards to the Roadrunner stopping your streaming it may be due to a filter on thier end. I know I was blocked from sending emails by Cablevision when I exceeded their limit and had to reboot my modem to get the filter at Cablevision to reset.

So if they have a time limit on constant streaming to li,it use of bandwith etc it might be the reason. They should tell you if you ask.

 

[danward79]

Well I can recomend you do not go for a netgear "consumer" type device, especially the wgt624.

 

[upstatemike]

In regards to the Roadrunner stopping your streaming it may be due to a filter on thier end. I know I was blocked from sending emails by Cablevision when I exceeded their limit and had to reboot my modem to get the filter at Cablevision to reset.

So if they have a time limit on constant streaming to li,it use of bandwith etc it might be the reason. They should tell you if you ask.

I rebooted the cable modem at the same time I did the router this morning and the longest I can get the radio to play is about 30 minutes. I have already restarted the stream 3 times this morning. I just switched back to DSL so I'll see how things go for the rest of the day.

 

[huggy59]

We have an RV016 at work and I've had no problems with it thus far. I have people listening to streaming radio as well, and there are no problems. I suspect you are running into some timeout or limitation of the provider/connection/etc.

However, check your firmware rev and the setting for MTU - I understand there have been many issues surrounding earlier revs and the MTU settings.

 

[upstatemike]

We have an RV016 at work and I've had no problems with it thus far. I have people listening to streaming radio as well, and there are no problems. I suspect you are running into some timeout or limitation of the provider/connection/etc.

However, check your firmware rev and the setting for MTU - I understand there have been many issues surrounding earlier revs and the MTU settings.

MTU is set to AUTO. Do you think I should go to manual and specify 1500? Do you remember where you saw the discussion on this setting? My firmware is 2.0.10 which I think is the most recent but I will double check the LinkSys site.

 

[Mike]

I had issues with a linksys firewall router resetting, I wound up replacing it with a D-Link one and have not had any issues since.

uPnp was causing some issues with Linksys, you might want to turn that off as a test as well.

 

[upstatemike]

I had issues with a linksys firewall router resetting, I wound up replacing it with a D-Link one and have not had any issues since.

uPnp was causing some issues with Linksys, you might want to turn that off as a test as well.

Good idea but it looks like uPnp is already off.

 

[Steve]

I am probably going to get one of the Linux based routers like the Linksys 54GL or Buffalo and run DD-WRT on it. At least then you will have all the options to tweak.

 

[upstatemike]

After doing a search on the MTU issue I have changed my setting to manual with a value of 1500. If that doesn't work I will try a few other settings to see if I can see an improvement.

 

[Mike]

Hmm wish I remembered better what I worked through, I vaguely remember tracing down MTU issues (but I think it was not related to that).

I looked, you are on the latest firmware. That is an interesting router, I had not seen that one before.

From my experience, even after I got rid of the uPnP issue, the router woudl still reboot (can tell by checking the log).

I scrapped mine, but I had been using it for years, and it was not as nice of a unit as the one you have (nor as expensive). I'm guessing you went with that for the dual internet ports.

 

[upstatemike]

I'm guessing you went with that for the dual internet ports.

Yes but WAN failover does not help when the problem is in the router!

 

[pete]

Yes but WAN failover does not help when the problem is in the router!

if the DSL works (ie: does not come up short when playing the stream) then I wouldn't think it's your router . . (just to be sure I'm on the right page . . you have both DSL and cable to the same router?)

if your looking for a hard to beat setup, both price and features, I suggest getting an old computer, a few network cards, and installing either FreeBSD (my fav) or openBSD (hypes superior security) as a firewall/NAT box . .

just my .02 . .

Pete C

 

[Mike]

I'm guessing you went with that for the dual internet ports.

Yes but WAN failover does not help when the problem is in the router!

Did you call them? I would dread the call as well, but it might help.

 

[huggy59]

upstatemike, there were discussions on the Linksys forums and the other place, www.linksysinfo.org .

As it happens, I've been having trouble getting my new test VPNs to work, so I reset my MTU to AUTO and rebooted the RV016 today after being up solid for 18 days. I immediately got one test VPN working, but the other one still won't go. I suspect the remote router at this point.

But back to your issues. The RV016 can load balance multiple ports. Have you tried that instead of the failover config? I am only using one port at the moment, so I"m not trying any load balancing or failover. In the past, with other routers, I've run into trouble, as the router, in failover mode, would switch between ports from time to time and cause a momentary loss of connectivity. Perhaps that's happening on your end?

Also, I've read and been told that after a firmware upgrade, it is best to use the "reset to defaults" and then reconfigure the router to make sure all areas are "touched" by the config. I don't know if the new config can be imported copy of the old one or whether it has to be hand-entered again.

I have been on Linksys' new online chat tech support twice now. I'm not thrilled. The support engineer got my VPN working, but neglected to tell me she had to shut off both routers' firewalls after I asked specifically if she had to make any changes other than the VPN settings. NOT a warm fuzzy feeling, and in fact quite unnecessary on a gateway-to-gateway VPN, as proven by today's success.

It appears that some changes, while not forcing a router reboot on the RV016, actually DO need to have the router rebooted. That's what I'm finding with the VPN stuff, anyway. Is Microsoft involved here somewhere? ;-)