Routers & Other Networking Stuff
- Thread starter gogusrl
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Harfle
Lord Nagafen Raider
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Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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They absolutely don't need 3rd party firmware. Look, I'm someone that roots all my phones & tablets to put custom ROMs on them, I build my own gaming PCs, etc, and I've never seen the use of custom firmware with my Asus router. And believe me, I put quite the stress test on the thing daily, I have double-digit devices on my home network (Chromecast, Amazon Fire Stick, Roku 3, 2 phones, 3 tablets, 1 laptop, a dropcam surveillance cam, two Smart TVs, and my wired gaming PC)
Stock Asus firmware does me just fine. I torrent a shitload of games and media, run a Plex media server, remote-desktop into my gaming PC multiple times a day from my phone & tablets. My Asus handles everything like a champ, I could count the number of times I've reset it in the past 2 years on 1 hand.
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So I bought one of these over the weekend:RouterBoard.com : RB951G-2HnD
Has a ton of features I'll probably never use. But it was cheaper than an Asus N66U and I'm not ready to switch to AC. Nor am I sure that it's really needed yet.
Which leads into my question: I notice that it's 2x2 MIMO, which I guess limits the theoretical max at 300Mbps? In real strong signal conditions, should you expect to see something close to that? The router's admin page was reporting Tx and Rx rates closer to just above g theoretical max. Is there some program that helps test wireless transfer speeds? Or am just going to have to transfer a bunch of files and see what it maxes out at?
Considering you rarely ever need 450Mbps(or 300Mbps for that matter), I'm not concerned about missing 3x3 MIMO. I'm not even sure there are consumer devices that come 3x3 MIMO besides routers. All the devices I looked at(tablets and phones mostly) were 2x2 MIMO. But does a 3x3 router have an advantage over a 2x2 when talking to 2x2 devices? Better noise or cross talk reduction?
Has a ton of features I'll probably never use. But it was cheaper than an Asus N66U and I'm not ready to switch to AC. Nor am I sure that it's really needed yet.
Which leads into my question: I notice that it's 2x2 MIMO, which I guess limits the theoretical max at 300Mbps? In real strong signal conditions, should you expect to see something close to that? The router's admin page was reporting Tx and Rx rates closer to just above g theoretical max. Is there some program that helps test wireless transfer speeds? Or am just going to have to transfer a bunch of files and see what it maxes out at?
Considering you rarely ever need 450Mbps(or 300Mbps for that matter), I'm not concerned about missing 3x3 MIMO. I'm not even sure there are consumer devices that come 3x3 MIMO besides routers. All the devices I looked at(tablets and phones mostly) were 2x2 MIMO. But does a 3x3 router have an advantage over a 2x2 when talking to 2x2 devices? Better noise or cross talk reduction?
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Using this table:
IEEE 802.11n-2009 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I think that means this router does a max of MCS7, which is 150Mbps. I know it can do 2x2 MIMO, why doesn't it go up to MCS15? I keep thinking there's gotta be a reason this company doesn't have any 802.11ac products. I don't see a reason for it yet, 2x2 MIMO 802.11n will probably handle streaming 4k video content just fine. But, at the same time, I can't help but feel that having the extra headroom would have been nice. Being limited to 150Mbps feels kinda bad.
IEEE 802.11n-2009 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I think that means this router does a max of MCS7, which is 150Mbps. I know it can do 2x2 MIMO, why doesn't it go up to MCS15? I keep thinking there's gotta be a reason this company doesn't have any 802.11ac products. I don't see a reason for it yet, 2x2 MIMO 802.11n will probably handle streaming 4k video content just fine. But, at the same time, I can't help but feel that having the extra headroom would have been nice. Being limited to 150Mbps feels kinda bad.
gogusrl
Molten Core Raider
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RouterBoard.com : Productsthey've added a lot of 802.11ac products lately. More to be released soonhttp://i.mt.lv/eu15.pdf
Crone
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Doesn't AC have better range and/or better signal through walls, etc? That was why I thought about going to AC, so I could get better all house coverage.
