|
|
Post by garbulky on Jun 22, 2021 9:53:32 GMT -5
Right now, it looks like the RAX series appear to be riddled with some sort of bugs. So I'm looking at the prior series. My relative has suggested Amazon Eero but I'm not keen on having a mesh.
|
|
|
|
Post by adaboy on Jun 22, 2021 11:45:43 GMT -5
Hi all, I want to upgrade my router to take advantage of the prime day deals. I have an AC2600 Motorolla MR2600. I have nearly 40 smart home devices and the problem is that the router routinely loses connection with various smart home devices (though it eventually gets them back). This gets very frustrating especially when you have group routines and notice a few lights are still turned on when they are supposed to be off. Most of my smart home devices are 2.4 ghz. Only the tablets, phones, and two tv streamers connect at higher frequency hich count for about 20% of the devices. The other is that during facetime calls and the like there is some significant interruptions and drop outs. I'm hoping to spend between $200-300. Currently I am looking at Netgear Nighthawk X6s www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Nighthawk-X6S-Smart-Router-R8000P/dp/B01H53WZ20/I am attracted to this opne because it says it supports 55 devices - but I don't know how accurate that is. and Netgear AX6600 (RAX70) www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Nighthawk-8-Stream-Tri-band-Router/dp/B08KTWXCZT/I am attracted to this because it says it is an 8 stream router but doesn't mention number of devices. I have little use for more speed, but it's very important the connection doesn't drop with the large number of devices (40). I am not currently wanting to go for a mesh router. So what would your suggestions be? ASUS GT-AX11000 Oops... Edit sub $300.00? ASUS RT-AX88U |
|
|
|
Post by garbulky on Jun 22, 2021 12:24:45 GMT -5
Thank you everybody that has contributed. I definitely learned a lot. Perhaps getting a mesh is the best outcome, but it's just not something that I want to mess around with now. What I ended up doing is going with a TP-link AX6000 which was discounted to about $250. It seemed to have more reports of the word "stability" and "smart home devices". I really did want to step up to the triband AX11000 but I noticed more reports of bugs and hang ups and failure of the 2.4 ghz band. So I decided to stick with the step lower.  To answer the questions about hard wired connections, I don't like wifi connections and use ethernet whenever possible. However, my smart home has somewhereclose to 40 wifi devices which just aren't feasible to run a million wires too (and they aren't capable of it if I wanted to). These include (so many) bulbs, light switches in walls, a thermostat, smart plugs etc. Facetime is used almost exclusively with devices meant for portable use like an iphone so that too makes ethernet unsuitable for use. Even a lot of streaming media devices now do wifi only like the fire tv 4k stick. However, I did get a cumbersome ethernet adapter and I am using it with that. Even though it is more stable than wifi,m this ethernet adapter is not perfect and does sometimes not connect to the internet after a powerfailure and requires a reset. |
|
|
|
Post by AudioHTIT on Jun 22, 2021 13:09:09 GMT -5
Thank you everybody that has contributed. I definitely learned a lot. Perhaps getting a mesh is the best outcome, but it's just not something that I want to mess around with now. What I ended up doing is going with a TP-link AX6000 which was discounted to about $250. It seemed to have more reports of the word "stability" and "smart home devices". I really did want to step up to the triband AX11000 but I noticed more reports of bugs and hang ups and failure of the 2.4 ghz band. So I decided to stick with the step lower. To answer the questions about hard wired connections, I don't like wifi connections and use ethernet whenever possible. However, my smart home has somewhereclose to 40 wifi devices which just aren't feasible to run a million wires too (and they aren't capable of it if I wanted to). These include (so many) bulbs, light switches in walls, a thermostat, smart plugs etc. Facetime is used almost exclusively with devices meant for portable use like an iphone so that too makes ethernet unsuitable for use. Even a lot of streaming media devices now do wifi only like the fire tv 4k stick. However, I did get a cumbersome ethernet adapter and I am using it with that. Even though it is more stable than wifi,m this ethernet adapter is not perfect and does sometimes not connect to the internet after a powerfailure and requires a reset. Well, it didn't work for me because of limited DHCP reservations, but that doesn't matter to most, here's what I wrote exactly a year ago! "TP-Link Archer AX6000 — Another looker, reminds me of the huge alien ship from The Abyss (did I mention I like SciFi?). Also nice that it has an 8 port Gig switch built in! It has a workaround for the sorting issue, in that it doesn’t reorder the reservation table when you edit an entry, so you can make a dummy table in order. You do have to put your entries in backwards, in my case starting with 100 and working down, as the last entry becomes first, but that’s no harder than doing it forward. BUT! The most anemic Max DHCP reservations I’ve seen with a total of 32!!! (this is after their tech support said it had 250, so I bought it for a great price on Amazon Prime Day). Didn’t get to do any range testing, it wasn’t out of the box long enough and went back today." |
