The Home Networking Megathread - Yes the OP is out of date

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Ham Sandwiches: Jul 7, 2000

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

If we're still talking in the context of slidebite's in-laws: Cat 6 is more than good enough for the foreseeable future. If it's installed correctly in the first place, then snaking Cat 7 through existing conduit is trivial if that ever needs to be done.

From what I understand, Cat7 is basically electromagnetically shielded Cat6. Since the incremental cost is really minor in terms of the cable cost of cat6 vs cat7(the installation is most of the cost), and since house installations are often near electrical wiring / outlets, I was just curious why no one suggested it.

If I was going to run Ethernet through my house I'd personally go with Cat7 over Cat6, since I don't see a compelling reason not to unless somehow the extra $50-100 in cable cost is a major factor. The cables seem very sturdy with the shielding and have excellent connectors as well (metal vs plastic).

# ? Jul 7, 2014 22:41

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# ? May 15, 2024 15:32

Krailor: Nov 2, 2001; I'm only pretending to care; Taco Defender

It might not seem like a big difference in cost for smaller cables but 1000' of cat6 is ~$100 while cat7 costs ~$400. When you're running a whole house there's really no need to spend 4x as much for 0 performance benefit.

# ? Jul 7, 2014 22:44

spoof: Jul 8, 2004

Krailor posted:

It might not seem like a big difference in cost for smaller cables but 1000' of cat6 is ~$100 while cat7 costs ~$400. When you're running a whole house there's really no need to spend 4x as much for 0 performance benefit.

Installation tends to make up a larger portion of the cost than the cable itself, so it's not really fair to say 4x the cost. If installation is a fixed $500, regardless of the kind of cable, you go from $600 to $900. It's more of a marginal cost on top of your fixed installation cost.

# ? Jul 7, 2014 22:56

Jonny 290: May 5, 2005; [ASK] me about OS/2 Warp

Check my thinking here. Setting up an RV with a Nanostation to leech wifi, and a Mikrotik to route.

Turn on DMZ on the Nanostation and forward everything to the Mikrotik, and do NAT from the latter for the LAN?

E: Got it. Bridge mode on the Nanostation routing page, set up a management IP, add a route/IP on the router to hit that, good to go.

Jonny 290 fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jul 8, 2014

# ? Jul 7, 2014 23:31

a cat youtube: Jun 25, 2013

I've been having recent connection problems at home and Im honestly lost at where to turn to next, but also tbh, I have a real laymans understanding of most of networking stuff.

Our ISP is At&T uverse and recently our internet has been crashing down to .02 mbps and diconnect from the 18-20 mbps we normally get. Our wireless router is basically brand new, at most less than a year old and we're using whatever ATT modem they gave us.

I've run the the diagnostic test (probably 10 or so times) that came with preinstalled with my wireless card ( Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2200) and everything passed

Fake edit : I ran the test while writing this and it failed the ping test with : "Response DHCP server No Response: default gateway" but than ran it again right after and said it passed.

The major slowdown seems to happen most with my computer but will kick people off using the tvs wireless connection while netflixing/hbogo/etc as well. I tried using google dns on my computer and it seemed to stop the complete disconnects but I would still get the enormous slowdown, so I don't know if thats even related or not.

I did the whole call ATT routine and went through all their tests with the person over the phone and it seems to not have helped at all. Are there any guesses as to what it could possibly be/more information I need to try to figure out the problem or give to ATT to try to get them to fix correctly?

Any help would appreciated, I really dont know what the next step would be.

# ? Jul 8, 2014 05:46

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Rakthar posted:

From what I understand, Cat7 is basically electromagnetically shielded Cat6... The cables seem very sturdy with the shielding and have excellent connectors as well (metal vs plastic).

Does this extra shielding limit its flexibility/put limits on where you can run it? I've only heard Cat 7 discussed when talking about runs between entire buildings, not actually threading it between walls for drops.

# ? Jul 8, 2014 06:16

beepsandboops: Jan 28, 2014

a cat youtube posted:

I've been having recent connection problems at home and Im honestly lost at where to turn to next, but also tbh, I have a real laymans understanding of most of networking stuff.

Our ISP is At&T uverse and recently our internet has been crashing down to .02 mbps and diconnect from the 18-20 mbps we normally get. Our wireless router is basically brand new, at most less than a year old and we're using whatever ATT modem they gave us.

