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I'm looking for bulk Cat6 for running the network for my family's business. Where an I find good prices on it? I can find 1000' of Cat6 STP for $155 from Monoprice, not including S&H. Is this as good as it get?
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Jan 24, 2013 21:06
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I need a bit of help reworking my company's network. We're a small nonprofit and I'm really just doing this in my downtime at work -- it's not my primary responsibility but I'd like to get some of these projects done and our IT stability improved. Basically, we have 4 desktops and 3-5 laptops that staff use. The wired connections go into a Dell PowerConnect 2716, and the wireless connections go into a WRT54G2, which also functions as the DHCP server and router, connected to a DSL modem. Then, we have a Dell PowerEdge T300 running Windows 2003 Small Business Server which hosts an Exchange server, a shared drive, and acts as a print server. It is also configured in some way to act as the DNS server. It originally simply forwarded to an OpenDNS resolver. That's how it was when I started working on it. Since then, I've changed the DNS forwarding to point to our ISPs resolver for speed and because we didn't need their filtering. I've also applied us to Google Apps for Education since we only have 5 user licenses on the server and it'd be silly for us to buy more. We've had 10 iMacs donated to us that we'd like to set up for students to use; the space we have to function as a lab is out of the range of our WRT54G2, and we'd prefer to have them connect wirelessly rather than buy and run cable. There is a wall plate in that space that connects to the switch, so we can buy a wireless access point or router and connect it down there. What I'd like to do, as we grow, is to upgrade this network so that it can scale a bit better. I feel it's a bit silly for us to have this T300 server when we have under 30 users total, and usually under 10 devices and users connected at one time. So when/if we're approved for Google Apps for Education, that'll remove the need for the Exchange server. Then, the only thing I'll need is a file and print server. I don't know if I'd be better served by installing some Linux distro to the server or trying to strip down the Windows Server installation, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there (Google Apps for Education takes a long time for approval -- the guy on the phone said 60-90 days). The 5 user limit bothers me a lot. So I guess after all this, my question is mostly about getting a wireless router for the downstairs. There will be 8 definite clients connected -- probably not usually in use at the same time -- but then I'd like there to be the flexibility for staff to connect their laptops and mobile devices to access the network. I think I'd like to be able to connect between 15 and 20 clients wirelessly. None of these will be very heavy use -- students generally just do YouTube or flash games, and staff usually just access documents, e-mail, calendar, and print. I couldn't figure out if there was a way to determine what my usage will be and what metric to go buy when comparing routers -- what sort of hardware (memory and processing speed), if I need 1 or 2 radios, what the speeds should be, etc.
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Jan 24, 2013 22:58
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SlayVus posted:I'm looking for bulk Cat6 for running the network for my family's business. Where an I find good prices on it? STP might be kinda terrible since it will also require proper grounding with specialized jacks. Just go with the regular UTP cat6.
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Jan 25, 2013 04:21
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Devian666 posted:The signal strength looks ok but not great, but it's in a range where I wouldn't typically expect 1 mb/s connection. Typically wireless will try turning down connection speed if it is struggling to get a high speed signal through. Typically I only rely on the stated connection speed when copying files or streaming across wifi so you may want to check while attempting to copy files. The other thing I would recommend doing is only test connection speed with a single pc or laptop and have all other wifi devices, such as phones/ipods etc, off so they don't drag down the connection speed. Yeah, it definitely impairs file transfers. It struggles to get 30KB/s at times, but usually hangs around 150-200KB/s when it's acting up. All with just a single wall in the way, probably 10 feet away. And it happens when there's just one device connected to it.
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Jan 25, 2013 12:18
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 Linksys SOLD to Belkin, Cisco gets out of consumer market http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/24/belkin-helps-cisco-exit-consumer-space-by-acquiring-its-home-networking-division-including-linksys/ TheNextWeb posted:Belkin on Thursday announced plans to acquire Cisco’s Home Networking Business Unit, including its products, technology, employees, and even the well-known Linksys brand. Belkin says it plans to maintain the Linksys brand and will offer support for Linksys products as part of the transaction, financial details for which were not disclosed. Well, that's what happens when you piss off customers by making them sign onerous agreements just to control their own routers. They just didn't know what they were doing.
