brawneyPremium
join:2002-03-02
Frederick, MD Reviews:
 ·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Comcast
 ·Callcentric
| Asus RT-N16 performance My question is kind of related to this thread »RT-N66U or RT-N16 but I didn't want to hijack that thread so I'm asking here. 
I currently run an ASUS WL-520gU router with Tomato firmware in the house and it's starting to bog down a little. So I think I need to upgrade.
Wired:
I do some video streaming around the house, all via wires, but it goes through the router, so I want to make sure my new router is decent enough so it won't bog down when passing that traffic. I have some DirecTV receivers passing video between each other, a Blue-ray player downloading Netflix occasionally, same Blue-ray player streaming a movie or photos from a Windows Home Server occasionally. I also copy large files from a desktop to the WHS occasionally.
Wireless:
At the same time I want to make sure I have "N" wireless to support 3 laptops in the house. All these laptops are "N", kind of low end machines and not real new so I don't think any support "a". Of course 3 Android phones too.
I figure the Asus RT-N16 looks like a good fit for me.
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···33320038
Is this a decent router for performance, and if not can anyone suggest something else for under $150? |
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Reviews:
·link2voip
·TekSavvy DSL
| The RT-N16 is a favourite among Tomato developers for the 3x3 MIMO, nice removable antennas, and ample CPU and RAM. I've personally never graduated past the RT-N12 B1, because 2x2 is enough wireless throughput for the crowd I hang with, and the extra CPU and RAM are lost on me (would be a different story if Tomato supported MLPPP, but I use pfsense for that). The RT-N12 doesn't have gig ports, but I normally use a separate switch for that.
Speaking of switches, if you have bandwidth issues between LAN hosts, that is not a router problem per se, but something to do with poor switching performance or even a cabling issue. In any case, if your router's switch is failing then you'll want to replace it just the same.
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 mozerdLight Will Pierce The DarknessPremium,MVM
join:2004-04-23
Nepean, ON | reply to brawney
said by brawney:and if not can anyone suggest something else for under $150? I would suggest the Netgear WNDR 4500 or the Cisco Linksys E4200 v1 ... Either one would IMO make U a happy camper ..... Or if ur after a bargin go for the Netgear WNDR3700 ... I would spend the extra $50 and go for the either selection above |
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brawneyPremium
join:2002-03-02
Frederick, MD Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast
·Callcentric
| reply to clarknova
said by clarknova:Speaking of switches, if you have bandwidth issues between LAN hosts, that is not a router problem per se, but something to do with poor switching performance or even a cabling issue. In any case, if your router's switch is failing then you'll want to replace it just the same.
I have the router on one side of the house and it is servicing some wires devices with 3 of it's ports, and the 4th port runs over to another location of the house where these is a switch, with yet more devices. So I need a new wireless router with gigabit (and wireless 'n') and a new gigabit switch too. Kind of a whole house upgrade. |
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brawneyPremium
join:2002-03-02
Frederick, MD Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast
·Callcentric
| reply to mozerd
said by mozerd:I would suggest the Netgear WNDR 4500 or the Cisco Linksys E4200 v1 ... Either one would IMO make U a happy camper ..... Or if ur after a bargin go for the Netgear WNDR3700 ... I would spend the extra $50 and go for the either selection above
Thanks. I am seeing some good things about the WNDR3800 too (»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···33122434), and it's priced in the middle at about $130.
I kind of like the idea of external antennas. Not sure why. Guess I'm old school and think they would work better? I can use any extra signal power I can get, as well as the best throughput on the wired side.
Now you got me reconsidering my Asus decision.  |
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mozerdLight Will Pierce The DarknessPremium,MVM
join:2004-04-23
Nepean, ON
1 edit | said by brawney:I kind of like the idea of external antennas. Not sure why. Guess I'm old school and think they would work better? I can use any extra signal power I can get, as well as the best throughput on the wired side. I would discourage U from getting the WNDR3800 ... but I would encourage U to get the WNDR3700 like I first stated. Why, the additional features added to the WNDR3800 are not robust so IMO not worth spending the extra $.