I've run the the diagnostic test (probably 10 or so times) that came with preinstalled with my wireless card ( Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2200) and everything passed

Fake edit : I ran the test while writing this and it failed the ping test with : "Response DHCP server No Response: default gateway" but than ran it again right after and said it passed.

The major slowdown seems to happen most with my computer but will kick people off using the tvs wireless connection while netflixing/hbogo/etc as well. I tried using google dns on my computer and it seemed to stop the complete disconnects but I would still get the enormous slowdown, so I don't know if thats even related or not.

I did the whole call ATT routine and went through all their tests with the person over the phone and it seems to not have helped at all. Are there any guesses as to what it could possibly be/more information I need to try to figure out the problem or give to ATT to try to get them to fix correctly?

Any help would appreciated, I really dont know what the next step would be.

I would try eliminating variables one at a time to narrow down what might be causing this.

You say that you've run a test with a wireless connection. Do you get the same kind of symptoms when you plug your computer directly into your router? Or better still, when you plug directly into your modem?

# ? Jul 8, 2014 06:23

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

a cat youtube posted:

I've been having recent connection problems at home and Im honestly lost at where to turn to next, but also tbh, I have a real laymans understanding of most of networking stuff.

Our ISP is At&T uverse and recently our internet has been crashing down to .02 mbps and diconnect from the 18-20 mbps we normally get. Our wireless router is basically brand new, at most less than a year old and we're using whatever ATT modem they gave us.

I've run the the diagnostic test (probably 10 or so times) that came with preinstalled with my wireless card ( Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2200) and everything passed

Fake edit : I ran the test while writing this and it failed the ping test with : "Response DHCP server No Response: default gateway" but than ran it again right after and said it passed.

The major slowdown seems to happen most with my computer but will kick people off using the tvs wireless connection while netflixing/hbogo/etc as well. I tried using google dns on my computer and it seemed to stop the complete disconnects but I would still get the enormous slowdown, so I don't know if thats even related or not.

I did the whole call ATT routine and went through all their tests with the person over the phone and it seems to not have helped at all. Are there any guesses as to what it could possibly be/more information I need to try to figure out the problem or give to ATT to try to get them to fix correctly?

Any help would appreciated, I really dont know what the next step would be.

This sounds a lot like your modem or router (whichever is handling dhcp) rebooting.

# ? Jul 8, 2014 14:54

1550NM: Aug 31, 2004; Frossen fisk

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

Does this extra shielding limit its flexibility/put limits on where you can run it? I've only heard Cat 7 discussed when talking about runs between entire buildings, not actually threading it between walls for drops.

I'm European and our methods for running cable differs, but Cat7 S/FTP S/STP can usually be run as any other twisted pair cable as long as one observes minimum bending radius, tension etc. The cable itself is usually stiffer, and a bit thicker than Cat6 U/UTP due to it extra shielding, a PIMF (pair in metal foil) with stranded outershield are usally the stiffest Cat7.

Regarding future proofing with Cat7, Everything Cat7 can do today, Cat6A can do cheaper, besides the advertised bandwidth (500mhz for 6A, 600mhz for plain Cat7) 10GigE to 300 feet is no problem for Cat6A, and neither is higher speeds once the prices comes down.

# ? Jul 8, 2014 16:18

A PC Game: May 7, 2007

I apologize for the very beginner question but I would like some advice for what wireless router to buy and the OP doesn't address all of my concerns. I am moving to an apartment where I will have a 75/35 Verizon FIOS connection. I want to get a router that I can flash with Tomato (or whatever else, not entirely sure what's best) so that I can route all traffic through a VPN. I only have access to Macs to perform the flash. Ideally I'd like to keep the price below 150.

# ? Jul 8, 2014 18:29

calandryll: Apr 25, 2003; Ask me where I do my best drinking!; Pillbug

A PC Game posted:

I apologize for the very beginner question but I would like some advice for what wireless router to buy and the OP doesn't address all of my concerns. I am moving to an apartment where I will have a 75/35 Verizon FIOS connection. I want to get a router that I can flash with Tomato (or whatever else, not entirely sure what's best) so that I can route all traffic through a VPN. I only have access to Macs to perform the flash. Ideally I'd like to keep the price below 150.

I'm using an E2000 flashed with TomatoUSB that I bought about 4 or 5 years ago. Works great for the VPN stuff on my Verizon FIOS connection. However, I'm not sure what a newer/better router option would be. When you're setting it up, just remember to set the modem to bridge.

