RonR
join:2003-10-10
Ash Flat, AR | reply to lstevens
Re: [General] "Sam Knows" routers and VoIP said by lstevens:Have you (or anyone) actually put Tomato on any of these routers? I've been running that version of Tomato on my Sam Knows router for over nine months. I had no problem installing it and it works perfectly. |
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| Does your router show up (on the status screen) as a WNR3500v2/U/L?
Does it say WNR3500U/WNR3500L on the back of the router?
Did you rename the firmware file .bin?
Did you load the firmware normally using the firmware update screen from the "mini" DD-WRT?
Thanks for your answers and any other ideas! |
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RonR
join:2003-10-10
Ash Flat, AR | Yes to all of the above. Tomato actually displays:
Model Netgear WNR3500L/U/v2
I first flashed dd-wrt.v24-14289_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-WNR3500L (the version modified for Sam Knows routers downloaded from MyOpenRouter.com). Then I simply flashed tomato-K26USB-1.28.9054MIPSR2-beta-Ext. It was very painless and uneventful. |
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Mele20Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
kudos:4 | reply to billaustin
said by billaustin:There's no need to re-flash the router. Just login and disable the testing. It's under the SamKnows Settings link on the bottom left. If it's not there, then update your firmware to the latest version.
»fcc.samknows.com/firmware.html
You are assuming all of us testers have the Netgear router. I have that but had so much trouble with it in bridged mode that SK sent me a TP-Link which is NON configurable. It is set in bridged mode and cannot be logged into.
It tests at exactly 43 minutes after the hour on an hourly basis. That is easy to note since I run Ping Plotter Pro and it completely distorts average ping to any site because of the testing every hour.
The TP-Link is proving to be an even worse piece of JUNK than the awful Netgear router. This TP-Link stopped doing two of the tests back last October. SK said they were working on a fix but nothing so far. In December, it stopped doing two MORE tests. I've had it off for the past three weeks.
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When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson |
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 billaustinthey call me Mr. BillPremium,MVM
join:2001-10-13
North Las Vegas, NV
kudos:2 | said by Mele20:said by billaustin:There's no need to re-flash the router. Just login and disable the testing. It's under the SamKnows Settings link on the bottom left. If it's not there, then update your firmware to the latest version.
»fcc.samknows.com/firmware.html
You are assuming all of us testers have the Netgear router. ... I'm not assuming anything. That response was directed to one poster.
It's unfortunate that you have had a bad experience. Did you upgrade your Netgear router to the latest firmware?
I have a SamKnows Netgear router that has been in place for just over a year. I used it as a router for several months, then put it in bridge mode behind my preferred router. All the LAN devices connect behind the SamKnows unit. I have not had any problems with it, nor any complaints from the other users connected to the LAN. |
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Mele20Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
kudos:4 | said by billaustin:It's unfortunate that you have had a bad experience. Did you upgrade your Netgear router to the latest firmware?
I have not used the Netgear for more than six months now so why would I upgrade the firmware on a non-used router?
I think you missed the part where I said SK sent me a TP-Link router to use instead of the Netgear. It is permanently set in bridged mode and I cannot access it other than to reset it via the button on the back. It has no accessible GUI for the user.
SK uses the TP-Link now mostly rather than Netgear (at least in their tests in other parts of the world with tests similar to the FCC ones). The supposed advantage to the TP-Link is that it is already set in bridged mode and is extremely easy to set up behind your preferred router. It gets along much better with my Linksy than the NetGear did. But it is gradually failing as it now does not do four of the tests.
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When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson |
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| reply to lstevens
lstevens:
If you haven't been able to load a Tomato firmware, have you tried to load a stock Netgear firmware? I'd like confirmation that you can do so after flashing it with the intermediate/mini dd-wrt version.
Thanks! |
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billaustinthey call me Mr. BillPremium,MVM
join:2001-10-13
North Las Vegas, NV
kudos:2 | reply to Mele20
said by Mele20:said by billaustin:It's unfortunate that you have had a bad experience. Did you upgrade your Netgear router to the latest firmware?
I have not used the Netgear for more than six months now so why would I upgrade the firmware on a non-used router? I think you missed the part where I said SK sent me a TP-Link router to use instead of the Netgear. ... I didn't miss anything, I just don't have anything to add about TP-Link Routers. I may be wrong, but it appears to me that you are upset because you are having a bad experience with SamKnows, and are nit-picking at every little thing related to them.
Let me be more clear with my question, and add another.
Did you try upgrading your Netgear Router to the latest firmware, to see if it would help, before you had them send you another router?