|
|
|
Post by garbulky on Jun 22, 2021 13:17:53 GMT -5
Thank you everybody that has contributed. I definitely learned a lot. Perhaps getting a mesh is the best outcome, but it's just not something that I want to mess around with now. What I ended up doing is going with a TP-link AX6000 which was discounted to about $250. It seemed to have more reports of the word "stability" and "smart home devices". I really did want to step up to the triband AX11000 but I noticed more reports of bugs and hang ups and failure of the 2.4 ghz band. So I decided to stick with the step lower. To answer the questions about hard wired connections, I don't like wifi connections and use ethernet whenever possible. However, my smart home has somewhereclose to 40 wifi devices which just aren't feasible to run a million wires too (and they aren't capable of it if I wanted to). These include (so many) bulbs, light switches in walls, a thermostat, smart plugs etc. Facetime is used almost exclusively with devices meant for portable use like an iphone so that too makes ethernet unsuitable for use. Even a lot of streaming media devices now do wifi only like the fire tv 4k stick. However, I did get a cumbersome ethernet adapter and I am using it with that. Even though it is more stable than wifi,m this ethernet adapter is not perfect and does sometimes not connect to the internet after a powerfailure and requires a reset. Well, it didn't work for me because of limited DHCP reservations, but that doesn't matter to most, here's what I wrote exactly a year ago! "TP-Link Archer AX6000 — Another looker, reminds me of the huge alien ship from The Abyss (did I mention I like SciFi?). Also nice that it has an 8 port Gig switch built in! It has a workaround for the sorting issue, in that it doesn’t reorder the reservation table when you edit an entry, so you can make a dummy table in order. You do have to put your entries in backwards, in my case starting with 100 and working down, as the last entry becomes first, but that’s no harder than doing it forward. BUT! The most anemic Max DHCP reservations I’ve seen with a total of 32!!! (this is after their tech support said it had 250, so I bought it for a great price on Amazon Prime Day). Didn’t get to do any range testing, it wasn’t out of the box long enough and went back today." When you say only 32 does that mean that’s the max amount of devices it can handle at a time? |
|
|
|
Post by AudioHTIT on Jun 22, 2021 13:28:18 GMT -5
Well, it didn't work for me because of limited DHCP reservations, but that doesn't matter to most, here's what I wrote exactly a year ago! "TP-Link Archer AX6000 — Another looker, reminds me of the huge alien ship from The Abyss (did I mention I like SciFi?). Also nice that it has an 8 port Gig switch built in! It has a workaround for the sorting issue, in that it doesn’t reorder the reservation table when you edit an entry, so you can make a dummy table in order. You do have to put your entries in backwards, in my case starting with 100 and working down, as the last entry becomes first, but that’s no harder than doing it forward. BUT! The most anemic Max DHCP reservations I’ve seen with a total of 32!!! (this is after their tech support said it had 250, so I bought it for a great price on Amazon Prime Day). Didn’t get to do any range testing, it wasn’t out of the box long enough and went back today." When you say only 32 does that mean that’s the max amount of devices it can handle at a time? No, as I said in my last post, DHCP Reservations are used to give specific devices (like your PC), a specific address (like 10.10.10.10). With 32 reservations possible, you’ll be able to give 32 devices specific addresses, the rest will come out of the pool as assigned by DHCP. As I said, it’s only a big deal if you keep your network very organized, as I do. Edit: Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, since you don’t know what reservations are, you’re not likely to use them, and you have enough to do anything important that comes along. |
|
|
|
Post by Jean Genie on Jun 22, 2021 13:51:28 GMT -5