There are some caveats to my suggestion and U can read about that in this link.
Also, for 'indoor' usuage in the 'N' MIMO world external antennas are not as relevent as they were in the b/g/a wireless world. Outdoors the situation changes but MIMO is not very effective in the outdoor world.
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David Mozer
IT-Expert on Call
Information Technology for Home and Business |
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 GooberPremium
join:2000-12-17
Naperville, IL
kudos:4 | reply to clarknova
said by clarknova:The RT-N16 is a favourite among Tomato developers for the 3x3 MIMO, nice removable antennas, and ample CPU and RAM. I've personally never graduated past the RT-N12 B1, because 2x2 is enough wireless throughput for the crowd I hang with, and the extra CPU and RAM are lost on me (would be a different story if Tomato supported MLPPP, but I use pfsense for that). The RT-N12 doesn't have gig ports, but I normally use a separate switch for that.
Speaking of switches, if you have bandwidth issues between LAN hosts, that is not a router problem per se, but something to do with poor switching performance or even a cabling issue. In any case, if your router's switch is failing then you'll want to replace it just the same.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the RT-N12 B1 can be switched between router/AP/bridge. The N16U cannot. |
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| The RT-N12 factory firmware supports this, as does Tomato (on both models). I couldn't tell you about the RT-N16 factory firmware.
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db |
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GooberPremium
join:2000-12-17
Naperville, IL
kudos:4 | Oh. That would make the 16U pretty perfect for a non-5GHz model. |
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| reply to clarknova
the RT-N16 factory firmware 1.something has the bridge/ap/router
the new firmware 3.something only has "wireless router mode"/ap |
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| reply to brawney
I have a RT-N16 running the DD-WRT package an like it a lot. I am not using the wireless portion, only the router functions. It works great. The extra memory/flash is great.
There should be no issues with Ge ports shuttling traffic as most of these devises use a dedicated switch prior to the router section. The local traffic never makes it to the router portion. I myself have a Zyxel GS-1100-16 Ge switch connected to the router. All of my local devices are connected to the stand alone switch. Only traffic destined to the internet are switched to the RT-N16.
I cannot say how the original firmware works as I did not use it. I purchased it with the intention of running DD-WRT on it. I loaded immediately after I powered it up. |
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brawneyPremium
join:2002-03-02
Frederick, MD Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast
·Callcentric
| reply to mozerd
said by mozerd:Also, for 'indoor' usuage in the 'N' MIMO world external antennas are not as relevent as they were in the b/g/a wireless world. Outdoors the situation changes but MIMO is not very effective in the outdoor world.
Thanks. Was wondering how the RT-N16's 3 antennas work? For example, could I use a coax cable and run it over towards the other side of the house and 'move' 1 of the 3 antennas over there? Or would that hose up the way the router functions?
I bought a coax and a small omnidirectional antenna that I was going to use on my WL-520gU to get the signal closer to the middle of the house rather than all on one end of the house. The 520 says it has one internal and one external antenna. I didn't know how this would work on that router either, but was going to just play around a little. I know there are better things I can do, but I was just going experiment. Antenna and cable are still laying here because I haven't had the time to do it yet. |
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mozerdLight Will Pierce The DarknessPremium,MVM
join:2004-04-23
Nepean, ON | said by brawney:Was wondering how the RT-N16's 3 antennas work? For example, could I use a coax cable and run it over towards the other side of the house and 'move' 1 of the 3 antennas over there? Or would that hose up the way the router functions? That would certainly hose up the way the RT-N16 works There is an explicit reason for the way the antennas are placed on the router to be able to exploite N MIMO.
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David Mozer
IT-Expert on Call
Information Technology for Home and Business |
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1 edit | reply to brawney
said by brawney:For example, could I use a coax cable and run it over towards the other side of the house and 'move' 1 of the 3 antennas over there? Or would that hose up the way the router functions?
The loss through the coax would effectly kill any TX/RX for that antenna. If you can run a coax, run an ethernet cable and put another AP on the otherside of the house.
