ADSL Routers

Also posted to uk.comp.homebuilt, before somebody suggested I try here.

My parents wireless ADSL router from Thomson SpeedTouch 580, recently died
and when I took it back to the shop, they said it was a fairly common issue
with ADSL routers. They recommended that I bought the Netgear ADSL router
in their store 'because its the one that they get the least returns on',
which implies that even with Netgear ADSL routers are unreliable, albeit
less so.

Was the guy in the shop talking rubbish (he seemed to sound like he knew
what he was talking about, especially as in this instance, I was returning a
previously bought product that one of his colleagues had sold me which was
completely wrong (ie, *she* had sold me a cable router when I wanted an ADSL
router - what do I know?)). If ADSL routers are particularly bad at
crashing and burning, then why aren't I hearing loads of bad stories.

Wedell wrote:
> Also posted to uk.comp.homebuilt, before somebody suggested I try here.
>
> My parents wireless ADSL router from Thomson SpeedTouch 580, recently died
> and when I took it back to the shop, they said it was a fairly common
> issue
> with ADSL routers. They recommended that I bought the Netgear ADSL router
> in their store 'because its the one that they get the least returns on',
> which implies that even with Netgear ADSL routers are unreliable, albeit
> less so.
>
> Was the guy in the shop talking rubbish (he seemed to sound like he knew
> what he was talking about, especially as in this instance, I was returning
> a
> previously bought product that one of his colleagues had sold me which was
> completely wrong (ie, *she* had sold me a cable router when I wanted an
> ADSL
> router - what do I know?)). If ADSL routers are particularly bad at
> crashing and burning, then why aren't I hearing loads of bad stories.

ADSL routers are incredibly unreliable. Many use the same chipset, and the
failure rate over twelve months is excessively high, branded or not.

The only sub £100 routers that I would touch are the Netgear (as recommended
by the shop guy) and 3com. I have had excellent results from the 3com office
connect, you can get them pretty cheap on ebuyer. Installed dozens of times,
I have only had one failure, and that was due to a lightening strike. I am
currently using the netgear dg834g on my long line at the moment, it seems
very tolerant of a poor line, and even under intense torrents it keeps
itself up (torrent clients have a reputation for crashing routers, as they
cant handle the many dozens of simultaneous connections).

Whatever you do, do not buy a belkin.

Gaz

"Wedell" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:S_iBg.3203$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Also posted to uk.comp.homebuilt, before somebody suggested I try here.
>
> My parents wireless ADSL router from Thomson SpeedTouch 580, recently died
> and when I took it back to the shop, they said it was a fairly common
issue
> with ADSL routers. They recommended that I bought the Netgear ADSL router
> in their store 'because its the one that they get the least returns on',
> which implies that even with Netgear ADSL routers are unreliable, albeit
> less so.
>

The netgear are nice... I also like the SpeedTouch... but the thunder got
mine recently....

> Was the guy in the shop talking rubbish (he seemed to sound like he knew
> what he was talking about, especially as in this instance, I was returning
a
> previously bought product that one of his colleagues had sold me which was
> completely wrong (ie, *she* had sold me a cable router when I wanted an
ADSL
> router - what do I know?)). If ADSL routers are particularly bad at
> crashing and burning, then why aren't I hearing loads of bad stories.
>
>
I think they see a lot of returns because..

1) They are built down to a cost. I paid £14 for a Conexant Chip Set router
from Micro Direct.
2) Where I live, (Greater Manchester) we have had a lot of "tropical type"
thunder storms recently, and these seem pretty good at killing routers.
3) I get the feeling that many ISP's blame the router before the BT ADSL
provision... Its easier to tell the user to try another router than get BT
to test the line:-(.

Where I work we have about 100 home workers, and we often get asked to swap
the router by their ISPs. In general when we fetch them back they are fine
on our test line, except recently when the lightening seems to have killed a
couple.....

Dave.

I thought my Netgear wireless router was good until it died and I replaced
it with a 2wire.
The performance difference proved the Netgear was a lemon.
The supplier was very polite but completely useless - said it was a firmware
issue (it wouldn't even power up!).

--

"Wedell" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:S_iBg.3203$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Also posted to uk.comp.homebuilt, before somebody suggested I try here.
>
> My parents wireless ADSL router from Thomson SpeedTouch 580, recently died
> and when I took it back to the shop, they said it was a fairly common
> issue with ADSL routers. They recommended that I bought the Netgear ADSL
> router in their store 'because its the one that they get the least returns
> on', which implies that even with Netgear ADSL routers are unreliable,
> albeit less so.
>
> Was the guy in the shop talking rubbish (he seemed to sound like he knew
> what he was talking about, especially as in this instance, I was returning
> a previously bought product that one of his colleagues had sold me which
> was completely wrong (ie, *she* had sold me a cable router when I wanted
> an ADSL router - what do I know?)). If ADSL routers are particularly bad
> at crashing and burning, then why aren't I hearing loads of bad stories.
>

"Wedell" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:S_iBg.3203$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Also posted to uk.comp.homebuilt, before somebody suggested I try here.
>
> My parents wireless ADSL router from Thomson SpeedTouch 580, recently died
> and when I took it back to the shop, they said it was a fairly common
> issue with ADSL routers. They recommended that I bought the Netgear ADSL
> router in their store 'because its the one that they get the least returns
> on', which implies that even with Netgear ADSL routers are unreliable,
> albeit less so.
>
> Was the guy in the shop talking rubbish (he seemed to sound like he knew
> what he was talking about, especially as in this instance, I was returning
> a previously bought product that one of his colleagues had sold me which
> was completely wrong (ie, *she* had sold me a cable router when I wanted
> an ADSL router - what do I know?)). If ADSL routers are particularly bad
> at crashing and burning, then why aren't I hearing loads of bad stories.