Switches? What is so important about these things and what exactly do they do? Never heard of them until now. Thanks. First, if you have a router with multiple Ethernet ports on the back, you already have a small switch, essentially it gives you more places to plug your devices in. Those connectors are called RJ-45, and are a larger version of the RJ-11 connections some of us may still have to plug a POT into (Plain Old Telephone). Switches also allow you to have more ‘ports’ at a remote location. Say your router is somewhere that gives you good WiFi coverage, but you have a ‘AV Center’ on the other side of the house (with an AVR, TV, streaming box, disc player, music server, etc). You could run a single CAT6 cable across the house, plug one end into the router and the other end into a switch, it would give you a place to plug all those devices in (and avoid WiFi). Switches come in various sizes: 4, 8, 16, 24, 48 ports depending on your need — always buy at least one more port than you have devices (to plug the link in). You can extend from that switch to another switch as well. Switches also have other qualities like ‘managed’, ‘wire speed’, and a myriad of performance and configuration options, but they’re usually only important in large or very secure networks, in the home most cheap switches will work fine. You can get an 8 port switch for about $20. Edit, switches also have port speeds, these days you should buy a 1 Gbps switch (Gigabits per second).Thanks for the explanation, very informative. One question: My router/modem(?) has four "LAN" ports in back, do I just plug one end of a CAT6 cable into one of those & the other end into my device and I'm done, or do I need to go to my provider's (Verizon Fios) website to configure/assign stuff? Thanks and please ignore my ignorance, I'm a bit of a technophobe. |
|
|
|
Post by AudioHTIT on Jun 22, 2021 14:06:22 GMT -5
First, if you have a router with multiple Ethernet ports on the back, you already have a small switch, essentially it gives you more places to plug your devices in. Those connectors are called RJ-45, and are a larger version of the RJ-11 connections some of us may still have to plug a POT into (Plain Old Telephone). Switches also allow you to have more ‘ports’ at a remote location. Say your router is somewhere that gives you good WiFi coverage, but you have a ‘AV Center’ on the other side of the house (with an AVR, TV, streaming box, disc player, music server, etc). You could run a single CAT6 cable across the house, plug one end into the router and the other end into a switch, it would give you a place to plug all those devices in (and avoid WiFi). Switches come in various sizes: 4, 8, 16, 24, 48 ports depending on your need — always buy at least one more port than you have devices (to plug the link in). You can extend from that switch to another switch as well. Switches also have other qualities like ‘managed’, ‘wire speed’, and a myriad of performance and configuration options, but they’re usually only important in large or very secure networks, in the home most cheap switches will work fine. You can get an 8 port switch for about $20. Edit, switches also have port speeds, these days you should buy a 1 Gbps switch (Gigabits per second).Thanks for the explanation, very informative. One question: My router/modem(?) has four "LAN" ports in back, do I just plug one end of a CAT6 cable into one of those & the other end into my device and I'm done, or do I need to go to my provider's (Verizon Fios) website to configure/assign stuff? Thanks and please ignore my ignorance, I'm a bit of a technophobe. Thanks, glad it helped, and yes, just as you described it, plug one end into the router, and the other end into the switch. It should extend whatever network is setup by default on your router. Personally, I would learn what that network is: addresses, subnet mask, gateway, DNS, etc. — but I’m a geek about that stuff and it’s not necessary. Give it a try and see what happens. |
|
|
|
Post by garbulky on Jun 22, 2021 14:15:24 GMT -5
When you say only 32 does that mean that’s the max amount of devices it can handle at a time? No, as I said in my last post, DHCP Reservations are used to give specific devices (like your PC), a specific address (like 10.10.10.10). With 32 reservations possible, you’ll be able to give 32 devices specific addresses, the rest will come out of the pool as assigned by DHCP. As I said, it’s only a big deal if you keep your network very organized, as I do. Edit: Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, since you don’t know what reservations are, you’re not likely to use them, and you have enough to do anything important that comes along.Ok good so it will still get the address, just not one that I can personally assign. That's fine by me. |
|
|
|
Post by LuisV on Jun 22, 2021 14:24:05 GMT -5
Rather than a new all in one router, offload your current router's wireless duties to wired access points. Based on the size and number of floors, place them strategically throughout the home to maximize your wireless coverage. TP-Link and Ubiquiti make easy to install, configure and manage APs. I've been a Ubiquiti user for close to a decade now, so I'm biased towards their products... been extremely satisfied.