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Jan 25, 2013 20:39
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On the other hand, I've never run across a Belkin router that didn't overheat or crash under load. They deserve each other.
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Jan 25, 2013 20:46
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Movac posted:On the other hand, I've never run across a Belkin router that didn't overheat or crash under load. They deserve each other. Yeah, I have had terrible experiences with most Belkin products, considerably worse than I've seen with most Linksys stuff. Hopefully Asus will push their consumer networking stuff harder.
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Jan 25, 2013 20:51
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I just purchased a TP-LINK TL-WDR3600 for cheap and put OpenWRT on there and it's working great. However, I'm running into a problem where I have a desktop and laptop that I use for work that I VPN on and then Remote Desktop from the desktop into the laptop. On my old DD-WRT router this worked fine but the OpenWRT router isn't routing to the laptop over the LAN. The problem appears to be OpenWRT resolves LAN connections as IPv4 and DD-WRT used IPv6. I tried figuring out how to configure OpenWRT to do this but I'm not having any luck everything seems to be doing IPv6 over the WAN connection. If I connection to the IPv6 address directly I can get to the laptop no matter the VPN connection.
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Jan 25, 2013 22:55
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dakana posted:So I guess after all this, my question is mostly about getting a wireless router for the downstairs. There will be 8 definite clients connected -- probably not usually in use at the same time -- but then I'd like there to be the flexibility for staff to connect their laptops and mobile devices to access the network. I think I'd like to be able to connect between 15 and 20 clients wirelessly. None of these will be very heavy use -- students generally just do YouTube or flash games, and staff usually just access documents, e-mail, calendar, and print. One of the sub-100 dollar routers will probably work fine for this application. Dropping funds on an Airport Extreme Basestation may also give you excellent compatibility between vendors. I'd do this with wired links for all the computers because wireless is flaky voodoo at the best of times. Throwing a wifi router in there as a wireless bridge isn't a terrible idea, I just wouldn't like to see a bunch of computers trying to access it for real work along with teacher gadgets and other less important gear. A couple cheap gigabit switches and some ethernet would make for a great permanent installation.
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Jan 25, 2013 23:50
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I still use a WRT54G with DD-WRT. I live in a complex full of people with wireless routers on every channel and I don't think I can migrate anything to N. DD-WRT reports the signals are ~50% but the vast majority of errors are on TX not RX, would that imply I should boost the TX power? Or is there a wireless router with better antennas/noise handling? I hope there's a better solution than cranking up the juice, especially since I'm probably 15' from the router through interior wall.
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Jan 26, 2013 08:25
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I have an Airport Extreme Base Station, and I need to connect my AppleTV to the internet through a VPN sometimes. In order to do this, I have an old Mac Mini that I've set up a to use a VPN I subscribe to, and then I share the internet connection of the Mac Mini over ethernet. Whenever I need to connect my AppleTV to the VPN, I just make sure the VPN is connected on the Mac Mini, and then plug the cable into the Apple TV. When I'm done, I just unplug the cable. My main problem with this is that prior to setting this up, my Mac Mini was connected to the router via Ethernet. And, as such, speeds when copying files over the network to drives on the Mac Mini were pretty fast. But now that I have to connect the Mac to the router wirelessly, and because it has an older Airport card that is much slower, my transfer speeds have plummeted. So, my question is, is there any other way I can achieve the same effect? Is there maybe a wireless bridge or wireless access point that I could set to connect to a VPN and then hook up wired to the AppleTV? Cheaper is better, obviously, especially since I'm very happy with the way I have things set up now, aside from that one speed issue.
