Team-BHP - On Wi-Fi & Routers

I was using the ASUS RT-13N router since 7 years. It's an excellent router with USB port, switchable repeater mode and more than decent coverage. It gave up 2 weeks before by frequently dropping Wifi signals. After having terrible & inconsistent experience with Tp-Link and Edimax router, I got the D-Link DIR816 AC router with 3 external antennas at Rs. 1700 from paytm. Meanwhile got a Netgear JNR1010 router for testing for two weeks.
Netgear router has about 25% less area coverage than ASUS RT-13N and inconsistent wifi signals.
Using D-link DIR 816 for around a week now and what an excellent performance so far. Great network coverage 20% more than the ASUS and no wifi signal drops. Highly recommended. No USB port is the only missing factor here. It's a dual band though wifi signal on 5 Ghz band has very area coverage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shashank.nk (Post 3804915)

DNS probe finshed nxdomain
DNS probe finished bad config
ERR Name not resolved

This happens both on laptop and my android devices at home.

So far i've tried the following and none have worked.

Changing preferred DNS and alternate DNS to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4,obtain DNS automatically,DNS suggested by BSNL.
Running following commands through CMD-ipconfig, ipconfig /flushdns, netsh winsack reset
Reset router to factory settings and reconfigured
Kept router off for a few mins and retried

I use openDNS in order to avoid these errors. With both BSNL and Airtel, some pages wouldnt open at the first instance so I changed to openDNS, ie set preferred DNS at 208.67.222.222 and alternate DNS 208.67.220.220 This should be set at router level if you use multiple devices on the network. Try this and see if the problem goes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shashank.nk (Post 3804915)

I have a BSNL broadband and recently tried a TP-Link W8968 router,however the performance was not upto the mark and I had to return it.

There are many versions of this ADSL/WLAN router available. Current version is 4; version 3 was supposed to be quite problematic. It is supposed to be one of the better devices in the market.

Quote:

Originally Posted by superbhikari (Post 3805104)

I got the D-Link DIR816 AC router with 3 external antennas at Rs. 1700 from paytm.
...
Using D-link DIR 816 for around a week now and what an excellent performance so far. Great network coverage 20% more than the ASUS and no wifi signal drops. Highly recommended. No USB port is the only missing factor here. It's a dual band though wifi signal on 5 Ghz band has very area coverage.

Thanks very much for the feedback, greatly helps those considering options. Supposedly all these guys suck at support: TP-Link, DLink, NetGear, etc. I did send a pre-sales inquiry to TP-Link, a few days ago, never heard back.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 3805029)

Did you do this on the router or on the PC?

I'm a fan of manual IP configuration on all but mobile devices,, but it is a bit, "hey, this is the way I've always done it!" and shouldn't be necessary, but, if something is happening with your router/ISP DNS, it might fix it.

On the PC like all the sites/videos mentioned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by audioholic (Post 3805112)

Thanks. Luckily the BSNL guys turned up and were able to fix the issue. Its a lot more stable now and I don't see the errors as often. I changed the DNS to the above mentioned one's. I hope the issue gets resolved.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheTeacher (Post 3805266)

There are many versions of this ADSL/WLAN router available. Current version is 4; version 3 was supposed to be quite problematic. It is supposed to be one of the better devices in the market.

It was V4 that I had. Wi-fi would go off every 15 mins and I had to reconnect. In addition the range was no better than the UTstarcom.

BSNL guys suggested I go for D-Link 2750.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shashank.nk (Post 3805328)

It was V4 that I had. Wi-fi would go off every 15 mins and I had to reconnect. In addition the range was no better than the UTstarcom.

BSNL guys suggested I go for D-Link 2750.

Thanks for the feedback.I almost bought TP-Link TD-W8968 earlier today from Amazon, but hesitated because I wasn't sure what version I would get, and because the sale price was only ~ Rs. 100 than the "regular price". Glad I didn't.

My 9-year old Wi-Fi g Buffalo router & access point are still doing fine, with the router occasionally not connecting to my wife's mobile or daughter's laptop. A cold boot fixes the issue immediately, for a few days. Guess I'll just continue with them till they die.

My new 1 month old RT-AC87U has had its first problem last Sunday. The WAN indicator was showing Red, and I was assuming that its cable problem. Finally the technician from ISP came with his router, and found that working.

Given the number of modems/routers I have had, I was a bit surprised. I have been using Netgear earlier, and then moved to Asus. None of the devices had any problems. Let me await what service center response on what could have caused this.

People... Just don't ever buy the Netgear D6300 --- unles you want it as room decor!

This is one of my worst-ever purchases. I'm less bothered by its poor performance reviews online than I am by its horrendous user interface, with ridiculous and time consuming reboot every time one "applies" even an insignificant change. At the time, I thought, "Oh well, I don't do this very often." But there always comes times when we have to revisit router config. Avoid this one!

Anyway, due to Airtel problems, I decided to revisit remote logging, which I failed to get working last time I looked. As so often happens, it was actually easy, only requiring four lines in a config file to be un-commented. Can't think how I missed that last time.

Anyway, my router now sends its messages to my syslog demon, which writes them in its log, and I have a couple of scripts that either print them all out, or display the DSL up/down times, with the up durations with output like this...

Quote:

... ... ...
up 13:43:00 : down 13:44:36 . System was up for 96 seconds(1.6 minutes)
up 13:45:33 : down 13:45:52 . System was up for 19 seconds(0.316667 minutes)
up 13:46:49 : down 13:47:10 . System was up for 21 seconds(0.35 minutes)
up 13:48:07 : down 13:48:27 . System was up for 20 seconds(0.333333 minutes)

Summary at 15:46:22:
===================

system came up 56 times, went down 55 times
System is up since 13:49:53,
Uptime: 116.48 minutes

Grabbing the line stats would be nice, but I'm well out of practice at the stuff I used to do to earn a living, let alone html stuff, which I never did. And I don't think this horrible router can be telnetted to.

For our second connection, this time a FTTH, i was looking for a simple and economic router. Went with the Digisol DG-HR3400, a 300Mbps router with 2 5dbi antenna and 5 year warranty. Setup was very simple, the router is tiny! My existing Linksys WRT54G is located next to this one, and the Digisols range is around 25% more measured using some app on android. :)

For 890/- this is indeed a good choice, and Made in India.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carboy (Post 3816595)

People with Hathway Cable internet in Bombay - what modem do you recommend for a 1 BHK flat? The person has an older UT Starcomm modem from BSNL which worked well with both BSNL and Airtel but Hathway is saying that it will not work with Hathway.

What you need is a WiFi router. Modem is required only of you have DSL line. I have been using TP link and it works well and priced competitively as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 3811037)

try reset, reboot, enter your broadband user details, then again reboot. Check if there are any software updates and follow same procedure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carboy (Post 3816595)

what modem do you recommend for a 1 BHK flat?.

Quote:

Originally Posted by linuxmanju (Post 3816611)

What you need is a WiFi router.

I think you will need a cable modem like Motorola Surfboard. It takes in coaxial cable and give output as an Ethernet cable. After this you will need a wireless router as suggested by linuxmanju

Quote:

Originally Posted by diyguy (Post 3816644)

I think you will need a cable modem like Motorola Surfboard. It takes in coaxial cable and give output as an Ethernet cable. After this you will need a wireless router as suggested by linuxmanju

I doubt that. Hathway guys here provide a modulator which takes coax in and RJ45 out. All he needs is a WiFi router. Any other coax converter they refuse to support at least here in Bangalore.