|
|
KeithL
Administrator 
Posts: 10,261
|
Post by KeithL on Jun 22, 2021 17:05:22 GMT -5
Back in the early days of cable modems many actually had a very limited address POOL (meaning that they could only support having five or ten devices connected). However I haven't heard of that sort of thing being a problem in years...
(And this is a different thing than specifically offering the option to reserve a limited number of addresses.)
However, depending on how many devices you have, how many friends you have, and where you live, it's still possible for the pool to get used up.
Once an address is assigned to a device it remains "leased" to that device for some number of hours before being "released back into the pool".
Therefore it's possible for every address in the pool to "get used up".
(Imagine if you lived in an apartment complex and every smart phone that passes by in the hall grans an address from your router.) This is rather unlikely with modern routers... However, if there is any doubt, simply rebooting your router will clear the table, and make it all new again.
When you say only 32 does that mean that’s the max amount of devices it can handle at a time? No, as I said in my last post, DHCP Reservations are used to give specific devices (like your PC), a specific address (like 10.10.10.10). With 32 reservations possible, you’ll be able to give 32 devices specific addresses, the rest will come out of the pool as assigned by DHCP. As I said, it’s only a big deal if you keep your network very organized, as I do. Edit: Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, since you don’t know what reservations are, you’re not likely to use them, and you have enough to do anything important that comes along. |
|
|
|
Post by garbulky on Jun 22, 2021 17:18:53 GMT -5
Back in the early days of cable modems many actually had a very limited address POOL (meaning that they could only support having five or ten devices connected). However I haven't heard of that sort of thing being a problem in years...
(And this is a different thing than specifically offering the option to reserve a limited number of addresses.)
However, depending on how many devices you have, how many friends you have, and where you live, it's still possible for the pool to get used up. Once an address is assigned to a device it remains "leased" to that device for some number of hours before being "released back into the pool".
Therefore it's possible for every address in the pool to "get used up".
(Imagine if you lived in an apartment complex and every smart phone that passes by in the hall grans an address from your router.) This is rather unlikely with modern routers... However, if there is any doubt, simply rebooting your router will clear the table, and make it all new again.
No, as I said in my last post, DHCP Reservations are used to give specific devices (like your PC), a specific address (like 10.10.10.10). With 32 reservations possible, you’ll be able to give 32 devices specific addresses, the rest will come out of the pool as assigned by DHCP. As I said, it’s only a big deal if you keep your network very organized, as I do. Edit: Don’t worry, you’ll be fine, since you don’t know what reservations are, you’re not likely to use them, and you have enough to do anything important that comes along.When it gets released back in to the pool after a few hours, do you think this might explain why some of my smart home devices lose connection over time in an random sort of manner and then come back? |
|
|
|
Post by AudioHTIT on Jun 22, 2021 18:13:57 GMT -5
Back in the early days of cable modems many actually had a very limited address POOL (meaning that they could only support having five or ten devices connected). However I haven't heard of that sort of thing being a problem in years...
(And this is a different thing than specifically offering the option to reserve a limited number of addresses.)
However, depending on how many devices you have, how many friends you have, and where you live, it's still possible for the pool to get used up. Once an address is assigned to a device it remains "leased" to that device for some number of hours before being "released back into the pool".
Therefore it's possible for every address in the pool to "get used up".
