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[DarthWoo]

I've been having some bad intermittent connection drops lately. At their worst it can drop for about a minute every few minutes for about an hour. It's been going on for the past three days, but had also occurred a few months ago for about two straight days. Between that period and this one, everything was pretty much fine. The Verizon tech support swears that there's nothing wrong on their end, and suggests it may be my router. I can't really go taking my router out of the network for a while, as other people need what unreliable wireless signal there remains for at least a couple days.

What I wonder is, if the router is dying, would it still be disrupting my wired connection as well? If it had been the router in the previous incident, why would the problems have gone away on their own for such a long time? If all else fails, what's a good cheapo router to replace it with? It's an old, previously and hopefully still-reliable Linksys WRT54G.

 

[DarthWoo]

Just thought of something else. Short of finding some random large file to download so I can monitor the download rates over time, is there any tiny program that can monitor the consistency of the wired connection over time and let me know if it has dropped? I need some way to test once I take the router out that doesn't involve me sitting at my computer for hours.

 

[stolin]

I have the same Linksys WRT54G (v.4) with wireless that is dying the same way. I played with it for a while before Christmas then simply shut off the wireless portion and enabled wireless on my newer Linksys WRT300N.

A few years back on another Linksys router (forget the number) the wireless was dying but the wired was fine. I experimented with and changed the base firmware to Tomato. That router is still fully working with great wireless at my parents place with no issues.

My suspicion is there is some firmware timeout or deterioration for the wireless to encourage re-purchasing. I have no proof, just my hardware & other anecdotal evidence.

I'll probably replace the WRT54G firmware on mine in the next few months to test for my curiosity. Right now I need to keep that MAC & IP and don't want to change it yet.

 

[DarthWoo]

I guess I can try the firmware thing. I just dug around in my email and realized I've actually had this thing for nearly 7 years now.

 

[stolin]

Post your results if you change to the Tomato firmware. I haven't heard of any problems after changing. Just use the correct binary.

 

[QualityPixel]

I have the same router, and it does the same stuff from time to time. Wireless will stop working for a short while, wired the same, and sometimes it wont let you log in with out resetting it.

So I will just unplug it for a couple seconds and plug it back in and it is good after that for a few days.

Putting that open-source firmware on it may solve your problems. I would do that, but I'm too lazy as my router is reachable from my desk.

 

[navanman]

I had something similar on my Netgear wireless router.
The cause was faulty capacitors on the router motherboard. You could open up your router and see if any of the capacitors are bulging.
If you are able, its a quick and easy fix to replace them.

 

[DarthWoo]

I was reading some article somewhere that says that with the right open source firmware, even relatively cheap routers can actually act like a low-end PC on their own. What other sorts of neat perks can one get this way?

 

[DarthWoo]

I had something similar on my Netgear wireless router.
The cause was faulty capacitors on the router motherboard. You could open up your router and see if any of the capacitors are bulging.
If you are able, its a quick and easy fix to replace them.

That sounds like something that would be beyond my comfort level. Is it true that the capacitors in a TV can hold sufficient charge to kill someone for days after the last time it was plugged in? Does the same apply to something small like a router?

 

[DarthWoo]

I haven't yet flashed a new firmware, but I took the thing apart briefly after finding out that it's pretty easy to do so. From what I remember of electronic components, it doesn't appear that anything is wrong inside apart from a little dust, but perhaps someone else can see something that I'm missing?

 

[stolin]

You should have tried the firmware. IMO the Tomato firmware is better than the stock LinkSys firmware interface anyway.

Let me know your results for the wireless after the firmware change.

 

[See You Next Wednesday]

Are you sure it's not Verizon's modem that is crapping out? It's more lily that than a router.

They lease out used & really old modems that usually only last for a couple of years at most. The first signs it's nearly DOA is losing intermittent connection from time to time & slower download speeds.

 

[DarthWoo]

Are you sure it's not Verizon's modem that is crapping out? It's more lily that than a router.

They lease out used & really old modems that usually only last for a couple of years at most. The first signs it's nearly DOA is losing intermittent connection from time to time & slower download speeds.

The one I have is a relatively newer model as far as I can tell, particularly since it was a replacement for one that got blown out in a storm about half a year ago. I'm sure it could possibly have been used, but it came in a pretty neatly packed OEM-like box in very clean condition.

So far as I can tell my connection has been fairly constant now that I've disconnected the router, but I'll still try the firmware tomorrow. I still need to find some program that can log the consistency of my connection, since task manager will only keep track of maybe the last few minutes and I don't feel like checking that often.

 

[DarthWoo]

Installed Tomato, and it seems to have been working steadily for the past five minutes, though there was a sudden drop in network usage almost immediately following its startup, though not enough to kick the PS3 off PSN again. I'm still downloading the Star Trek Online files, so hopefully that will serve as a good gauge of bandwidth usage. I'm pleasantly surprised at the ease of installation and how it retained all settings from the previous setup. The bandwidth monitor is a nice touch too, much better than Task Manager's.

Trying to install the GT5 update earlier today was a pain in the butt as it kept disconnecting from PSN halfway through the download, and critical updates can't be paused or resumed. Had to yank the ethernet cable out of my PC and put it in the PS3 and then once again pull the router out of the network to let that finish.

 

[DarthWoo]

Sadly, it seems that it must be the router hardware after all. Bandwidth still drops precipitously at random intervals. The only different so far this time has been that the PS3 manages to not get knocked off of PSN as easily.

Edit: I also noticed that the yellow flag doesn't seem to appear on the network icon in the task bar either, even when bandwidth bottoms out for a while.

 

[DarthWoo]

So now this is just getting irritating. It turns out that even after taking the router out of the loop, bandwidth still drops to nothing sometimes, just not nearly as frequently as with the router and typically not for as long. I wonder if it's possible that one of the DSL filters in the house has gone bad. I had a phone in the same room with the modem and router, with a splitter plugged into the wall, and the filter and phone on one end with the line to the modem on the other. That shouldn't really have affected it any, right? It hadn't been a problem since I set it up that way years ago, anyway.

It seems like this is adding up to be a combination of factors or something. I'm still not sure why the firmware update at least managed to prevent total disconnection from PSN and the icon being flagged on my PC. In any case, it still precludes much in the way of online gaming.