routers

[Yousuf Khan]

Been using nothing but D-link routers for the past several years. Not
that I find them particularly highly reliable or anything like that, but
because for some reason many of my UPnP applications don't seem to work
well with any other brand of routers that I've tried. I actually have a
Belkin router that I bought to replace my last D-link but I now use
simply as a hub, because I couldn't get it to work with some of my UPnP
apps; I had to put the old D-link back in as the main router, and made
the Belkin a secondary slave router in a different part of the house
(its routing functions are disabled, it's just used as an Etherhub and a
WiFi access point).

The apps that use UPNP are uTorrent and Emule. Emule is particularly
finicky about routers.

The current routers are D-link WBR-2310, and Belkin F7D2301 N300. Before
anyone asks, yes I have checked for newer firmware for these, and both
are at their latest firmware, and they are both old enough now that
there's no more support for them.

Also I find almost all of these brands tend to overheat if kept on for
too long (let's say over 1 or 2 months). So I'd be interested hearing
about more reliable products that'll last at least 3 months or more
without a reboot and cool-down! LOL!

Are there other brands that anyone can recommend other than D-link that
work with these apps? I'm particularly interested in hearing reports
about brands like Asus, Buffalo, & Tenda as I've never tried those
before. I've tried the usual brands like Linksys/Cisco, Netgear, etc. in
the past.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Hench]

Been using nothing but D-link routers for the past several years. Not
that I find them particularly highly reliable or anything like that, but
because for some reason many of my UPnP applications don't seem to work
well with any other brand of routers that I've tried. I actually have a
Belkin router that I bought to replace my last D-link but I now use
simply as a hub, because I couldn't get it to work with some of my UPnP
apps; I had to put the old D-link back in as the main router, and made
the Belkin a secondary slave router in a different part of the house
(its routing functions are disabled, it's just used as an Etherhub and a
WiFi access point).

The apps that use UPNP are uTorrent and Emule. Emule is particularly
finicky about routers.

The current routers are D-link WBR-2310, and Belkin F7D2301 N300. Before
anyone asks, yes I have checked for newer firmware for these, and both
are at their latest firmware, and they are both old enough now that
there's no more support for them.

Also I find almost all of these brands tend to overheat if kept on for
too long (let's say over 1 or 2 months). So I'd be interested hearing
about more reliable products that'll last at least 3 months or more
without a reboot and cool-down! LOL!

Are there other brands that anyone can recommend other than D-link that
work with these apps? I'm particularly interested in hearing reports
about brands like Asus, Buffalo, & Tenda as I've never tried those
before. I've tried the usual brands like Linksys/Cisco, Netgear, etc. in
the past.

Yousuf Khan

I've had a great run with a cheap azz cisco 1200 router. Works with
several iOS devices and laptops and wireless printers.

Have not rebooted in over 6 or 7 months except to change a wpa2
password. Consistant speeds to our smart phones, even at 70 feet away
in the backyard (15mbps i think) Laptop still pulls 50+ mbps about 40
feet away. I don't ever recall a dropped signal.

Cost me $30 about 2 years ago.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I've had a great run with a cheap azz cisco 1200 router. Works with
several iOS devices and laptops and wireless printers.

Have not rebooted in over 6 or 7 months except to change a wpa2
password. Consistant speeds to our smart phones, even at 70 feet away
in the backyard (15mbps i think) Laptop still pulls 50+ mbps about 40
feet away. I don't ever recall a dropped signal.

Cost me $30 about 2 years ago.

Do you use any UPNP apps?

Yousuf Khan

 

[generic name]

Do you use any UPNP apps?

Yousuf Khan

I use the Netgear 3700 ver 1 & don't reboot every month; actually
haven't done it in many months. Now, I only use a UPNP device a
Yamaha AVR which dropped signals from tha NAS; did that even when
playing music.

Interestingly, I read that some people just connect their devices to
a switch rather than directly to the router. So, I changed the NAS
connection from the router to the switch, & NO MORE DROPPED or even
a difficulty of connecting which I also had!

No real idea why except I'm now quite happy with the WD MyBooklive.

 

[Hench]

Do you use any UPNP apps?

Yousuf Khan

I use utorrent, sparingly, on a pc but it's wired.

After re-reading your post, i didn't realize your main issue was with UPNP.

 

[generic name]

:

I'm unclear on the topology of your setup. You now connect your
network-attached-storage (Western Digital's My Book Live, in your case)
to a switch instead of directly to the Netgear router. What does the switch
connect to?

You say: "Now, I only use a UPNP device a Yamaha AVR which dropped
signals from the NAS". Does this mean "Now the only UPnP device that I
use is a Yamaha AVR which previously dropped signals sent from the NAS..."?
If so, where does the WD My Book Live fit in? Just tryin' to unnerstand . . . .

*TimDaniels*
*TimDaniels*

I believe that is a given that the switch is connected to a router;
looks like you think I had the switch connecting only the MBL...
The AVR is the only UPNP device that dropped signals; The
"My Booklive" is the NAS as marketed by WD.

You're just trying to show how smart you are & magnitudes
greater than myself, like "JohnDoe".

 

[Yousuf Khan]

"generic name" explained:
[ . . . ]

I believe that is a given that the switch is connected to a router;
looks like you think I had the switch connecting only the MBL...
The AVR is the only UPNP device that dropped signals; The "My
Booklive" is the NAS as marketed by WD.

[ . . . ]

So the router connects to a switch which connects to the
Yamaha AVR (which is a UPnP device), and with that intermediary
switch, the UPnP protocol worked? Is that right? Any guess as to
why the switch allowed things to work?