(Imagine if you lived in an apartment complex and every smart phone that passes by in the hall grans an address from your router.) This is rather unlikely with modern routers... However, if there is any doubt, simply rebooting your router will clear the table, and make it all new again.
When it gets released back in to the pool after a few hours, do you think this might explain why some of my smart home devices lose connection over time in an random sort of manner and then come back? Probably not, and this ‘lease time’ is a parameter you can set, defaults are often one to three days. This means, you come home with your iPhone, it requests an address from your DHCP pool, the router looks up the next available and gives it to you. You then get to keep that address until the lease runs out, when that happens, your phone renews it for you in the background and it’s rarely an issue. Now if you brought everyone home from the local pub — and you already had lots of devices on your network — everyone might not get an address. Your WiFi problems are rarely because of DHCP, and if they are it’s fairly easy to fix. More likely you have other networks around interfering with your channel(s), you can get a wifi scanner to see what’s going on around you, and if your router is making good channel decisions. |
|
klinemj
Emo VIPs 
Official Emofest Scribe
Posts: 15,089
|
Post by klinemj on Jul 6, 2021 11:42:59 GMT -5
If you have to use Wifi, which I frequently call why---fi. Keith is right. A wire is dependable Radio well not so much. All my connections are wired. My tablet and phone are not, and I am okay with that. I hear routers here but with the number of devices here, surprised nobody is mentioning a switch. I'm a big fan of hard wiring all I can, so I have 3 switches. My network starts with a cable modem that outputs to my router. The router feeds 3 switches...one in my theater, one at my main TV watching area that also includes a headphone station, and one in my utility room that feeds various hard wired wall jacks around my house. We use wifi only for what has to be wifi...our tablets/laptops, phones, and my daughter's firestick. Mark |
|
|
|
Post by garbulky on Jul 6, 2021 11:51:40 GMT -5
It's in the house. But I haven't felt like taking the time to get it all setup.
|
|
|
|
Post by novisnick on Jul 10, 2021 20:09:34 GMT -5
It's in the house. But I haven't felt like taking the time to get it all setup. WELL! Some of us are waiting! LOL Let use know what your experience is please. |
|
|
|
Post by garbulky on Jul 10, 2021 22:56:34 GMT -5
It's in the house. But I haven't felt like taking the time to get it all setup. WELL! Some of us are waiting! LOL Let use know what your experience is please. lol. I will but I am exhausted! |
|
|
|
Post by housetech on Jul 11, 2021 17:15:15 GMT -5
I also run switches from the router because I prefer hardwire. We cut the DTV cable and stream 2 TVs simultaneously, 3 PCs and other electronics.
Recently got a VPN Linksys 3200 router, so far it's been great.
Has anyone found a Cat 6 tool that allows easy install of terminal ends of the wires? I would like to 'tighty-up' the Cat wiring runs to proper lengths.
|
|
|
|
Post by novisnick on Jul 11, 2021 21:21:44 GMT -5
Hi guys, Id like to tag on to this thread and ask another question about a suggestion. Im having problems with my current router and I believe it at end of life. My cable modem is at one end of the house on the second floor and I need a suggestion for a new router to reach the other end of the house on the first floor. The house is 2,800 sf amd the distance across the house is about 44’. I too have a lot of gadgets to connect via WIFI. What are your suggestions my friends. garbulky , If you like I’d be happy to start another thread but thought you may be interested as well. Thanks all |
|
|
|
Post by AudioHTIT on Jul 11, 2021 21:35:51 GMT -5
Hi guys, Id like to tag on to this thread and ask another question about a suggestion. Im having problems with my current router and I believe it at end of life. My cable modem is at one end of the house on the second floor and I need a suggestion for a new router to reach the other end of the house on the first floor. The house is 2,800 sf amd the distance across the house is about 44’. I too have a lot of gadgets to connect via WIFI. What are your suggestions my friends. garbulky , If you like I’d be happy to start another thread but thought you may be interested as well. Thanks all Do you have any CAT6 or Coax running between the two ends of the house? |
|