# ? Jul 8, 2014 19:03

a cat youtube: Jun 25, 2013

beepsandboops posted:

I would try eliminating variables one at a time to narrow down what might be causing this.

You say that you've run a test with a wireless connection. Do you get the same kind of symptoms when you plug your computer directly into your router? Or better still, when you plug directly into your modem?

I plugged my laptop directly into the router and ran a bunch of different stuff ( netflix through tv, downloading a patch for a game on the laptop etc) and had no lag or slowdown speed at all, unplugged and then it went right back to what it normally had been doing .

evol262 posted:

This sounds a lot like your modem or router (whichever is handling dhcp) rebooting.

Is there a way to find out which is handling this?

edit : well, now im even more confused, i plugged directly into the modem and was getting worse times on speedtest (10-11mbps as opposed to 16.5-20 mbps), slower donwload with the game patch and netflix also stopped streaming on hd on the tv.

a cat youtube fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Jul 8, 2014

# ? Jul 8, 2014 19:40

slidebite: Nov 6, 2005; Good egg

Thanks for the info on the Cat 7. It'll probably be running alongside coax and/or telephone cable. Not sure if it'll ever run along AC for any extent or not so I don't know if shielding will be a biggy. I'll certainly keep that in mind when the time comes.

slidebite fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Jul 8, 2014

# ? Jul 8, 2014 21:02

Inspector_666: Oct 7, 2003; _{benny with the good hair}

a cat youtube posted:

Is there a way to find out which is handling this?

In Windows, open a command prompt (run > cmd) and then type "ipconfig /all" (without quotes.) It will show you the DHCP server in the output.

If it's the router, login to that and see what IP it's getting from the modem. If the router has a 192.168.something address, then both devices are doing DHCP and that isn't good, and the next step depends on the model of modem you have.

# ? Jul 8, 2014 21:26

Etrips: Nov 9, 2004; Having Teemo Problems?
I Feel Bad For You, Son.
I Got 99 Shrooms
And You Just Hit One.

Can anyone think of why my little dinky ASUS RT-N10P can handle 25~ wireless devices better than the N66U or TP-Link WRD3500? I had bought the two beefier routers within the past two weeks thinking they would be able to handle it better but that isn't the case. I don't do anything special with the router setup other than upgrading the firmware, configuring the SSID, turning off WPS, setting up the appropriate channels, etc. But yet they just perform horribly.

# ? Jul 8, 2014 21:40

Commander Keenan: Dec 5, 2012; Not Boba Fett

Here's the new Netgear router: Nighthawk X6 AC3200. It's $300 and tri-band gigabit.

# ? Jul 9, 2014 00:25

a cat youtube: Jun 25, 2013

Inspector_666 posted:

In Windows, open a command prompt (run > cmd) and then type "ipconfig /all" (without quotes.) It will show you the DHCP server in the output.

If it's the router, login to that and see what IP it's getting from the modem. If the router has a 192.168.something address, then both devices are doing DHCP and that isn't good, and the next step depends on the model of modem you have.

ok the routers address is 192.168. etc and is said dhcp was set to agressive. i didnt do anything to it yet because i didnt want to create more problems if i changed the wrong thing but i did upgrade the firmware. the modem is a 2 wire 3800hgv-b and the router is an asus rt ac68r

also might not matter at all but the MAC address in the router didnt match the ones on the side of the of att modem

# ? Jul 9, 2014 02:21

beepsandboops: Jan 28, 2014

a cat youtube posted:

I plugged my laptop directly into the router and ran a bunch of different stuff ( netflix through tv, downloading a patch for a game on the laptop etc) and had no lag or slowdown speed at all, unplugged and then it went right back to what it normally had been doing .

Ah. If that's the case, then it sounds like something's going on with your wireless. I'm guessing it's either interference, or some fault of the router.

If your router operates on the 2.4 GHz frequency, then interference is pretty likely and it'd be worth changing the router's channel.

If your router isn't on 2.4 GHz or changing the channel doesn't work, I'd try resetting it and starting from scratch. You said that you just did a firmware update? Has that helped at all?