We've probably installed a couple of hundred routers over the last three or
four years, mostly Draytek and Conexant cheapies, but a smattering of others
too. We've probably had around 3 or 4 die during thunderstorms and one or
two from no apparent cause.

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Gaz <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
> The only sub £100 routers that I would touch are the Netgear (as
> recommended by the shop guy) and 3com. I have had excellent results
> from the 3com office connect, you can get them pretty cheap on
> ebuyer.

I would take issue with the 3Com bit. The routers themselves are not too
bad, but they come with crap switch-mode power supplies which generate a lot
of noise at ADSL frequencies, and cause endless problems. Mine worked much
better when I threw away 3Com's power supply and used a generic one instead.
Even so, on a MaxDSL line, my ZyXel router achieves higher synch speeds than
the 3Com.

I would seriously look at the ZyXel range - very few problems reported here
compared with other makes.
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
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Alastair wrote:
> "Wedell" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:S_iBg.3203$(E-Mail Removed)...
>> Also posted to uk.comp.homebuilt, before somebody suggested I try here.
>>
>> My parents wireless ADSL router from Thomson SpeedTouch 580, recently
>> died
>> and when I took it back to the shop, they said it was a fairly common
>> issue with ADSL routers. They recommended that I bought the Netgear ADSL
>> router in their store 'because its the one that they get the least
>> returns
>> on', which implies that even with Netgear ADSL routers are unreliable,
>> albeit less so.
>>
>> Was the guy in the shop talking rubbish (he seemed to sound like he knew
>> what he was talking about, especially as in this instance, I was
>> returning
>> a previously bought product that one of his colleagues had sold me which
>> was completely wrong (ie, *she* had sold me a cable router when I wanted
>> an ADSL router - what do I know?)). If ADSL routers are particularly bad
>> at crashing and burning, then why aren't I hearing loads of bad stories.
>
> We've probably installed a couple of hundred routers over the last three
> or
> four years, mostly Draytek and Conexant cheapies, but a smattering of
> others
> too. We've probably had around 3 or 4 die during thunderstorms and one or
> two from no apparent cause.

Well lucky you, i have tried a wide range of routers, with massive failure
rates, routers by Belkin just fail, their guarantee seems to be, "failed
within twelve months, or your money back".

I repeatedly come across unreliable routers, needing rebooting often daily,
and very often weekly. Belkin, linksys, dlink, safecom, dynamode and buffalo
to name a few off hand, which, on a regular basis just stop working
reliably, this isnt a comfortable five or ten percent, but between 25% and
and 75% failure rate on some models.

Gaz

Roger Mills wrote:
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
> Gaz <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>>
>> The only sub £100 routers that I would touch are the Netgear (as
>> recommended by the shop guy) and 3com. I have had excellent results
>> from the 3com office connect, you can get them pretty cheap on
>> ebuyer.
>
> I would take issue with the 3Com bit. The routers themselves are not too
> bad, but they come with crap switch-mode power supplies which generate a
> lot
> of noise at ADSL frequencies, and cause endless problems. Mine worked much
> better when I threw away 3Com's power supply and used a generic one
> instead.
> Even so, on a MaxDSL line, my ZyXel router achieves higher synch speeds
> than
> the 3Com.
>
> I would seriously look at the ZyXel range - very few problems reported
> here
> compared with other makes.

Might try one, what kind of sync improvement did you get? I notice a 50%
increase in price though, something, if i am buying for price conscious
customers might not be appealing.

Gaz

"Gaz" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Alastair wrote:
>> "Wedell" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:S_iBg.3203$(E-Mail Removed)...

> Well lucky you, i have tried a wide range of routers, with massive failure
> rates, routers by Belkin just fail, their guarantee seems to be, "failed
> within twelve months, or your money back".
>
> I repeatedly come across unreliable routers, needing rebooting often
> daily, and very often weekly. Belkin, linksys, dlink, safecom, dynamode
> and buffalo to name a few off hand, which, on a regular basis just stop
> working reliably, this isnt a comfortable five or ten percent, but between
> 25% and and 75% failure rate on some models.

Hmm, very different experience. We do have some that require an occasional
restart - generally failing to resync after overnight BT engineering work,
early Draytek 2600s were the worst for that.

I wonder if there is something environmentally different that causes the
different failure rates? The ones we install are virtually all in
businesses, generally just switched on and left, no particularly heavy
traffic - email, HTTP and RDP.

I don't remember us using any Belkin products, other than the early
Draytek 2600s that I mentioned we haven't seen any real differences
between the rest, £20 CNet units based on the Connexant chipset seem
to work as well as any, except that on poor quality lines Zyxel units
seem to achieve far better sync rates.

> The only sub £100 routers that I would touch are the Netgear (as recommended
> by the shop guy) and 3com

ISTR 3com power supplies are prone to failure, but then again, they`re
cheap to replace (£8-10 IIRC)