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Jan 26, 2013 08:30
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I am having a hard time understanding the problem you are trying to solve, but I'll take a stab at it. Problem: When I connect the AppleTV to the VPN, I have to disconnect the ethernet cable from my MacMini. The Mac Mini then defaults to wireless connection to the router. As a result, file transfers on the internal network between MacMini and other network hosts take much longer. Do you have to connect the Mac to router wirelessly permanently now (because you have changed the location of equipment)? Or do you only have to connect the Mac to the router wirelessly when you disconnect the ethernet cable from the back of the MacMini and plug it in to the AppleTV? If you are simply looking for a way to not have to unplug the MiniMac from the router, have you tried putting a switch between the router and the MiniMac so you can plug the AppleTV in without unplugging the MiniMac? Edit: tried to include a diagram, and failed horribly.
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Jan 26, 2013 18:27
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So how up to date is the OP really? I'm looking to replace my aging linksys wrt54gl. I guess I want dual-band, and I need it to have a handful of LAN ports for a number of non-wifi-capable devices. Right now, all four LAN ports on my linksys are full, so I'd like to get a router that has a couple extras so I have room to grow. I ask about the up-to-date-ness of the OP because it looks like some of the routers it lists as not being DD-WRT compatible actually are at this point, and the info hasn't been updated since November. Anyhow, I was looking at the Netgear 3700, but it only has the four LAN ports. Money's not particularly an issue, although I don't want to spend more than I have to. So yeah, looking for advice on a dual-band router with >4 LAN Gbit ports, preferably one that can be flashed.
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Jan 26, 2013 18:31
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You're going to have a tough time finding a wireless router with >4 ethernet ports at any speed. The reason is that the number of people that need that solution is relatively low and doesn't just the expense of maintaining another sku. The reason that the number of people that need that solution is so low is that you can connect the uplink port of a switch (with the number of ports you need) to one of the LAN ports on the router, if you need more ethernet connections. So for <$50 you can connect an inexpensive switch and turn one router LAN port into 3 or four. If you need 32 ports, you could connect one 8-port switch to each of the router ports for a total of 32 available - and you can theoretically daisy chain from the 8 port switches and grow the number of available LAN ports geomtretically. Of course, there is the limit of 7 hardware devices on a given ethernet segment (i.e., between a given device on the LAN and the router) to keep in mind, but it's pretty uncommon that a home user would bump into that limit. The only minor drawback if you do need to plug that switch in, but that is easily overcome.
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Jan 26, 2013 19:06
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Well, for some reason I hadn't thought of that, good point.  With that in mind, is the Netgear 3700 still a good choice? It looks like it's at least DD-WRT compatible at this point, should I decide I need to go that route. Seems to have okay reviews and a good feature set.
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Jan 26, 2013 19:15
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It's probably as good a choice as any. You sound like you know what you want feature-wise and have done your research.
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Jan 26, 2013 19:28
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Well, I was just asking because my research is based pretty much entirely on the OP and I wanted to make sure there wasn't some big new "THIS IS THE BEST" router right now that just wasn't listed. 
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Jan 26, 2013 19:37
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I asked this question a few pages back, but nobody responded so I guess I should refine it. I'm looking for a new router, currently have eyes on either the RT-AC66u or RT-N66U but need it to support a 3TB drive external drive so I can run my time machine backups. Does anyone know if DD-WRT or Tomato or something else will support these drives? I saw that Tomato had a GPT enabled build, but it seems that it's pretty hit and miss with drive support. For what it's worth, this is the drive I bought.