# ? Jul 9, 2014 03:23

Inspector_666: Oct 7, 2003; _{benny with the good hair}

a cat youtube posted:

ok the routers address is 192.168. etc and is said dhcp was set to agressive. i didnt do anything to it yet because i didnt want to create more problems if i changed the wrong thing but i did upgrade the firmware. the modem is a 2 wire 3800hgv-b and the router is an asus rt ac68r

also might not matter at all but the MAC address in the router didnt match the ones on the side of the of att modem

Is the router's LAN address 192? Because that's correct. You want the WAN address to be something non-192.

MAC addresses are per-interface, and they're coded into the hardware. You don't want anything on your network to have the same MAC address, generally, so don't worry about that.

# ? Jul 9, 2014 04:16

Sidesaddle Cavalry: Mar 15, 2013; Oh Boy Desert Map

CuddleChunks posted:

Buy a refurbished Airport Extreme Basestation 5th Generation, thrown the Netgear out a window and curse its name. Now that you have things much more centrally located the Airport should kick rear end.

Of course, before you do that, try changing channels on the router to see if that cleans up the link. It shouldn't just stall out on you.

Do you have cordless phones in your house? Not cell, those don't interfere but actual cordless landlines. See what spectrum they are running on. If it's 2.4GHz then power them all down and see if that clears the interference. Look for any other wifi devices - baby monitors, weather stations, etc. Power them all down and see if things clean up. Have a PC running inSSIDer to see if you suddenly notice someone hopping onto the channel you are using and thrashing up the signal. If it's non 802.11x noise you won't see it with that program but it's something easy to try.

Wireless is dark magic and sucks balls. Wired 4 Lyfe.

I ended up with an N66U on the cheap, uploaded the latest official firmware, set up my channels, and it turns out its two signals are so good that I was able to move the router back to the original spot without any detriment to performance (for my specific needs. would still recommend moving it like a sane person). Finally glad to have something that works, and with good (apparent) reliability and features to boot!

# ? Jul 9, 2014 07:35

BCRock: Dec 13, 2005; I'm huge in Japan

Getting ready to close on a new house and one of the things that I want to get done before we move all of our stuff in is wire it for ethernet. This looks like the right thread to post in, so I wanted to solicit the advice of any of you guys who've done this before in case there's something obvious that I'm not taking into account.

The house itself is a single-story 3 bedroom and I know I'll want wall plates & jacks in each bedroom, plus the living room and office. I've got an attic and a crawl space for running cables.

Other than a punch down tool, I have all of the requisite tools needed already.

Things I need to buy:

1000' Cat6 cable - $106
2x 6-port keystone wall-plates (living room & office) - $1
6x 4-port keystone wall-plates (bedrooms plus a few extras) - $3
6x Single gang mounting bracket - $6
32x RJ-45 keystone jacks, various colors (includes some extras) - $46
24-port Cat6 patch panel (does shielded vs. unshielded matter?) - $21
24-port Gigabit switch - $115

All of those prices are from monoprice.com and the total is about $300 + $20 shipping, which seems pretty reasonable. The only thing that may be cheaper or have more options on Amazon (or somewhere else) is the switch.

I still need to decide exactly where the switch and panel are going to go and where each of the wall plates will be in the rooms.

Am I missing any major components that I'll need? Any other advice as I get started on planning out where the stuff is going to go?

Edit: \/ Good tips - thanks!

BCRock fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Jul 10, 2014

# ? Jul 10, 2014 22:50

Methylethylaldehyde: Oct 23, 2004; BAKA BAKA

BCRock posted:

Am I missing any major components that I'll need? Any other advice as I get started on planning out where the stuff is going to go?

On a ranch style house with crawlspace access, I would just go for broke and wire it one time then never ever screw with it again.

I would put 2 runs of cat6, 1 run of cat5e, and one coax per 4 port box. I would put two boxes per room, on opposite sides of the room, so no matter how you change your mind later, you'll always have coax and internet ports within a few feet of the endpoint.

Get a 12U wall mount rack and put it in the garage up out of the way. Mount the switch and patch panel there. Terminate each of the runs at the patch panel and be sure to label everything. Then verify the labels are right. Bed1UL, Bed1UR, Bed1LR lets you know it's the first bedroom, and the physical location of each port without having to put labels inside the house.

The Cat5e when wired to the B spec works amazingly as phone line, and the ports are compatible with the RJ-11 plugs. Super handy if you need to set up DSL or need to add a fax machine or something.

# ? Jul 10, 2014 23:23

kode54: Nov 26, 2007; aka kuroshi; Fun Shoe

So, anyone want to buy a used TP-Link TL-WR1043ND for the cost of shipping? The only catch is that I soft bricked it.

