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Author Topic: What is the best wired DSL router  (Read 18656 times)

Pink Waters

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What is the best wired DSL router
« on: June 21, 2005, 02:12:06 pm »

I recently use D-Link DSL-504T and all iam experiencing is line drop, connection drop, weak firewall, awkward/buggy web settup firmware, slow connection and nightmares while sleeping :).

I allways get disconnected from time to time and sometimes i cant connect again till i reset the router, dunno know the hell why!!

So i decided to share this with you to seek for the best wired DSL router available.
please give me a good advice to prevent my nighmares  ;D
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LonWar

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #1 on: June 21, 2005, 03:01:42 pm »

I have epierenced that as well.... With both Dlink and Linksys.... I don't think this is a router issue.... Most people I have spoken to have this happen to them from time to time...     Is this happening alot?
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KingSparta

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #2 on: June 21, 2005, 03:06:48 pm »

I have heard so many bad things with DSL and cable is faster if you can get it.
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escaflo

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #3 on: June 21, 2005, 03:47:59 pm »

I am using D-link DSL 504 (1st Generation) and so far have not really encountered any big problem with it. Sometimes there is a need for us to power cycle it when it doesn't connect but it happens only once in a while, about 2 months maybe more before needing to do it once. Have you try upgrading your firmware?

I've placed an order for the new D-link DGL-4300 which from what I read is good when you are sharing the Internet connection with someone else in the household because it got a good priority handling mechanism. The downside with that is that it is just a pure router and doesn't comes with a DSL modem. Also, the non wireless version model is DGL-4100, you might want to take a look at it. Do a search for review on DGL-4300 and you should be able to find quite number of review on it.

I also got a Netgear Wireless router (can't really remember the model number) and it causes me to become paranoid of Netgear products. I have more or less decided to stay away from all Netgear products after the hellish nightmare the router gave me. It would hang almost after every 2 days of operation, needing a power cycle and after every port forwarding settings, you will need to restart the router (which is very, very slow). So far, they haven't release any new firmware that fixes this problem (has been going on for about a year and quite a numerous number of people got this issue). This basically turns me off their products.

If you want me to recommend a brand, I would say go with either D-link, Linksys or 3com (overpriced but I got a friend who is using it, and from what I've tried with his network, I think its worth it.). Stay way clear away from Netgear but that is just my personal nightmare =)
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glynor

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #4 on: June 21, 2005, 03:49:37 pm »

IPCop.  Far and above the best Firewall you can get (without spending a fortune).  And best of all, if you have an old computer to "donate" (mine's an old Pentium-1 200MHz box) it's free (or very cheap anyway, since you might need to buy a NIC card for the old machine).

http://ipcop.sourceforge.net/

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Cmagic

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #5 on: June 21, 2005, 03:55:59 pm »

HI,

Using two Linksys here: a WAG54-G (with included DSL modem) and a WRT54 (without modem). They are both wired & WiFi DSL routers.
They have been working steadily 24/24 for the last year without a glitch with my DSL2 connections (9.4 Mbps down / 1Mbps up).

don't know if they are the best but working fine.

C.
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Pink Waters

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #6 on: June 21, 2005, 04:50:44 pm »

Quote
I've placed an order for the new D-link DGL-4300 which from what I read is good when you are sharing the Internet connection with someone else in the household because it got a good priority handling mechanism
this sounds like a great feature!.. can you give me some of its features based on yourusage ?
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escaflo

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #7 on: June 21, 2005, 10:15:57 pm »

I live in a house with four other friends and one of them tends to run a lot of download while the other tends to be a lot of online games.

From what I've figure out, its possible to set it such that higher priority can be given to games such that even if the other housemate is downloading, it would not affect the ping of the person playing the game that much. It also can be use to set the priority of other protocols.

Basically it works by using port. Let's say if you want to give your Library Server streaming higher priority than other traffic, and if your library server is running on port 80, you can set a simple rule like: Outgoing, Port 80, Priority: 0. This will give any traffic going out on port 80 the highest priority. In this respect, you can basically set various priority for each different traffic.

So I think, basically this router is useful for a lot of different situation other than for gaming though it is positioning itself as a gaming router.