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Jan 26, 2013 20:48
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Since you specified time machine I am going to assume you are using OS X, the issue isn't the format of the drive. Even if you use a 1TB MBR partitioned drive, it would be risky trying to use either of these routers for your purpose. The issue is the network protocol that the file server sharing the drive must use. SAMBA is pretty much universally supported by these type of routers with either Tomato or DD-WRT, but it is based on SMB protocol (Microsoft). Time Machine backups require that the file server (in this case the router you are intending to purchase) use Apple File Protocol. Currently, there doesn't seem to be support for AFP in either Tomato or DD-WRT. Note: There are some people who claim to have successfully used SAMBA with Time Machine, but there are plenty of people who say that OS X (10.6+) breaks SAMBA shares. If I were you, I would adjust the parameters of your search and try to find a router/firmware that supports AFP first, then GPT support second. AFP is required for Time Machine, GPT is only recommended. Apple seems to have done a pretty good job of creating a high hurdle for competitors to Time Capsule - so you can either settle in for a wait, or go with Apple's solution (Time Capsule is about $400 for 3TB). In either case, the drive you linked does not support Macs, so unless you have a Windows box you can use it with, you may want to return it.
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Jan 27, 2013 00:37
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For what it's worth, I've successfully used time machine via smb, backing up my mac to my pc. I didn't use it for very long because I had better solutions, but as a proof of concept, I've done it. You do lose some functionality, though, like the incremental thing where unchanged files are hard-linked, at least you did when I tried this (admittedly a few years ago) but I think that's more due to the filesystem than the protocol, although I'm sure they both contributed to the loss of that feature. Also, while looking at routers, I noticed that netgear's wndr3800 is specifically listed as supporting time machine to usb-connected drives, but that's a fairly spendy item at almost $200: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122434&Tpk=WNDR3800
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Jan 27, 2013 00:53
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TheEye posted:Well, my old g router is officially dead. Mine works without any issues. I have 100mbit fibre and even with max speed i've never seen the CPU usage go above 15% or so. Also i use it as a FTP/samba server and that works fine as well. I use the alternative open source firmware but the official ASUS firmware is good too since they switched to ASUSWRT codebase.
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Jan 27, 2013 03:27
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Possibly random question, but recently I expanded my Airport network to start with an Airport Extreme and be "repeated" by an Airport Express. I used to stream from my Mac (PS3 Media Server) to my PS3. My PS3 is wired to the Airport Extreme. My Mac was wireless in the other room. It pretty much streamed fine. Now, after "repeating" with the Airport Express, I have noticed quite often (but not always?) The thing I am watching pauses, and just can't be unpaused. It just kinda stops... It may be unrelated, but honestly that's the only thing that's changed recently that I know of... Any thoughts?
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Jan 27, 2013 03:43
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Have you updated PS3 Media server lately? I had a problem with it working for me for awhile, both PS3 and desktop were wired. I've switched the Universal Media Server, a branch of media server, and it's been working a lot better for me.
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Jan 27, 2013 04:48
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calandryll posted:Have you updated PS3 Media server lately? I had a problem with it working for me for awhile, both PS3 and desktop were wired. I've switched the Universal Media Server, a branch of media server, and it's been working a lot better for me. I will give it a shot. Thanks for the suggestion. I updated PS3 MS to the latest version ( mine was 2 months old) and no pauses yet though... Still gonn try Universal MS...
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Jan 27, 2013 05:15
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Feenix posted:I will give it a shot. Thanks for the suggestion. If you have a 64 bit computer and want to use more than 1 gig of RAM with UMS, you'll need 64 bit java. Its pretty solid with it though. On a related note I think my MTU issues are on my routers end, as it has been randomly resetting itself and dropping connections. Its 2 and a half years old at this point, so its a good time to upgrade. I went with a N56u and I have heard that it has media server functionality built in, does anyone have any experience using it with a PS3 or 360?
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Jan 27, 2013 06:47
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Red_Mage posted:If you have a 64 bit computer and want to use more than 1 gig of RAM with UMS, you'll need 64 bit java. Its pretty solid with it though. Sorry to play be ignorant here, but I have a mac that I am pretty sure is 64bit. Are you saying I should download Java but in 64bit? How can I check easily to see if I already even have that?