I previously had OpenWrt installed on it, and was attempting to configure it for my new AT&T U-verse IPv6 support. It had WIDE-DHCPv6-Client receiving the configuration on the eth0.2 WAN interface, but no public address was being assigned to the LAN interface. So I manually gave it <prefix>::2/64 as a LAN address, applied configuration, and it stopped responding to all connections or carrying any traffic across.

Welcome to a new home that wants it and has a USB TTL cable and can unbrick it. Its current NAND storage may contain secrets about my network, like the password to my obsolete HE.net tunnel, or the passwords to the WiFi networks that it hosted for me. Of course, typical recovery to a new OpenWrt environment will likely wipe that out anyway.

Or does anyone think I should just junk this thing? I was kind of hoping to upgrade to a 2GB Time Capsule anyway.

# ? Jul 11, 2014 05:41

teh_Broseph: Oct 21, 2010; THE LAST METROID IS IN
CATTIVITY. THE GALAXY
IS AT PEACE...; Lipstick Apathy

I was about to jump in and pull the trigger on a refurb Airport Extreme, but of course it has the lame Apple stuff of requiring a utility that quick googling sounds like is outdated and not that great for Windows. My wife has a Macbook I could use for the setup; I'd rather not have to use her computer for making changes, but maybe that's just me being a dumb nerd? The IT guy in me likes knowing if I need to jack with any router settings for weird scenarios that the options are there, but to be honest with myself I haven't touched router configs beyond initial setup for years.

Currently using an old Trendnet router in a 2 floor condo, want to replace it for stronger wifi signal and really want consistency/stability without having to eff with reboots or anything. Only a few clients between the two of us - laptop, desktop, cells, Chromecast. On cable internet, no torrents but a lot of video streaming and gaming and would like to have the option of trying Steam streaming over AC. I've never spent more than maybe $50 on a router but I'm a big kid now and would like a more consistent setup. From what I've gathered watching the thread, sounds like I should suck it up and just grab the Airport?

# ? Jul 11, 2014 18:40

Inspector_666: Oct 7, 2003; _{benny with the good hair}

teh_Broseph posted:

I was about to jump in and pull the trigger on a refurb Airport Extreme, but of course it has the lame Apple stuff of requiring a utility that quick googling sounds like is outdated and not that great for Windows. My wife has a Macbook I could use for the setup; I'd rather not have to use her computer for making changes, but maybe that's just me being a dumb nerd? The IT guy in me likes knowing if I need to jack with any router settings for weird scenarios that the options are there, but to be honest with myself I haven't touched router configs beyond initial setup for years.

Currently using an old Trendnet router in a 2 floor condo, want to replace it for stronger wifi signal and really want consistency/stability without having to eff with reboots or anything. Only a few clients between the two of us - laptop, desktop, cells, Chromecast. On cable internet, no torrents but a lot of video streaming and gaming and would like to have the option of trying Steam streaming over AC. I've never spent more than maybe $50 on a router but I'm a big kid now and would like a more consistent setup. From what I've gathered watching the thread, sounds like I should suck it up and just grab the Airport?

Get the Airport. The utility is fine (it lets you configure the Airport, I dunno what else people want from it) and it sounds like you'll only ever need to do it once when you unbox the thing.

# ? Jul 11, 2014 20:42

Dogen: May 5, 2002; Bury my body down by the highwayside, so that my old evil spirit can get a Greyhound bus and ride

There's also a config utility for it on the iphone

# ? Jul 11, 2014 21:02

teh_Broseph: Oct 21, 2010; THE LAST METROID IS IN
CATTIVITY. THE GALAXY
IS AT PEACE...; Lipstick Apathy

Thanks y'all; ordered.

# ? Jul 11, 2014 21:04

hooah: Feb 6, 2006; WTF?

I have a Netgear WNDR3700v3 wireless router. In the last ~4 days, I've had to reboot it twice because it stopped routing Internet (i.e. connected devices, wired and wireless, could not connect to the Internet). I've had this router for maybe a year and a half, and it hasn't given me any trouble in a long time. Any ideas what could be causing this sudden problem?

