Wireless Router Has Fainting Spells

[Lemur]

Okay, the radio on my main router died, so a friend tossed me an older G-class Linksys router which I've tarted up with dd-wrt. With me so far?

For reasons of layout and home age, my main gaming PC is connected wirelessly. Now, I have noticed that when I'm doing big Bittorrent downloads, the router's wireless portion quits. Just quits out completely. I noticed this when I was downloading an Ubuntu distro, and I thought, well, that's just a funny thing.

But last night I was torrenting the latest build of DarthMod Empire, and it happened again. And again. And again. 2.8 gigs of glorious mod, and it took all night because my router kept rolling over.

This does not happen with FTP downloads, or HTML downloads. For example, when I had to re-download 25 megs of Avast Anti-Virus free software, the router was fine. Likewise when I pull down huge files for work from either our FTP site or Dropbox.

So it sure as hell looks like my router is have a particular problem with torrents.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

I know there are direct links for downloading things like Ubuntu and DarthMod, but I like to torrent them. Makes me feel like I'm giving back a little of my bandwidth as a thank-you for the nice software. Also, I have found torrents to be generally more stable for Really Big Files. I'd like to be able to continue with that distribution platform. But if it makes my router choke up blood ...

[TinCow]

Sometimes routers die. My general reaction to router problems is to toss the thing and buy a new one. However, if you don't want to do that I'd suggest trying to update the firmware to see if it helps.

If it helps with the wiring, I've been very pleased with my powerline extenders. The speed through that thing is very good from a wired connection, and I also moved a wifi emitter onto the end of it as well and it's holding up very good wifi speed as well. If you don't mind spending some money, I give those devices two thumbs up for solving networking issues without running more cables.

[Xiahou]

In my opinion, wireless still isn't ready for primetime when it comes to networking the requires low latency and high performance. Great for connectivity- crap for performance. Like Tincow says, when straight up ethernet connections aren't a possibility, powerline bridges are the next best thing for the home users.

Okay, the radio on my main router died, so a friend tossed me an older G-class Linksys router which I've tarted up with dd-wrt. With me so far?

A couple questions... did you completely swap out your old router, or just add the linksys to the existing router to make use of its wireless capabilities? Did you ever have this problem with your old router?

[Lemur]

A couple questions... did you completely swap out your old router, or just add the linksys to the existing router to make use of its wireless capabilities? Did you ever have this problem with your old router?

Complete swap. The old Netgear router was completely burned out as a wireless device; some Googling showed this was a common problem with the model. The wifi just ... dies. Still a lovely 4-port switch, but useless to me as a household networking device.

Nope, no problems with the Netgear. The file-transfer blues started with the Linksys (which is, as noted, tarted up in dd-wrt drag).

-edit-

And I am intrigued by the double-barreled recommendation of powerline networking. Models/makes you guys particularly like/have experience with?

[Xiahou]

Complete swap. The old Netgear router was completely burned out as a wireless device; some Googling showed this was a common problem with the model. The wifi just ... dies. Still a lovely 4-port switch, but useless to me as a household networking device.

I don't know how much time you want to spend on this but.... I'd consider bringing your Netgear back online as your router and DHCP server and attach your Linksys for wireless only. Just disable DHCP on it and attach it to your Netgear via LAN ports. Then see if the problem still occurs. This would narrow it down to either the wireless or the router portion of the Linksys.

And I am intrigued by the double-barreled recommendation of powerline networking. Models/makes you guys particularly like/have experience with?

I have 3 of these guys. I've used them for years with few problems. If I had to buy the hardware over again, I'd probably go with the Western Digital Livewire kit, since it gives you 4 useable ethernet ports on both sides of the bridge- and it has very positive reviews. I know TC used something else for his setup that he seems pretty happy with.

[Xiahou]

Uh-oh, looks like this can be a problem on older routers with limited RAM.

You can still try the troubleshooting steps outlined about. If insufficient RAM is the problem, that setup should alleviate it....

