Heavy Traffic Wireless

L

Lich

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 23, 2005
Messages
487
So after seeing a brand new router slow internet network traffic to a crawl I got a hold of D-Link sales/tech support. Basically, these home class routers are dying (yes, some of them have physically died on us) as a result of the high volume of network traffic we keep stuffing through them. Doesn't surprise me. But I'm a web developer and not a network guru so I have to make do with what i'm told and try to fix it as i'm the only computer guy here.

Here's the situation: We have anywhere between 10 and 20 computers on the network (depending on how many laptops are there). There are lots of large files (photoshop, corel, etc) constantly being opened, saved, and transfered across the network at any given time. The guy from D-Link suggested this

http://www.dlink.com/products/?sec=0&pid=480

The problem is that the cheapest I can get it before shipping is $311 (retail is $500). And that's a little too much to spring on these guys right now. The bane of a family-run business I guess. I need any and all suggestions for something that can handle this kind of load and won't break the bank on it.

I don't need VPN, firewall, dual WAN, and all that crap. We just need a home router type on steroids that can deal with large files, all the time, and not time out on us or have the router lock up.
 
KaosDG said:
Is there an absolute *need* for wireless in this situation?
Click to expand...

For the most part, yes. There's places around where it would be an absolute bitch to try and run cable to, plus there's laptops and stuff that are moved all over the place. All things considered, I would absolutely love to get rid of the wireless mess and just run cable even to the hard to reach places and just be done with it. That would make things so much easier, but i'm making do with what I can.

If we want to talk problem resolution, I don't think this is a wireless issue. even with all the wireless traffic, the server which is cat5'ed into the router doesn't get any better performance, it all drops and times out. Like I said, i'm not a networking dude or anything but this leads me to believe that the high amount of traffic will kill the router regardless of wired or wireless.

Unless of course it's just the wireless traffic that kills the router and if the same amount of traffic was transferred via cat5 instead would result in a great network I think I can convince him that $50 worth of cable is better than $350 worth of bloated features router. I would just have to be sure that it would work beforehand before I screw this whole project up.
 
evandena said:
Have you considered a Linksys WRT54G running DD-WRT? Some models have 266mghz CPU and 32 MB ram.

http://www.dd-wrt.com
Click to expand...
Interesting.

Maybe i'm missing something here, but I don't see where it says that it will handle the load better. The WRT54Gs are the ones that kept dying on us.

In other news, I talked to the guy that set this thing up, he said that back when everything was wired, the network was still dying left and right.
 
It might just be the large amount of traffic that you are generating (wired or wireless). It might be time to step up to something that is geared more towards business. Yes it will be more expensive then the $30 routers you can pick up at the local Best Buy, but it will same some hassel if you make the right decision.

For your boss, you have to explain that every time this happens you are lossing time and money, and that the problem will continue if they do not buy something better.
 
Believe me, I know. They're losing money in 1) Buying new routers 2) having me fix the damn things when they go down 3) Loss of network = loss of productivity

Our WRT54G died 2 days ago and we got a D-LINK 108G MIMO Router. And it can't handle the load for crap either. That's why I need some recommendations, even if the price is steep.

EDIT:
OK, I've had a thought. Will the router handle the load better as an access point? I could just setup the WindowsServer as a router/DHCP and use the router as an access point.
 
Well, you can try using an old desktop type machine as a router, then a couple WRT54G's with DD-WRT as AP's.

Or get a commercial wireless router from Cisco.
 
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