| Computer Related > Best ADSL router | Computing Issues |
| Thread Author: RichardW | Replies: 25 |
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New Wed 20 May 15 21:28
Best ADSL router - RichardW
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| Using a TP-link ADSL router here - seems to have some vulnerability as the DNS server keeps getting changed. Doesn't seem to be any recent firmware upgrades for it, but I might try the latest one. Thinking about getting something else. Recommendations? |
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New Wed 20 May 15 21:59
Best ADSL router - Zero
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>> Recommendations? How much do yer wannaspend? The answer will be a linksys something or other. |
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New Thu 21 May 15 00:53
Best ADSL router - Stuartli
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I'm with TalkTalk, but bought a Netgear DGND4000 (N750) last year for around £90 as the TT model I had at the time was a bit average (no surprise there then!) It's a dual channel modem router that proved very efficient but, unfortunately, to allow me to use it for fibre broadband would have cost around the same price for the required VDSL modem...:-( So I've been using the TalkTalk Super Router (Huawei 635) which has proved, unexpectedly, rather good. The Netgear was given to my best mate, who has standard TalkTalk ADSL2+ broadband. He's delighted with it. I did try a Linskys B/G/N/ac modem router but eventually sent it back, opting for the Netgear instead. Interestingly, a basic £15 TP-Link ADSL2+ modem provided more bandwidth than the TalkTalk modem router in attempts to boost the broadband speeds. Last edited by: Stuartli on Thu 21 May 15 at 00:54
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New Thu 21 May 15 13:23
Best ADSL router - RichardW
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Up to a ton I guess. We're only on copper but we get 15 Mbit/s down which is OK for us. We don't have any fancy tellies for streaming video, and don't need masses of WI-Fi speed. This one was bought in a rush when the previous one chose the day I was working at home (no, I was, really!) to die. It's always been a bit flaky, drops the connection, then won't let you in, so has to be hard re-booted. Been happening more often lately, and it seems to get its DNS changed every couple of days now, which brings up all sorts of odd nefarious web sites. |
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New Thu 21 May 15 13:46
Best ADSL router - smokie
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I think you're wasting your money until you know more. If the connection is dropping are you sure it is the router? It's dodgy to assume that because rebooting the router fixes it that the router itself is the cause - could be so, but then again maybe not. It is fairly unusual for hardware to "go bad" these days, though hondootedly there will be people along telling me how wrong I am shortly. DNS server settings by default come from your ISP. So how will a new router affect that? Also not so sure why a change in DNS server would cause new sites to appear. Unless your router has a virus - which is possible but so so so unlikely that's it's really impossible (some of those Huwaei (sp?) were rumoured to have some vulnerabilities). Many people prefer to use public DNS servers rather than their ISPs. If you want to always use the same DNS server you can specify it on your device - just go to the IP settings and put in whatever you want. , I use Google's - see developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/ for how-to. |
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New Thu 21 May 15 15:03
Best ADSL router - Dog
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>>I think you're wasting your money until you know more. ditto ... I've had the same TP-Link router for 12 months now with no problems whatsoever. I bought it to replace the Thompson carp that PlusNet gave me. |
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New Thu 21 May 15 21:57
Best ADSL router - RichardW
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| I'm sure it's the router - I've had it about 3 years, and the hardware version suggests it is old. Even when set to User discovered DNS using Open DNS it changes itself to some other one which results in adverts and redirects coming up. Often after it drops the connection you can't log onto it, and it needs a hard reset. Connection always re-makes, so it's not the line. I've decided on a new one, and no, on this occasion a Ford Mondeo won't fit :-) |
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New Thu 21 May 15 22:23
Best ADSL router - Zero
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| Check out the Linksys EA6900 - avail now for about 130 quid. |
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New Thu 21 May 15 22:44
Best ADSL router - RattleandSmoke
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I personally use Asus ones, they are not cheap as they are around £80+ but they are reliable. Personaly at home I use a TPLink as I have 'catted' out the entire house the wireless signal is not that important. Have you made sure your admin password is not admin? |
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New Tue 12 Jan 16 22:33
Best ADSL router - WillDeBeest