# ? Jul 13, 2014 17:42

Rexxed: May 1, 2010; Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

hooah posted:

I have a Netgear WNDR3700v3 wireless router. In the last ~4 days, I've had to reboot it twice because it stopped routing Internet (i.e. connected devices, wired and wireless, could not connect to the Internet). I've had this router for maybe a year and a half, and it hasn't given me any trouble in a long time. Any ideas what could be causing this sudden problem?

Usually when something that normally works fine starts having issues either it's had some software change (recent change made, new firmware, etc), or there's a hardware problem (power surge, bad caps, overheating). If you haven't changed the software recently, make sure it's on a surge suppressor for power. If it's not overheating it's possible that some on-board component has gone bad. It may also just be a random fluke.

Another thing to check is the power transformer at the wall. If you have a multimeter you can see if it's providing the correct voltage. They're very cheaply made these days and fail more than you'd imagine. Failure states can be from providing no voltage at all to providing an incorrect voltage (this could cause power issues whether or not it was on a power strip).

I took a peek at their support forum for that model:
http://forum1.netgear.com/forumdisplay.php?f=105

The only thing that stands out beyond random issues is that some of these routers are being hacked, so make sure remote management is off (from: http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=91750 ).

In case of hardware problems you should check how long the warranty is in case you need to RMA it. I couldn't seem to find that info easily but it may only be a one year warranty.

# ? Jul 13, 2014 18:49

ufarn: May 30, 2009

I'm looking into getting a powerline set-up in my parents' living room, because of course the Wi-Fi can't reach the Apple TV I got them in there.

There are two things that make me leery of getting one:

1) This house is as old as sin, and a couple of years ago, we had the circuit-breaker box replaced, and the technician told us it was from before the war (that being the Second World War), and I don't know how feasible that makes a powerline solution.

The connection is 10/1 or some such, and they only need to be able to stream Apple TV movies.

2) Looking briefly at the solutions, some include one adapter, and one includes two, and I'm not sure which type and brand I should get for this (people seem to recommend D-Link).

Currently, the the ISP-provided router is hooked into the wall by a CAT cable, but I take it I need to hook up the CAT cable into a power adapter instead for this to work? I'll also have to see if I have the spare socket to plug it into, since I'm already using the ones I can spot for my extension boxes (or whatever you call it).

tl;dr, setting up an Apple TV in my folks' home is a royal friggin' pain, and I'm scratching my head about what I can do about this without paying the equivalent of another Apple TV.

# ? Jul 13, 2014 21:11

Rexxed: May 1, 2010; Dis is amazing!
I gotta try dis!

ufarn posted:

I'm looking into getting a powerline set-up in my parents' living room, because of course the Wi-Fi can't reach the Apple TV I got them in there.

There are two things that make me leery of getting one:

1) This house is as old as sin, and a couple of years ago, we had the circuit-breaker box replaced, and the technician told us it was from before the war (that being the Second World War), and I don't know how feasible that makes a powerline solution.

The connection is 10/1 or some such, and they only need to be able to stream Apple TV movies.

2) Looking briefly at the solutions, some include one adapter, and one includes two, and I'm not sure which type and brand I should get for this (people seem to recommend D-Link).

Currently, the the ISP-provided router is hooked into the wall by a CAT cable, but I take it I need to hook up the CAT cable into a power adapter instead for this to work? I'll also have to see if I have the spare socket to plug it into, since I'm already using the ones I can spot for my extension boxes (or whatever you call it).

tl;dr, setting up an Apple TV in my folks' home is a royal friggin' pain, and I'm scratching my head about what I can do about this without paying the equivalent of another Apple TV.

I'm not entirely clear on what you want here. If your house wiring is old but has recently been updated it will probably be fine for powerline networking. It just runs on copper wiring and it seems like the layout of the power in the house has more to do with the viability of powerline networks than anything else. From what I understand you want most of the devices to be in the same system, and if the building has multiple power inputs it can cause issues but I haven't heard of too many residences having this problem. If you're in doubt, look to buy it from somewhere that has a good return policy without too high of a restocking fee. I'm not sure which brand is best, either, but I'd spend a little time looking at reviews on amazon and newegg to find which one you like. You'll need a two pack as you need one for each end of the connection.

As to the "CAT" cable into the wall, do you mean that you're getting your internet service from the provider with ethernet? Did you mean Coax? Either way, unhooking some device that's attached already to hook up powerline networking isn't the way to go. You'll want to use one of the extra LAN ports on the router to go to the powerline network device, and then at the other end you'll have your second powerline network device that another cable comes from and goes to the device that you're adding to your network. Powerline networking emulates a cable directly connected from one device to another, so instead of running a long cable from the router to the apple tv, the powerline boxes go in between. In general each powerline networking device will need it's own wall outlet, so if you're short on those it may not be the best choice.

