WiFi problem

Since switched to a new ISP, I purchased a new DSL modem + WiFi router from TP-Link.  One reason to go with this route is that the UPS has one fewer device to support during a power outage hence would last longer.

The TD-W8961ND router looks quite nice and straight forward to set up.  However, it started to give problems at the very beginning.  There are a few devices in the house would connect then lost the connection randomly, mostly wouldn't be able to get an IP assigned.  Even with DHCP reservation table.  The only fix is assign a fixed IP from the client side.  This is not a convenient solution, as one of these devices is my main laptop.  When I go to other places, I can't use the fixed IP, so had to change it all the time.

Eventually, I fed up and called TP-Link.  It seems that after suggesting update firmware (done that, didn't work), the tech quickly decided it's a hardware problem.  In an hour or so I received the RMA.  What's annoying is that even under warranty, TP-Link would need the customers to mail the defective device back to them at the customers' expense.  Then a new (or refurbished) device would be sent back to the customer.  Besides the shipping cost, the time required to complete the process may be easily two weeks. For most users, they'd get a new router for the two weeks.

Luckily for me, TP-Link has a an office that is within 50 miles that I bite the bullet drove there and did a "manual" swap.  Although the tech support and RMA (including the swap) process was smooth, and everybody are pretty nice, in the future, I'd seriously think twice to buy anything critical from them.

So far, the new router/modem seems to be working flawless in the first a few hours. The hardware version of the old defective one is v3.1 and the new one is v3.2.  So they are not exactly the same.  The firmware is also different, while on their support website, they only differentiate v3 to v2 and v4.

Home networks change

Since I had such a bad time with the TrendNet WiFi router, I decided to change to an older LinkSys WRT54G router till there's a suitable (price, features, form factor, etc.) new one. 

First, let's count the devices. 

There are four Gigabit LAN devices (Desktop, 2 HD media players + NAS), three 100MBps LAN devices (VOIP router, TV, and Wii), and 10+ WiFi devices (3 laptops, netbook, printer, iPad, iPhone, another two cell phones, another media player, and an Network Radio).  In addition, both HD media players and Wii has WiFi as well. In the 10 WiFi devices, only 6 of them supports 802.11n while the rest are 802.11g. Since it's rare that I would need high bandwidth on the wireless devices (the 2 HD media player will be using wired LAN), 802.11g would be sufficient for now. 

I would like to have a Gigabit LAN connection to use the extra bandwidth when transferring large amount of data (e.g. playing HD content from NAS). Luckily (up to debate), I have two 8-port Planet Gigabit switches from an auction five years ago.  Although they are not worth as much they were in 2006, they are still useful. After checking with two friends in IT, the plan is to use the Linksys WRT54G router as the WiFi access point as well as the DCHP server. Most of the LAN devices (especially all the Gigabit LAN devices) will connect to the switch.  This will also allow all devices within a single network so files on the NAS can be read and everybody can print to the printer over the network.

After an extra trip to get CAT-6 network cables and a 12-port power strips, I set up the fully system from scratch.  This includes using a new 12-port power bar.  Given so many devices with their own AC/DC power supplies, it doesn't make sense to have power outlets spaced so tightly.  Even for the 12 outlets, commercial grade power bar, at least three of the outlets are now blocked. If I were to design a power bar, I'd at least put most of them sideways and space them out to accommodate most of the AC/DC adapters.

Anyway, after 2 hour, the network is functioning again.  So far, the WRT54G router works fine.  There's little to complain about this set up.  At the same time, I still need an utility to test large data transfer performance. 

WiFi router issue

Spending quite some time in the morning trying to get the internet working in the Condo. The TrendNet TWE652BRP WiFi router has been misbehaving for quite some time. The main symptom is dropping wireless connections quite frequently (as bad as every 5 minutes) while the signal showing on the devices was still strong when it happened and the wired connections are unaffected. Some times, it also crushed, but this was not often. For most of the devices, it will automatically reconnect after 1-2 minutes. However, this is very annoying as my HD media player is wireless. Every time the connection was dropped, it will either just stop playing whatever online content I'm watching or drop the connection to my NAS drive where most of the HD content are saved.

I've tried updated it to the latest firmware, and tried to change various settings. Some times it gets better and most times it's not affected. I'm not even sure whether it's the setting change or just the number of time it's rebooted that helped a little. To just temporarily curtail the problem, I had an old CompUSA OEM 802.11g router connected for most of the devices that do not need access to the NAS drive.

Originally, the CompUSA router was connected to the TrendNet one through one of its LAN ports, while the TrendNet router was connected to the DSL modem. I had suspected that the load of the TrendNET router may be a contributing factor so it was changed to not running the PPPoE but just taking the connection from the modem. However, it crushed last night and I decided to switch the hierarchy of the two routers: the CompUSA connects to the modem while the TrendNET follows. This seemed to be an easy change but somehow the CompUSA router refused to run acquire neither an IP from the modem nor will a fixed IP run (the TrendNet worked fine under either, only to crush).

After an hour of changing back and forth, I gave up. I just need to get a new router. In the mean time, I just hanging there try to score a better deal on Boxing day (the Canadian Black Friday). My ideal choice would be a simultaneous dual band Wireless ABGN router with 5 Gigabit LAN ports (plus a WAN port).