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Jan 27, 2013 07:01
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Just want to check something: I'm having some range issues with my current dual band router. Instead of loving around with it, I figured I could plug an older 2.4ghz access point I have laying around into the switch in my living room. I'll make sure it has a unique IP, the same SSID/key, different channels, and have the same security type in place. Devices should be able to seamlessly move from one to he next, right? As for my 5ghz devices, will they be smart enough to utilize the stronger 2.4 signal from the access point, or will they stick to the 5? They're both iPads/iPhones, if that matters.
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Jan 27, 2013 14:28
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Looking for advice on upgrading my network. I have a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 connected to the cable modem & wired computers in the same room- using DDNS, port forwarding, static IP assignment, etc. Wireless is OFF on this device because one of the wired connections is to an e3200 across the house which serves the wireless clients & a couple wired devices as well. Problem is the old Buffalo is 10/100, I want to replace it with something that's as feature-packed but don't really need to go to the full expense of getting another e3200 or whatever. For signal strength purposes (5ghz  ), I can't just swap the e3200 into the role of the buffalo & replace it with a simple switch.
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Jan 27, 2013 15:45
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Any chance of getting an updated recommendation list in the OP, or are those still relevant despite their ages?
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Jan 27, 2013 19:46
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TheEye posted:How do people feel about the ASUS RT-N56U? I see it come up a lot but it's not in the OP, so I'm curious. Is it worth the extra $35 over the RT-N16? I don't really need dual band right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'd want to have it in a year or two. I think it's great, installed it for more than a dozen clients and none of them complains, ever. Here's smallnetbuilder's review. Its routing performance is just a hair less than a WNDR4000. I think it's a hidden gem and great if you want top of the line wired connections as well- it's one of the few routers I know with Gigabit Ethernet that supports jumbo frames. And on top of that, it has hardware NAT. Its only caveats IMHO are that it can't be flashed to DD-WRT or Tomato and that its port forwarding options are limited.
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Jan 27, 2013 20:26
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EC posted:Just want to check something: I'm having some range issues with my current dual band router. Instead of loving around with it, I figured I could plug an older 2.4ghz access point I have laying around into the switch in my living room. I'll make sure it has a unique IP, the same SSID/key, different channels, and have the same security type in place. Devices should be able to seamlessly move from one to he next, right? The first paragraph is on the money, if the SSID/pass and security are the same but the routers/WAP are on different channels it will work seamlessly to extend your wireless network. As for the 5ghz question, I can't say for sure since I've never done it.
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Jan 27, 2013 23:44
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Good to know. I'll try it for awhile and then disable the 5ghz radio and see what happens.
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Jan 27, 2013 23:51
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DNova posted:Any chance of getting an updated recommendation list in the OP, or are those still relevant despite their ages? quote:Sub $50: The age of some of the routers in there is noted. Further to this the following is an important note in the op. I am currently reviewing what to do with the op as a lot of the sub $100 routers will not be available and probably aren't worth spending money on due to lacking features or exceptionally poor performance. That and with the Linksys sell off to Belkin it is likely that Linksys routers will end up being removed completely. quote:
In relation to recommendations they are unchanged as contrary to popular belief routers actually advance at a slower pace than cpus. If there is something else that you are after you will need to be specific as to what your needs are.
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Jan 28, 2013 01:34
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Be aware that all of the sub $100 routers compromise hardware features and should only be selected if you cannot afford something better. A significant portion of the routers listed are discontinued and may only be available secondhand.
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More PS3 networking chat! I currently have a 802.11g wireless router. From what I read, the PS3's wireless hardware is 802.11b/g. I'm considering upgrading to a 802.11n wireless router, but only so I could stream things like Hulu+ and Amazon Instant Video better through my PS3. To see any benefit in speed with the PS3, I'd have to get a wireless adapter that supported 802.11n and plug it into the Ethernet port, right? I'm also wondering if that's worth the trouble, since when I run my connection test over wireless, I get about 8.5MB/s down speeds, and when I run my connection test over the wired connection, I get about... 8.5MB/s down speeds. Is this a case where my limiting factor is my 15/1 Mbps cable Internet plan?