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Tell me more about this LinkSys, Z. Or Rats's Asus. Or both. Reviving this because the BT Home Hub 3 I've mentioned elsewhere seems not to be adding to the sum of human happiness. And from what I've read here and elsewhere, while I might persuade BT to swap it for an HH5, that might not be much of an improvement. So I'm wondering whether it's time to buy something that's really up to the job. We work our network hard: music from Deezer and nearly all our TV (BBC, Netflix, Sky cricket) come down the Infinity fibres, one Beestling is a heavy Skype user, the other likes playing games online with his friends, but I suspect it's the traffic within the house that's overwhelming the HH3. So while I don't feel we need mega-speed wifi (and the major entertainment devices are Cat-6 wired anyway) I think I'm looking for something with a fair bit more processor power than BT's routers can offer. What I want is for the network just to perform again, like it used to before the load got so heavy. And I want my Deezer music to play over Sonos without wondering it's about to skip or stop. And the iPlayer to get right through a programme without the buffering arrow appearing, because it's got 40mb/s coming in and it shouldn't have to rebuffer anything. It looks like my options begin at about £80 and go up to about £200. So who's got what - and if I'm right about the BT units, how much better might a proper router be? And would I appreciate the difference at the top end of the range? Oh yes, and I'd like to be able to fix it to the wall. Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Tue 12 Jan 16 at 22:35
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New Tue 12 Jan 16 23:05
Best ADSL router - RattleandSmoke
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I've had a bit of mixed luck with Asus routers, now I tend to just supply TP Link Archer routers for domestic customers now. They are quite expensive but I use one myself and never have to restart it. I think the new Asus routers are a lot better but again they tend to cost around £100 or more for the decent ones. I have not used Linksys for years so cannot comment. I am not a fan of Netgear routers as the interfaces are always too fussy. I just want to get the job done and I find TP-Link are the quickest routers to configure as I know what I am doing. You get a much more reliable and faster connection with the more expensive routers, but the Home Hub is awful not really suitable for anything more than flat or a small house. |
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New Tue 12 Jan 16 23:24
Best ADSL router - Zero
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The home hub is NOT awful, the HH 5 consistently scores very highly in wireless tests. Mine is very good. And stable. To be honest WDB, given the traffic you have described NOTHING is going to perform as you want. You may well have a 40mbs second link, but with one of the herd gaming, one skyping, a machine recording and you watching something your network is going to stutter - link speed does not equate to uninterrupted streaming throughput. New router wont fix it. You need to decide if you want a two box or one box set up I thnk you have the two box set up, nothing wrong with this. So you can choose nearly any wireless router you want If you want a one box set up then You want the best VDSL Asus router you can afford, and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES screw the rugger to the wall, unless you want to cut half the house out of the wireless lobes Last edited by: Zero on Tue 12 Jan 16 at 23:25
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New Wed 13 Jan 16 08:22
Best ADSL router - Dog
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>>now I tend to just supply TP Link Archer routers for domestic customers now. I bought a cheap TD-W8960N some years ago when I gave PlusNet the elbow. It fulfils its porpoise admirably. |
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New Thu 14 Jan 16 08:02
Best ADSL router - Falkirk Bairn
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>>now I tend to just supply TP Link Archer routers for domestic customers R&S Lots of models £30 Upwards - what model would you normally buy? Plain old copper (aluminium actually!) connection and no date (if ever!!) for a fibre update from BT. - laptop, i-pad & i player are the users currently a d-link which "has its moments". |
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New Tue 12 Jan 16 23:06
Best ADSL router - rtj70
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If you have the BT HH3 then you also have the BT Openreach (Huawei) VDSDL modem. So your two options really are: 1. A router normally described as suitable for cable internet (i.e. no xDSDL modem in it) whereby you connect the WAN Ethernet port to the VDSL modem and configure the router to logon to the BT Infinity server over PPPoE. Username is bthomehub@btbroadband.com and the password can be anything. 2. Buy a VDSL/ADSL router with an inbuilt xDSL router so you can also ditch the BT Infinity VSDL modem at the same time. Pat did this recently. Whatever you opt to do, do not get an ADSL2+ router and use that. It either should also support VDSL or go for a router that has no modem. I swapped to a Linksys router a number of years ago. How expensive you go is really dictated by the number of antennas, does it do beam forming, whether it supports the very latest WiFi standards (some which aren't even agreed properly yet). And whether you go for a super-duper one depends on your devices. No point in one that claims Gbit speeds using 4 antennas when there's no device in the house with four antennas to talk back to it at Gbit speeds. Likewise a dual 2.4GHz and 5GHz router when you have no 5GHz capable wifi devices. |