Another option is to improve the wireless signal in the house. How well this will go depends on the house construction (solid walls reduce signal more) and size. You could add a cable to another wireless access point that's closer or even do the powerline networking to the living room and put a wireless access point on the other end so you can use more than just the apple tv in there (cell phones, laptops, etc).

If it were up to me I'd buy some of these and see if they work:
http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-PA4010KIT-Powerline-Adapter-Starter/dp/B00AWRUICG/

quote:

Amazon.com Return Policy: You may return any new computer purchased from Amazon.com that is "dead on arrival," arrives in damaged condition, or is still in unopened boxes, for a full refund within 30 days of purchase. Amazon.com reserves the right to test "dead on arrival" returns and impose a customer fee equal to 15 percent of the product sales price if the customer misrepresents the condition of the product. Any returned computer that is damaged through customer misuse, is missing parts, or is in unsellable condition due to customer tampering will result in the customer being charged a higher restocking fee based on the condition of the product. Amazon.com will not accept returns of any desktop or notebook computer more than 30 days after you receive the shipment. New, used, and refurbished products purchased from Marketplace vendors are subject to the returns policy of the individual vendor.

If it doesn't work you should be able to return it for a 15% restocking fee.

# ? Jul 13, 2014 22:14

89: Feb 24, 2006; #worldchamps

My roommate moved out and took his router with him, so I gotta get one myself. I've got a less than $100 budget. Running Windows. The majority of my stuff is hardwired, so I need several ports (6 or 7?). The only thing wireless I use is my phone and friends' occasional iPads or laptops. However, I've got a roommate moving in who may be using wireless a lot more often with his laptop and Xbox One.

More recent suggestions?

# ? Jul 13, 2014 22:18

Commander Keenan: Dec 5, 2012; Not Boba Fett

hooah posted:

I have a Netgear WNDR3700v3 wireless router. In the last ~4 days, I've had to reboot it twice because it stopped routing Internet (i.e. connected devices, wired and wireless, could not connect to the Internet). I've had this router for maybe a year and a half, and it hasn't given me any trouble in a long time. Any ideas what could be causing this sudden problem?

Mine did the same thing three months ago. At that point, I owned it a year and a couple months. I eventually got tired of dropping the Internet connection so frequently. Installed DD-WRT on it, but the same thing was happening there. Just got fed up and bought a new one, which has had no issues.

# ? Jul 14, 2014 12:27

moron izzard: Nov 17, 2006; Grimey Drawer

Could anyone recommend an reasonably priced router with dual wan / (for failover, not load balancing). I don't need wireless connectivity. I was thinking of the TP-LINK TL-R470T+, but I imagine dd-wrt has some sort of dual wan mode available if there are better options. I have a WRT160N v3 available.

# ? Jul 14, 2014 17:34

Rukus: Mar 13, 2007; Hmph.

A Yolo Wizard posted:

Could anyone recommend an reasonably priced router with dual wan / (for failover, not load balancing). I don't need wireless connectivity. I was thinking of the TP-LINK TL-R470T+, but I imagine dd-wrt has some sort of dual wan mode available if there are better options. I have a WRT160N v3 available.

Have you looked into Ubiquiti's EdgeRouter Lite? It has three configurable interfaces, which would support dual WAN (using the third to go to your LAN/dedicated switch).

The EdgeRouter can take a bit of work to get configured beyond basic DHCP/NAT/UPnP, but it's rock solid once you do. Ubiquiti also has a great knowledge base (here's a guide on how to setup dual WAN). I moved up to it from a dd-wrt wndr3700 (which is now in AP-only mode) and I haven't had a single problem with it.

# ? Jul 14, 2014 17:46

skipdogg: Nov 29, 2004; Resident SRT-4 Expert

Rexxed posted:

If it were up to me I'd buy some of these and see if they work:
http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-PA4010KIT-Powerline-Adapter-Starter/dp/B00AWRUICG/

I have these and they work well. If you want to buy local and take advantage of an easier return policy if they don't work, see what BestBuy has in stock and have them price match the internet. Make sure you get the 500Mbps, which will be HPNA v2 and work better than the old 85Mbps or 200Mbps ones.