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Jan 28, 2013 03:48
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There are a lot of things that go on inside the PS3 that limit the networking performance. The speeds you are getting are fine for HD streaming from a media server. I run my PS3 entirely on wireless and I don't have any issues. I wouldn't bother changing anything as you won't notice any difference.
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Jan 28, 2013 10:25
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Bad Munki posted:Well, for some reason I hadn't thought of that, good point. FWIW, I’m running two WNDR3700v1 with dd-wrt and I’m really happy with them now. My signal strength/transmission rate with dd-wrt was always significantly below the standard firmware until the latest 31/12 build came out. Now they’re almost perfect. They don’t support radio scheduling, but I worked around that by making a cronjob script like this: 30 20 * * * root /sbin/ifconfig ath0 down 30 20 * * * root /sbin/ifconfig ath1 down and having the router auto-reboot every day in the morning when I want the radios to come back up. I bought a RT-N66U to replace one of the WNDR3700s, but the DD-WRT support for it is still very flaky. In my anecdotal experience it always takes a year or two for dd-wrt to really work well. And yes, the Tomato version by that polish hacker kind of works but I’m not a big fan of it.
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Jan 28, 2013 13:19
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Solved it by swapping 3g-dongle, but what would make an AP/3G-router like the TP-Link TL-MR3420 just allow non-http traffic? It was the damndest thing i've ever seen, i bought it for my sister, upgraded firmware / dongle-compability and saw that sis's dongle should work. I set up the whole thing using one of my own dongles and it detected, dialed the net and everything worked fine. I then brought it to my sister, hooked up her dongle with it, it detected, dialed the net and then i couldn't surf. Dns resolves worked fine, i even tried ftp://ftp.sunet.se (big university net, if that doesn't work then nothing works) and that worked great. I couldn't surf to http://www.sunet.se though. If it's detected and connects to the internet then the dongle should work, the problem would be in the ap/3g-router but it's just the simplest stupid web-gui. I disabled the built-in firewall and everything, double and tripple-checked all windows settings and dns / gateway / everything. As i said i fixed it by using another dongle (and i like that word), but it's still a small mystery.
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Jan 28, 2013 18:38
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I have TP-Link WDN3200 usb adapter that suddenly decided to start giving me problems. I have a Linksys E3000 running DD-WRT with dual channels running on separate SSIDs. Today the adapter would show limited connectivity when connected to the 5ghz channel but work fine on the 2.4ghz. I have an iPad connected to the 5ghz so it seems to be ok. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers and it is still not working right. I've had it for a few weeks without any prior problems. Did it suddenly poo poo the bed or am I doing something weird? I'm on Windows 7 64 bit.
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Jan 29, 2013 07:00
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So my house is wired with Cat6. I had a wireless router that had a USB port that allowed me to connect a hard drive to it, but it bit the dust (tried doing hard resets a bunch of times), so I only have one device connected directly to my cable modem and looking for a replacement. I have three devices doing a lot on the local LAN, and maybe two of them on the internet, so I'm thinking I just need a switch and a wireless router (for my mobile devices and to connect to the cable modem)? Would I be better off with a gigabit router instead since I have only three wired devices? Less devices the better for me. I saw the $150+ Asus recommendation that seems to fit the bill, but I'm just worried about hard drive speed because it was pretty drat slow on my router (which probably had to do with CPU/memory of the router).
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Jan 30, 2013 18:20
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Bank posted:I saw the $150+ Asus recommendation that seems to fit the bill, but I'm just worried about hard drive speed because it was pretty drat slow on my router (which probably had to do with CPU/memory of the router). All of the routers have low hard drive speeds. They just aren't designed for decent throughput with respect to hard drives. The only one with decent throughput is the Apple Timecapsule, although I seem to have issues connecting to its drive at the moment. There is probably a connection between the current high temperatures and it not being happy at the moment. A Time Capsule isn't exactly cheap either.
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Jan 30, 2013 23:44
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