My reading about his setup is that the UPNP worked even when it was
directly connected to the router, but that connections often got dropped
within the internal LAN. Now the switch takes the burden of connecting
the internal LAN devices, and frees up the router from that duty.

I've found that I've had to separate out a lot of functions from my main
router too. I've sometimes disabled its WiFi, as it becomes more
unstable sooner if it's running its WiFi radio; as I said, I have a
second router that acts as an access point, and it serves up the WiFi.
Also if it's acting as a hub/switch, it also gets unstable sooner. So I
also have a separate switch which takes that burden off the router. So
the router is just free to just do the routing functions and doesn't
have to also do WiFi and switching anymore.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I use the Netgear 3700 ver 1 & don't reboot every month; actually
haven't done it in many months. Now, I only use a UPNP device a
Yamaha AVR which dropped signals from tha NAS; did that even when
playing music.

Why would the AVR need UPNP? Isn't it just streaming everything out to
local devices? Therefore why would it need to access the Internet and
thus need UPNP?

Also does your router have 1 gigabit or 100 megabit LAN ports? What
speed is the switch instead? I'm thinking maybe if the router had
different speed (i.e. slower) ports than the switch does, then that
might explain it.

 

[generic name]

Why would the AVR need UPNP? Isn't it just streaming everything out to
local devices? Therefore why would it need to access the Internet and
thus need UPNP?

As I understand UPNP is a protocol to let various devices on the lan
to "discover" each other. The AVR need to discover the NAS media
server for access to the stored audio; the blu-ray also need to
discover the NAS for both the video & audio files. Neither the AVR
nor the blu-player are wired or have the NAS ipaddr as it isn't
needed with UPNP.

However, the router has the UPNP turned off so that it is harder
to be discovered by any devices on the internet, theorectically.
Turning the router's UPNP doesn't affect my AVR or blu-ray players;
interesting that my tablet has UPNP & the audio player can play the
NAS's music files; really not sure I did it using UPNP or the ipaddr.
The laptop does see NAS under win8 & without my mapping it; but that
was using the "metro commander" with installed a WD app to have the
WD NAS show up; not sure how it was done but have deleted both the
metro commander app & the WD app.

The AVR does neet to access the internet as it is the "new" way of
doing things like update the firmware, play the stuff from Pandora,
& the Internet "radios" for all kinds of music available on the
internet for "free" aside from commercials which are very limited
depending on the internet radio's programming & support.

Also does your router have 1 gigabit or 100 megabit LAN ports? What
speed is the switch instead? I'm thinking maybe if the router had
different speed (i.e. slower) ports than the switch does, then that
might explain it.

The router lan ports are 1 gigabit as are the switch's ports. Don't
understand why the switch works so much better for the AVR & the
blu-ray players don't have any proplems especially when 1 of the
players is also from the same company! Had tried all kinds of
settings on the NAS Twonky server without any luck & the reconnection
to a switch working is just plain luck of the mysterious kind.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

As I understand UPNP is a protocol to let various devices on the lan
to "discover" each other. The AVR need to discover the NAS media
server for access to the stored audio; the blu-ray also need to
discover the NAS for both the video & audio files. Neither the AVR
nor the blu-player are wired or have the NAS ipaddr as it isn't
needed with UPNP.

Yes, that is another use for UPNP, but I was thinking of its other
common use, which is as an automatic port forwarder for devices that
need to get access to the Internet through a firewall or router.

However, the router has the UPNP turned off so that it is harder
to be discovered by any devices on the internet, theorectically.
Turning the router's UPNP doesn't affect my AVR or blu-ray players;
interesting that my tablet has UPNP & the audio player can play the
NAS's music files; really not sure I did it using UPNP or the ipaddr.
The laptop does see NAS under win8 & without my mapping it; but that
was using the "metro commander" with installed a WD app to have the
WD NAS show up; not sure how it was done but have deleted both the
metro commander app & the WD app.

The router's UPNP doesn't reveal it on the Internet. It's only used to
forward ports to devices and programs behind the router to applications
outside of the router.

Even with the UPNP turned off on the router, that doesn't affect
localized devices inside the LAN that communicate to each other via
UPNP. Those devices just won't be able to communicate with the router as
another UPNP device.

The AVR does neet to access the internet as it is the "new" way of
doing things like update the firmware, play the stuff from Pandora,
& the Internet "radios" for all kinds of music available on the
internet for "free" aside from commercials which are very limited
depending on the internet radio's programming & support.

A lot of passive Internet usage like that doesn't really require UPNP
access through a router. It's when programs are also uploading data to
the Internet that UPNP becomes necessary.

The router lan ports are 1 gigabit as are the switch's ports. Don't
understand why the switch works so much better for the AVR & the
blu-ray players don't have any proplems especially when 1 of the
players is also from the same company! Had tried all kinds of
settings on the NAS Twonky server without any luck & the reconnection
to a switch working is just plain luck of the mysterious kind.

I find that routers are in general overworked and undercooled. They have
at least three major functions that are separate but running at the same
time through the router's internal processor. The first one is the
routing function itself, which routes data back and forth from the
internal LAN to the Internet (this is where the UPNP layer resides). Its
second function is to act as a switch for wired Ethernet ports. And its
third function is to act as a WiFi access point for wireless ports. The
three functions are being multitasked on a relatively weak, underpowered
processor, which has no fans to cool it down: thus overworked and
undercooled.

Yousuf Khan