Old Router Finally Dying

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Oline61

Gawd
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Aug 8, 2005
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I've been running a Linksys BEFSR41 as a router for a 2 computers and occasional LAN gaming. I has served dutifully for a long time, but appears to be dying.

A few days ago I started downloading a 600+MB Gentoo disc image, contemplating a switch from Ubuntu. At around 60-70% the image would stop downloading. There was not any kind of error. I would bring up the download window and it would be sitting there downloading at 0 KB/s.

Today I started downloading the 230+MB Quake 4 1.3 patch. I encountered the same problem. Since today is a snow day for me I decided to get to the bottom of the problem with all my extra time. I first tried switching off the Windows Firewall, no dice. Tried IE7 & Firefox on Windows. Tried Firefox, Opera and Epiphany on Linux. No luck with any. Tried switching ethernet ports, cables, and computers. Finally there was but one thing left to do, pull the router and plug straight into my Road Runner cable modem. That fixed it. So the problem if now isolated to the router, which oddly enough seems to work fine except for this one problem.

So, unless someone can come up with a router setting I can fiddle with to fix the problem, it looks like a new router for me. I'm looking for suggestions for a new router, or a fix for the old one.

Right now I don't need wireless, but next year I'll go off to college most likely armed with a laptop, and most likely an in state school. That means I may come home once in a while and wireless internet would be nice in that respect. Other than that, I game online a lot, and download torrents so I'll need a router that can offer solid performance.

Thanks for your help,
Oline61
 
I'd say make sure it's up to date on firmware. I had that model (I may be wrong, but I recall it being BEFSR41W) with the PCMCIA slot in the back for a wireless card, and a firmware update fixed speed/connection issues. Since the problem just started, the fw update may not fix it. But, it doesn't take long to update it. May save you cash and a trip out in the cold.
 
If you do end replacing it, I would go with a Netgear Rangemax or their new RangeMax Next which will also give you the option for gig
 
yeah I would try an update first...

outside of that, everyone seems to be really liking that new Dlink gaming router.
a bit pricey, but great reviews

I jsut went with a WRT350N myself, and have been very pleased. I immediatly put on DD-WRT and it's been pretty stable. Still some quirks in the firmware, but will get better in time.
 
Thanks for the help everyone, a firmware update seems to have solved the problem. I updated from the original firmware to the latest one from August 2004. I'm not sure the problem is gone for good though, because the router didn't have the problem when I bought it a few years back, and developed it somewhere between then and now. I'm going to hit up some Counter Strike now and see if my connection holds (one problem I didn't mention in the first post was dropped connections in online games).

Thanks for your help,
Oline61
 
Worse comes to worse, you could use it as a backup when all else fails, and pick up a new wireless router with agigabit wired ethernet switch. I think dlink sells one with that functionality these days.
 
JonBoy69 said:
Worse comes to worse, you could use it as a backup when all else fails, and pick up a new wireless router with agigabit wired ethernet switch. I think dlink sells one with that functionality these days.
Click to expand...

Indeed, and it's at a good price at Fry's right now. See this thread.
 
Linksys pioneered the process :)

Typically it happens during firmware flashes. Every single Linksys death I've had has been during a (valid) firmware flash.

-Larry

annaconda said:
I don;t understand how old router can die?
Click to expand...
 
JonBoy69 said:
Worse comes to worse, you could use it as a backup when all else fails, and pick up a new wireless router with agigabit wired ethernet switch. I think dlink sells one with that functionality these days.
Click to expand...
That sounds great. I guess I'll hold on to this one until I need wireless or this one dies. It's got a few hours of gaming on it and a few gigs of bandwidth overnight from torrents without any troubles. Hopefully it's going to hang on for a while now.

Thanks for your help everyone,
Oline61
 
I did some more research and figured out why I still couldn't get it working with CS:S or HL2:DM. I had to back track to firmware 1.45.7, which works fine with those games. I'm still thinking about replacing it though, because sometimes it quits working and I have to unplug it then plug it back in.
 
I've finally decided to replace this router. The BEFSR41 is still working for light web browsing and e-mail, but I tend to hammer it with bittorrent... And I have to pull the plug on it at least once every 24 hours, which interrupts my torrents.

So, can anyone offer any recommendations for a router with at least 4 wired 10/100 ports that is strong enough to handle a pounding. Wireless would be okay, but i don't really need it.

Thanks for your help,
Oline61
 
I'm partial to this Cisco 871:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833120013

No wireless on that one. Of course, it comes with the Cisco price tag. I prefer it because it gives me extremely fine grain control over everything. It has an SPI firewall that you can fine tune, an IPS, and full QoS capabilities. There's also a wireless version available, but its quite a bit more, around $600.
 
Arch said:
I'm partial to this Cisco 871:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833120013

No wireless on that one. Of course, it comes with the Cisco price tag. I prefer it because it gives me extremely fine grain control over everything. It has an SPI firewall that you can fine tune, an IPS, and full QoS capabilities. There's also a wireless version available, but its quite a bit more, around $600.
Click to expand...

That looks great, but my budget is preferably <$75. I would love to be able to tweak all the features that the Cisco offers, but I would rather shed features and get a nice stable router within my budget.

Thanks for your help,
Oline61
 
I have had no experience with that router but I have had experience with switches of that series and the lan modems back in the day before broadband came to many of my clients. The lan modems were evil, but that was simply because they used dial ups, I have had good luck with the devices and would think a router would be pretty good, but i would stick with something like a cisco or nortel, have you thought about sonicwall?
 
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