# ? Jul 14, 2014 18:51

Vaporware: May 22, 2004; Still not here yet.

I have a minor Edgerouter Configuration question.
What steps would I need to take so that I can manage my Cable modem (192.168.100.1 on eth1) from my LAN (10.0.0.x on eth0)? I would just reassign the management IP on the modem if I was able, but this seems like the kind of thing a router can handle.

Here's what I've tried
Static Route Gateway - 192.168.100.0/24 at next hop 10.0.0.1 (the ERL)
static Route Interface - 192.168.100.0/24 on eth1

Neither worked, but I imagine I'm skipping a step. Would I need to add a firewall rule also?

# ? Jul 15, 2014 19:07

SamDabbers: May 26, 2003

Vaporware posted:

I have a minor Edgerouter Configuration question.
What steps would I need to take so that I can manage my Cable modem (192.168.100.1 on eth1) from my LAN (10.0.0.x on eth0)? I would just reassign the management IP on the modem if I was able, but this seems like the kind of thing a router can handle.

Here's what I've tried
Static Route Gateway - 192.168.100.0/24 at next hop 10.0.0.1 (the ERL)
static Route Interface - 192.168.100.0/24 on eth1

Neither worked, but I imagine I'm skipping a step. Would I need to add a firewall rule also?

What kind of cable modem do you have? The Motorola Surfboards (and most other brands I've used) will intercept requests to 192.168.100.1 without doing anything special on the router connected to them. The only caveat to that is when your router doesn't have a valid DHCP lease it will have neither an IP on its WAN interface nor a default route, so it won't know how to forward packets to the cable modem, and that's exactly the scenario that the diagnostic pages are most useful.

Unfortunately, the EdgeRouter won't let you use DHCP and have a static address on the same interface, otherwise you could just add 192.168.100.2/24 to eth1 and done. I've gotten around this with a pseudo-ethernet device, which basically makes the cable modem think there's a second device plugged into it via a switch:

code:

set pseudo-ethernet peth1 address 192.168.100.2/24
set pseudo-ethernet peth1 description "Cable modem management"
set pseudo-ethernet peth1 link eth1
set service nat rule 6000 outbound-interface peth1
set service nat rule 6000 type masquerade

This might not work if your ISP has locked the modem down to only learn one CPE MAC, and it will disable the EdgeRouter's offload feature - entirely if you're using firmware < 1.5.0 or just for that physical interface with firmware >= 1.5.0. You should probably also set the same firewall policies on the pseudo-ethernet interface as you have for the physical ethernet, just to be safe.

SamDabbers fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Jul 15, 2014

# ? Jul 15, 2014 19:57

Vaporware: May 22, 2004; Still not here yet.

So you're saying since the ERL adopts the external static IP assigned by the cable co, not DHCP from the surfboard, the packets just die on the modem side since it doesn't know how to route to the ERL? That would mean the static route I set up might be working, it's just that the modem has no clue how to return the packets?

I was wishing the surfboard (6141 I think?) had a console port so I could keep it hooked up to the network while troubleshooting.

# ? Jul 16, 2014 14:12

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# ? May 15, 2024 15:32

SamDabbers: May 26, 2003

Vaporware posted:

So you're saying since the ERL adopts the external static IP assigned by the cable co, not DHCP from the surfboard, the packets just die on the modem side since it doesn't know how to route to the ERL? That would mean the static route I set up might be working, it's just that the modem has no clue how to return the packets?

I was wishing the surfboard (6141 I think?) had a console port so I could keep it hooked up to the network while troubleshooting.

Normally, the cable modem will cycle the Ethernet link (by rebooting) when it loses contact with the CMTS so that the device connected to it will attempt to reacquire a DHCP lease. I've experienced situations where upstream connectivity was marginal and the cable modem didn't switch to offline mode. The ERL lost its DHCP lease and didn't acquire a 192.168.100.0/24 lease from the cable modem, so I was unable to connect to the cable modem diagnostic pages to troubleshoot.

By adding the pseudo-ethernet with an address in 192.168.100.0/24, that subnet is then always on-link and the router will ARP for 192.168.100.1 instead of trying to route to it. It might be an uncommon failure scenario, but the peth configuration seems to work reliably.

# ? Jul 16, 2014 16:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Home Networking Megathread - Yes the OP is out of date

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