Set both AP's up the same i,e SSID, protection methods passwords etc and you should be able to roam between them without the user noticing anything. |
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brawneyPremium
join:2002-03-02
Frederick, MD Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast
·Callcentric
| reply to mozerd
said by mozerd:I would discourage U from getting the WNDR3800 ... but I would encourage U to get the WNDR3700 like I first stated. Why, the additional features added to the WNDR3800 are not robust so IMO not worth spending the extra $.
There are some caveats to my suggestion and U can read about that in this link.
The link with the caveat is saying that the 3700 has horrible range. Is this true? I didn't catch that link in your post until today, and I've already ordered the 3700. Ugh. |
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mozerdLight Will Pierce The DarknessPremium,MVM
join:2004-04-23
Nepean, ON | said by brawney:The link with the caveat is saying that the 3700 has horrible range. Is this true? I didn't catch that link in your post until today, and I've already ordered the 3700. Ugh. You did not read all the posts in that link otherwise you would have learned how to get great range assuming U paid attention  The OP in that link was experiencing poor range because of poor placement plus other issues I articulated .. READ carefully!
If U follow my recommendations U should be happy with ur purchase.
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David Mozer
IT-Expert on Call
Information Technology for Home and Business |
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brawneyPremium
join:2002-03-02
Frederick, MD Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast
·Callcentric
| mozerd - I've been using my 3700 for several weeks now and its a great piece of hardware. Wireless and everything else is working fine. Thanks for the recommendation.
I use opendns and need a dyndns type of support to tell opendns my IP address. My old router had Tomato and was able to do this for me. Good old Netgear only supports dyndns.org in their firmware, so I had to move this functionality to an app running on my computer. If anyone knows how to add new providers to the Netgear firmware please let me know.
Anyway, wireless is working fine throughout the house. But when I get outside to my detached garage the signal is very weak. It drives me nuts because I walk out there using my cell phone and the signal is there but too weak for the phone to use.
Question: is there a way I can place my old router with Tomato firmware out in the garage, without any cat5 wires, and make it 'repeat' my wireless signal to extend the range of my wireless Netgear in the house? I don't want to assign new DHCP IP addresses (I just want to 'extend' my inside wireless) and I don't care if I lose half my bandwidth, I just need a stronger signal out there for some casual use. Any ideas on this kind of setup? |
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mozerdLight Will Pierce The DarknessPremium,MVM
join:2004-04-23
Nepean, ON | said by brawney:Anyway, wireless is working fine throughout the house. But when I get outside to my detached garage the signal is very weak. It drives me nuts because I walk out there using my cell phone and the signal is there but too weak for the phone to use.
Question: is there a way I can place my old router with Tomato firmware out in the garage, without any cat5 wires, and make it 'repeat' my wireless signal to extend the range of my wireless Netgear in the house? I don't want to assign new DHCP IP addresses (I just want to 'extend' my inside wireless) and I don't care if I lose half my bandwidth, I just need a stronger signal out there for some casual use. Any ideas on this kind of setup?
Describe where in your house you placed the WNDR3700. --- perhaps with better placement the quality of wireless signals would reach your garage.
But if you cannot improve the placement for whatever reason what you could do is use the Netgear powerline adapter kit to set up your old wireless gear acting stictly as a Access Point to accomplish your objective. In your situation the powerline I recommend is the Netgear Powerline AV+ 200 Adapter Kit (XAV1501)
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David Mozer
IT-Expert on Call
Information Technology for Home and Business |
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brawneyPremium
join:2002-03-02
Frederick, MD Reviews:
·Verizon Online DSL
·Comcast
·Callcentric
| Yeah, better placement of my router would be the right thing to do. That would require me to run two cat 5 lines to another location in my house -one for WAN back to the Comcast modem, and the other for LAN back to a switch.
If I decide I need this connectivity bad enough, in the garage or elsewhere outside the house, then that's what I'll probably do. I was junk thinking about tinkering with the old router & Tomato; really more of an experimental/learning experience.
I hadn't thought of power line networking. I never had any luck in the past with those X10 remote control devices. They sucked really bad. So I guess I have always shied away from using anything power line related because of that poor experience.
Thanks for the info. |
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