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New Wed 13 Jan 16 04:30
Best ADSL router - Pat
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We've go this one NETGEAR D7000 Nighthawk AC1900 Wireless VDSL / ADSL Modem Router It's cured all the problems and works well with connecting the TV to wifi two rooms away. It is fixed to the wall as well and with the aerials it makes it possible to improve the signal where you want it to be, it seems. I opted for Talk Talk's free broadband health check as the upgrade they were offering customers after the data leak and their engineer came out last week. He tested everything and declared the router one of the best for distance. Pat |
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New Wed 13 Jan 16 14:02
Best ADSL router - Stuartli
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>>He tested everything and declared the router one of the best for distance.>> My current TalkTalk Super Router (Huawei 635)'s coverage is remarkable. As soon as I'm around 30 yards or so from my front door, my HTC phone is donging away, having picked up the wi-fi signal and downloaded new e-mails. It also cover the full area of my three-bedroomed property even though it's tucked away in the front room behind my monitor...:-) |
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New Wed 13 Jan 16 14:23
Best ADSL router - Pat
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Yes, I noticed he had one of those tucked under his arm when he came in......but he didn't offer to leave it here! Pat |
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New Wed 13 Jan 16 14:41
Best ADSL router - WillDeBeest
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Thanks everyone. Wifi is not really a concern - the house isn't tiny but it's roughly an 8m cube with the router located near the centre of the base, so it reaches everywhere I need it to. It's more, I think, to do with raw horsepower, which the BT router doesn't have enough of for the kind of traffic we put through it. And wired devices have as much trouble as wireless. I'll investigate the suggestions and make a shortlist. |
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New Wed 13 Jan 16 21:15
Best ADSL router - RichardW
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| Since the thread has been dragged up..... I updated the firmware shortly after this, and since then no change in DNS and no dropped connection. I like cheap fixes!! |
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New Wed 13 Jan 16 21:43
Best ADSL router - WillDeBeest
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| So do I. On the advice of the nice support people at Sonos, I'm moving the system back to Boost mode (one player wired to the router, then player-to-player mesh) in case that relieves the router of enough traffic to leave room for everything else. Standard (all-wireless star centred on the router) was fine with four units but perhaps six is too big a load. We'll see. |
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New Thu 18 Feb 16 15:28
Best ADSL router - WillDeBeest
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Quick update: the Sonos situation improved - and I've never had a problem with Netflix - but the rest of the network used by PCs and tablets around the house remained dreadful. I spent an evening in an online chat session with a BT support tech, who says he made some changes at the exchange end; measured download speed went from 27Mb/s to 37 but this may just have been because the evening peak period was over by the time we finished. In any case, even 27Mb/s ought to be adequate for most of what we do; I've always been convinced that the problem was with the distribution of data within the house rather than with the rate at which it came in. So I could have faffed about with BT in the hope of getting a free HH5 and that that might work better, but I decided it would be quicker just to buy my own, so I did. And in the Alanovićian spirit of announcing the decision first and reporting later, I'll tell you what I know now and we can judge as we go along how good a decision it was. For a start, I paid £90 for a TP Link Archer C9. (There's a more expensive D9 that also includes the PPPoE modem that I already have from BT.) This has two wireless bands and a nominal combined data rate of 1900mb/s. Since I have several data-hungry devices that are older and confined to the 2.4GHz band, I'm hoping that allowing the newer devices to use 5GHz will reduce the potential for congestion. Importantly, it also has the multicast setting required to fool my BT Vision+ TV box into believing it's still connected to a Home Hub for channels like BBC4 HD that rely on it; that took a bit of extra configuring but seems to be working. From the off, I think I've removed a bottleneck from the network. The wired PS3 seldom managed to measure more than a 10Mb/s download speed but it now shows 35 even in mid-evening. BBC iPlayer still occasionally coughs and buffers but I'm inclined to blame capacity at the BBC end (or its content delivery networks) for this. Nothing else seems to have any trouble at all. When time allows I will go through some diagnostics with the Sonos support team to see if the 'wireless interference' they've repeatedly told me about has gone. Meanwhile - and for the time being - I'm a happy camper. As a bonus, the C9 is much more configurable than the HH3, so I can do things like guaranteed (or capped) bandwidth for specific devices, which might keep Beestling Minor's skyping and his brother's online games from monopolizing the network. But mostly I think it's a more modern, more powerful router that can cope better with a modern household's data load. We'll see. |