Here is one of the review link:
http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/misc/net/dlink/dgl4300/index.shtml

If you don't need the wireless module of it, you can take a look at DGL-4100, which is basically the same but without the wireless module. As I said before, the only downside to this seems to the slightly higher pricing and the fact that it doesn't comes with a modem.
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glynor

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #8 on: June 21, 2005, 10:45:37 pm »

This feature is called "Traffic Shaping" and is one of the best features to look for when distinguishing routers/gateways/firewalls.  The way it works is simple.  You assign a priorities such as low, medium, and high to a port (or on some more advanced routers an entire port range) and then the router will hold back lower priority traffic to allow high priority traffic to complete first.

This is a great feature to have.  For example, I have VOIP Telephone service.  Without Traffic Shaping, when I'm downloading the latest linux distro release via bittorrent, my phone might not work well.  With Traffic Shaping, I can play games and use Bittorrent at the same time (and still get phone calls).

VOIP and Game (and ICMP traffic like Pings) are all classified as High priority on my IPCop firewall.  Bittorrent and Shareaza traffic are classified as low priority.  Most "normal" traffic (Web, Email, etc) are classified as normal.

One thing to consider though is the power of the router to handle these decisions.  With some lower-end routers I have had trouble with Traffic Shaping when pounding the router with a lot of traffic from different remote sources (such as Bittorrent traffic).  Of course, some of the low-enders (Netgear and D-Link specifically) get creamed no matter what with that kind of traffic.  Also, low end routers often have limits on their traffic shaping capability.  They often only allow you to assign a handful (4-5) of ports as high or low and automatically assign everything else medium.  (I've had two Linksys routers that worked like this).

Again, I would consider getting a solid switch (which are mega cheap, Linksys or whatever would be fine) and running an IPCop (or Monowall) firewall as the gateway/router.  They are easy to use and setup, and offer far more power than any of the sub-$120 routers you can buy out there. 

Barring that (for whatever reason) I would look at SMC routers (the Barricade brand).  They have a reputation for rock solid stability and a powerful feature set.

I would also STRONGLY recommend you search around on http://www.dslreports.com/ before you buy any home gateway.  Especially D-Link or Netgear.  Those companies put out plenty of great stuff, and plenty of utter garbage.  It varies widely from one product line (and sometimes different versions of the same model number) to another.  If you search the forums on DSLReports (under Equipment Support in the branded forums) for the model numbers and don't find a bunch of people complaining it might be a good sign (or a new product).  But if you find a bunch of people with trouble... Stay away!

The problems you are having with your D-Link are VERY common to the cheaper routers.  They just aren't designed for anything approaching reliability (and sometimes I wonder if they were designed at all)!  From someone who has a pile of $60-$80 Netgear, D-Link, and Linksys routers sitting in his closet (all of which I've purchased to solve the problems you're having and failed) ... Do your homework BEFORE you buy.
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Pink Waters

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2005, 11:48:10 pm »

that sounds great, but is there router that set periorty to a specefic pc in the network itself ?
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GHammer

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #10 on: June 22, 2005, 12:28:37 am »

I have a Linksys BEFSR41 and it is fine.
I also have a D-Link 624-S but disable the wireless mode because I do not need it.

I do not try traffic shaping with home-level routers because they usually do not have the power to perform all that is asked.

Likewise for the firewall functions of that type device. The 624-S has TrendMicro's security built into it and it looks nice of you have children.

For traffic shaping, take a look at cFosSpeed. I run that here and it does a nice job. But then I only run two machines. Right now one is running torrents at about 120 KB/s and the other is just browsing the 'Net. We never have problems with bandwidth, just getting out of China sometime.
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escaflo

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #11 on: June 22, 2005, 12:53:44 am »

Yeah home router tends to be overwhelmed by traffic shaping and they usually do traffic shaping based on certain algorithm preventing user from setting specific traffic that required high priority like gaming.

The only difference with the DGL 4300/4100 is that it allows user to particularly specify which traffic is of high importance. And from what I read so far, it also does a good job at it. I haven't recieved my router yet but be assured that if you want to know how it goes, I will do a detail report on it when it arrived.

I don't think you can give a pc particularly high priority with the DGL but if let's say you know what is the pc mainly used for, you can give all the traffic that the pc used highest priority and thus reducing its latency and increasing its speed I guess.
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Pink Waters

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #12 on: June 22, 2005, 01:04:59 am »

For traffic shaping, take a look at cFosSpeed

is there something free but powerfull that does the trick ?
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Pink Waters

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #13 on: June 22, 2005, 01:50:37 am »

or if i have to pay for traffic shapping, i would pay for the top one, any ideas ?
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GHammer

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #14 on: June 22, 2005, 05:06:39 am »

or if i have to pay for traffic shapping, i would pay for the top one, any ideas ?