I need to figure out the best solution to get a pfSense proxy or something to filter my home network without buying an insane appliance.
I have a Synology and a routerboard rb2011 and a nighthawk x6. Just need to figure out if I need to run a proxy in docker or something on the synology and then route traffic into that and then back out through the router. I also want to adblock at the same time globally on the network.
I guess I need to spend some time on smallnetbuilder.
I have a Synology and a routerboard rb2011 and a nighthawk x6. Just need to figure out if I need to run a proxy in docker or something on the synology and then route traffic into that and then back out through the router. I also want to adblock at the same time globally on the network.
I guess I need to spend some time on smallnetbuilder.
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I'm not sure on that. I _thought_ 2.4GHz has better penetration. 5GHz was chosen because everything is on 2.4GHz, reducing its effectiveness. But, I could be wrong.
I'm quite happy with my coverage on the 951G. My house was built in the 70s with aluminum siding, so I essentially live in a giant Faraday cage. For example, I get solid 3-4 bars of LTE outside my house while barely getting 1 bar of EDGE inside on the top floor(bottom floor is basically no coverage). This router covers everything inside with at least 3 bars and outside is mostly 2 bars.
Joeboo
Molten Core Raider
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That's really going to come down to the antennas more than the standard(b,n,ac,whatever)
AC routers *can* support up to 8 seperate antennas running at 400mbps apiece, but I haven't seen one with more than 4 antennas. The best "n" routers have 3-4 antennas currently, so your range and structure penetration right now isn't going to be much different than an equivalent "n" router.
Also, ac exclusively uses the 5ghz band, while n used both 5ghz and 2.4ghz. The 5ghz band is faster, but doesn't penetrate through walls/structures as well as 2.4 ghz, it has a shorter effective range, however 2.4ghz is used by a lot of different types of devices, so there's more interference on that band, so real-world usage you'll generally get a cleaner signal with 5ghz, but it may not travel quite as far as 2.4ghz.
and lastly, the ac standard has what is called "beamforming". Up until this point, routers just broadcasted a signal out in all directions, so you always wanted your router in a centralized location in your home. What "beamforming" does is the ac router detects the positioning of connected wireless devices and attempts to focus the signal to transmit stronger in that direction.
I honestly have no clue how well beamforming works, I've never used an AC router, but the idea behind it sounds good.
so tl;dr, ac is faster, but you probably aren't going to see any better range than from an equivalent quality older "n" router
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Beamforming is basically using multiple antennae and delaying the same signal through each at specific times such that they combine to a stronger signal in some areas and cancel out in others. You get a strong "lobe" where you're aiming and smaller orthogonal side lobes. Note, this is only on transmit, I doubt your mobile device is beamforming.
gogusrl
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there's a lot of options but routing your shit through the synology (not the best security reputation AND it's your storage device) is the worst solution. You can either run pfsense in a VM inside the Mikrotik (Manual:Metarouter - MikroTik Wiki) or just try to do it with mikrotik's firewall (check this outaziraphale/routeros-dns-adblock · GitHub).
Thanks will look into both of those. I will have to bridge the Netgear since the RB2011 has a much weaker wifi in my opinion due to being an older non-AC model.
I just ordered aTP-Link Archer C7router that came highly recommended. There are a ton of networks on 2.4GHz, but only one on 5GHz... so I'm hoping switching to 5GHz will boost performance. It's gotten pretty abysmal as of late. The router is also AC ready, which is nice for future-proofing. Plus, it's only $80.
gogusrl
Molten Core Raider
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Critical vulnerability in NetUSB driver exposes millions of routers to hacking | PCWorld
www.xexexe.cz: Bruteforcing TP-Link routers with JavaScript
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/router-e...ews-20510.html
and another ~150k results. stop buying that crap, you don't need it and probably won't get more than 100 mbps anyway.
www.xexexe.cz: Bruteforcing TP-Link routers with JavaScript
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/router-e...ews-20510.html
and another ~150k results. stop buying that crap, you don't need it and probably won't get more than 100 mbps anyway.