[Tellos Athenaios]

Tarting up with dd-wrt is lovely but it does have a bit of a RAM/CPU footprint by default. Could very well be that the combination of fancy firmware + lots of simultaneous connections is simply too much. If the netgear still works you can configure the netgear to do all the router-y stuff, and simply use the linksys as AP with static IP in the netgear subnet and turn off pretty much any feature you can turn off (especially firewall, NAT, printer/NFS/SMB servers and the like).

[TinCow]

And I am intrigued by the double-barreled recommendation of powerline networking. Models/makes you guys particularly like/have experience with?

These are what I have, purchased from Newegg. I have no experience with any other models, but so far these things work well. Just plug them in and they work. One of the nice things about that system is that there are three different kinds of 'receiver' units, a 1-port ethernet, a 4-port ethernet, and a wifi emitter (which I think also has a 1-port on it). You can buy more as needed to cover your house, of whatever version seems most useful for that room.

I've read that powerline extenders can have problems with new houses that use AFCI breakers, but I unless your home is less than 10 years old that's probably not an issue for you.

[Lemur]

looks like this can be a problem on older routers with limited RAM.

That sounds right. Trying the settings now. I guess I will attempt to re-download the DarthMod Empire torrent and see if that fixes the router fainting problem.

I know this is kinda pathetic, but where my cable internet comes into the house, I have a severe shortage of working electrical outlets. So having two routers up is not a great solution (I try to keep the number of devices in my networking cabinet to a severe minimum). Also, very hard to arrange a naked wall-plug for powerline networking. So ... fixing the Linksys is the optimal solution. For now.

Thanks to all of you for holding my hand and generally talking me off the ledge. You are all good peeps. I would buy each of you a Guinness, if I could.

[TinCow]

I know this is kinda pathetic, but where my cable internet comes into the house, I have a severe shortage of working electrical outlets.

I hope you can solve your problems with the router, as that's clearly the easiest solution to your problem if it's possible. That said, it's not very difficult to add additional wall outlets to a room. If you're not capable of doing it yourself, it should be a relatively cheap job for an electrician and might be something worth considering if it's causing you problems. You can really keep the cost down if you just have the electrician install the outlets and then do the drywall repair yourself. If you don't mind some painting and sanding, it's actually pretty easy (and cheap) to run ethernet and coax around your house as well. If you're going to be in that house for a while and cabling is causing problems, I'd highly recommend simply fixing that problem by running a few new wires and installing new outlets.

[Lemur]

If you're going to be in that house for a while

And there's the rub—we intend to move within a year or two, so sinking significant time and/or money into this house is a Bad Idea. The media company I work for is in Chicago, and the wife-creature just picked up new work in Illinois. So Wisconsin is becoming ... inconvenient. Ultimately we need to follow the money.

When we move into a new house, however, I intend to set aside time and money for wiring the place for ethernet; wifi networking is kinda ghetto.

[TinCow]

And there's the rub—we intend to move within a year or two

Yeah, try and get the wifi fixed then. I'm a remodeling fanatic (I even have workmen in the house at the very moment I'm writing this), but I also know I'm not going anywhere for at least five more years.

[Lemur]

Well, I let the router try handling a re-download of DarthMod Empire, and it no likey. This after changing the settings and rebooting per the article @Xiahou found.

I think mebbe the simplest, cheapest solution would be to nab a cheap N-class router (with a reasonable amount of RAM), tart it up with DD-WRT, and call it a day.

I've already sunk too much time and thought into this problem. Time to plonk down thirty bucks and walk away whistling.

[Xiahou]

Yeah, try and get the wifi fixed then. I'm a remodeling fanatic (I even have workmen in the house at the very moment I'm writing this), but I also know I'm not going anywhere for at least five more years.

If you're remodeling, I hope you're having the place wired for gig ethernet.

[Lemur]

Ordering new router from Newegg now. Gonna walk away and pretend this never happened.