If you use a router I really like cFosSpeed.
If you just conect to DSL via PPPoE, they have a dialer that also includes traffic shaping.

Else, it is hard to find a driver to do that.
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Pink Waters

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #15 on: June 22, 2005, 05:15:34 am »

i installed cFosSpeed, and didnt notice any periorty enhancment while i used the firefox browser to surf while iam downloading via a download manager (although i added rules for the download manager in the cFosSpeed setup)
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GHammer

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #16 on: June 22, 2005, 08:48:03 am »

i installed cFosSpeed, and didnt notice any periorty enhancment while i used the firefox browser to surf while iam downloading via a download manager (although i added rules for the download manager in the cFosSpeed setup)
I will say that I do not use the release version. I use the beta as they seem to perform better for me.

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/cFosSpeed/1103571841/1


You need to be using quite a bit of bandwidth to make a difference.
Don't know what you expect to see.

Works great here, torrents do their thing, online games are fine, VoIP is fine, browsing is fine. The VoIP is important to me as I am in China and talk to the US, UK, and Russia often. I used to close BitSpirit when calling. Now I don't need to.

But, your mileage may vary.
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Bill Kearney

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #17 on: June 22, 2005, 09:43:51 am »

So i decided to share this with you to seek for the best wired DSL router available. please give me a good advice to prevent my nighmares ;D

Better question is why are you getting disconnects?  And what sort of DSL link are you using?  If you're stuck behind a PPPoE connection and the ISP's having DHCP or other troubles then there's not a lot ANY router can do about it.  If you depend on a the link for anything more than web surfing then it's better to switch to an ISP that can provide you a static IP address without using PPPoE.  I've used speakeasy for this for years and never have any troubles.  The cable companies are despicable thieves so I'm sticking with DSL. 

So rule out that it's not an ISP related problem first.  At the same time look at what sort of traffic you're trying to run on the link.  If you're only running outbound web surfing then it really shouldn't matter much which unit you use.  If you're trying to run servers, using VoIP or stealing stuff via P2P networks then there are all sorts of issues to consider.   Low-end SoHo routers aren't up to handling the demands so it's usually better to upgrade to a higer-end device.  That or setup a second IP address on it's own router for the p2p crapola.
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Pink Waters

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #18 on: June 22, 2005, 10:09:35 am »

My Connection is PPPoA VC
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Bill Kearney

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #19 on: June 22, 2005, 11:00:36 am »

Well, PPPoE is problematic for anything more than most casual surfind.  Yes, it's supposed to work and I'm sure plenty of folks would claim it's supposed to be just as reliable as a static IP.  I've seen otherwise.   Are you running services on the link that would require a lot of traffic?  If so then frankly you can avoid a lot of trouble by not trying to jam it through a PPPoE connection. 

If you're not running anything more than casual web access then it sounds like you've got a problem with the link itself.  Either at the DSLAM in the telco office (where your wires go) or upstream at the PPPoE server.   Switching router hardware won't make much difference, nor would tormenting yourself trying to setup some linux firewall nightmare.
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Mr ChriZ

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #20 on: June 22, 2005, 12:45:54 pm »

I found that cheap Micro Filters caused my connection drops, especially when I moved from 512k to 2meg.
I bought some decent ones from ADSL nation and wallah it works!
I've got the cheapest naffist router  I could find and it's fine :-)
got 4 pc's on it, with 2 slots left. No attacks getting thru.
Just the fact that it's NAT'ted seems to do far better than any cheap firewall i've tried.
Down side is it only goes up to 8 meg and i think at this rate by the end of the year, that may be not enough!

NickM

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Re: What is the best wired DSL router
« Reply #21 on: June 23, 2005, 08:11:47 pm »

One more thought... I use Cable Broadband and also ADSL from my telco.  THe broadband is a single charge and the ADSL is pay by usage.  I run both of these into a Symantec Firewall Appliance 200R.  The 200R load balances and connects the ADSL only when needed.  It runs a VPN solution as well.  I have had this for a couple of years and it works effortlessly.
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