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New Tue 23 Feb 16 12:00
Archer C9 - WillDeBeest
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Still settling down. I had to restart my NAS to allow Sonos to play files off it, then last night I had to reboot the Vision+ box to make all the channels appear. So a few more interruptions than I'd have liked, but generally it seems to be working well, and a huge performance improvement on the HH3.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Tue 23 Feb 16 at 12:01
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New Fri 6 May 16 10:51
Archer C9 - WillDeBeest
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Gosh, nearly three months since I promised an update and it took Vić's comment on his HH4 to remind me. The Archer C9 has been faultless since my last report, so much so that I've hardly given it a thought - whereas I was fiddling with the HH3 and fielding complaints from the family almost every day. I'm a little surprised because much of the C9's focus is on wireless throughput, while most of the devices that seemed to be suffering were on wired connections, but I suppose much of both goes through the same processing engine. And there's now a 5GHz wireless network, which the newer devices can use and relieve any congestion that was affecting the Sonosnet at 2.4GHz. So I'm a happy camper. Could I have achieved the same result by wringing a free HH5 out of BT? Possibly, and that wouldn't have required a manual (but easy) configuration change to support BT TV channels. But it might have taken weeks, and it still might not have worked. This was £90 well spent, I think. |
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New Mon 23 May 16 12:38
Archer C9 - Bromptonaut
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Sorted now but perhaps worth adding to sum of experiences above. Until recently we were using a TP Link 8980 bought in 2013. It sat on a shelf in spare bedroom/'my' study and is plugged into an extension phone socket. Like poster above ADSL2+ is fast enough for all our needs although 'fibre to cabinet' (funded by County/District Council) is available. My laptop, a shared colour printer/scanner and NAS were connected to the LAN sockets. Mrs B is a PhD student so we adapted our nest flown daughter's room to be a study for her. She has a wireless connected laptop and a mono laser printer also is a wi fi network resource via wi-fi in reach of her desk. About four weeks ago she began complaining that her internet access was poor and at times non-existent and she was struggling to print. Son and daughter, home for a few days, also reported wi-fi issues. My laptop was mostly OK but it was apparent that DSL was frequently dropping out and the router was spontaneously re-starting several times a day. Tried connecting router to master socket in hall with no improvement. Tried swapping out ADSL filters - no change. Being as Mrs B needs 24/7 access to Uni site, journals etc a new router was needed immediately. Distress purchases limited to what was in stock at Currys so we ended up with a Netgear D6200. Wi-fi issues cured but DSL still up/down like whor*'s drawers. Also noticed that voice calls were dropping out. We're in an area where infrastructure is 100% BT Openreach. My ISP is Demon while telephone has been transferred from Tesco to Talk Talk. Talk Talk helpline was c*rp - wet string connection to somebody in India who struggled with English. Demon's help line is also overseas but was at least competent. Both gave fault references but also cautioned me as to risk of bill from BT if fault turned out to be my wiring. Now it may be coincidence, or others at my end of village may have had line issues too, but following day there were Openreach vans in village and men up poles and down holes. Since then, excepting a couple DSL of drop outs, it's been 100%. Think I'm pushing my luck though staying with Talk Talk AND a split phone/ISP supplier. Thoughts? |
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New Fri 24 Jun 16 09:44
TP Link N600 - Falkirk Bairn
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TP Link N600 bought for me by one of my sons. I had had a few issues with the TalkTalk modem/router but it came to a head in the last few days - falling over, very slow......well after about 5/6 years it was to be expected when there are more connections than in 2010. Set-up with the CD enclosed with the router - 10 minutes and it was all up & running. Tried the TV download which required a password but that was the only issue - everything else was 100% automatic. Well worth the £60 investment so far. |
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