Now that the other router is having problems, have you considered attempting a firmware upgrade on the Netgear router and trying it again? |
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Mele20Premium
join:2001-06-05
Hilo, HI
kudos:4 | It was the Netgear firmware upgrade back last June that started all this. The firmware flash set the Netgear back to normal mode instead of keeping it in bridged mode. I lost connectivity after that upgrade and had IP address conflicts, all sorts of problems. I posted about it in the RR forum thread. Neil (SK) was in the thread already and he said I should remove the Netgear router and that he would email me about another solution. »Re: [TWC] SamKnows and TWC - Road Runner Discussion/Information
In his email, he suggested that he send me a TP-Link router and said I would be the first in the USA FCC tests to use one. It's already set to bridged mode and is plug and play. It worked fine until Sept 13 and then began to not report two tests (latency and packet loss). I contacted SK and Jaime said he would work devising software so that he could access my router from his end and fix it. That was in early November. He said SK had several routers that FCC testers were using that were not reporting some tests and they were not sure why.
I heard nothing more from him. After a little over a month had gone by (second week of December), I emailed SK again asking about progress in fixing the problem and asked why I never got a November or December monthly report. I received no reply. On Jan 1 2012, I received a form email from SK saying I would not be receiving a monthly report because the router was reporting nothing. That was not true. It was reporting all but two tests that SK already knew about and was supposedly fixing. Plus, on Dec 15, it began doing something odd with Website Load Times and Failed Web Requests tests. After that date it reported the same 24 hour results for all time periods (at least this is what I saw when I accessed the dashboard. I don't know what SK was seeing). So, I thought I should get a monthly report because it was doing and reporting all the other tests. I wrote SK again and this time I got a reply but not from the person working on the problem. I was told he would contact me soon.
I then began having connection and speed problems (along with awful TV reception problems that had started around Thanksgiving - all of which turned out to be the fault of my ISP and are almost all fixed now) and I decided to take both routers out of the picture (my Linksy and the T-P Link) to see if the Linksy could be part of the problem. (It is very old and I thought it might be dying). After I did this with a direct modem connection and rebooted, I got a fan failure notice on POST. I let SK know I was having computer hardware problems (others besides the fan - it is an old computer) and that is where I am now still just on modem connection.
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When governments fear people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. Thomas Jefferson |
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billaustinthey call me Mr. BillPremium,MVM
join:2001-10-13
North Las Vegas, NV
kudos:2 | Okay, I understand that. I hope you get it all working again. |
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| reply to RonR
said by RonR:Yes to all of the above. Tomato actually displays:
Model Netgear WNR3500L/U/v2
I first flashed dd-wrt.v24-14289_NEWD-2_K2.6_mini-WNR3500L (the version modified for Sam Knows routers downloaded from MyOpenRouter.com). Then I simply flashed tomato-K26USB-1.28.9054MIPSR2-beta-Ext. It was very painless and uneventful.
Ron:
Thanks. Your affirmative answers gave me the confidence to try again. I did all of the above, using another computer. It all went "painless and uneventful" as you said. I encourage others (who may not be in the SamKnows program anymore) to do the same.
Can anyone help me) or point me to a web page) with good QOS settings with this firmware for VOIP. I peeked at the settings and got confused. |
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RonR
join:2003-10-10
Ash Flat, AR | said by lstevens:Can anyone help me) or point me to a web page) with good QOS settings with this firmware for VOIP. I peeked at the settings and got confused.
I took a very simplistic approach, but it keeps my VoIP happy. My service is 12474 down/892 up. |
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 unknvoipRIP goosePremium
join:2006-07-25
Rochester, NY
kudos:1
 ·ViaTalk
1 edit | reply to billaustin
said by billaustin:I have a SamKnows Netgear router that has been in place for just over a year. I used it as a router for several months, then put it in bridge mode behind my preferred router. All the LAN devices connect behind the SamKnows unit. I have not had any problems with it, nor any complaints from the other users connected to the LAN.
To further elaborate on my experience, I am in bridge mode but am not on the very latest firmware. After one update, my bridge mode stopped working correctly and from another forum I believe it was around the time mele20 had some issues too. I worked with the SK tech support and I ended up backing back to the previous firmware rev. My SK router works nicely behind my linksys and all LAN components are connected to the SK, including wireless. I have about 20 devices on my LAN and have no issues, so it is possible.
Edit: Adding that my FW version is V1.2.2.40_34.0.30SK on the WNR3500L. |
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billaustinthey call me Mr. BillPremium,MVM
join:2001-10-13
North Las Vegas, NV
kudos:2 | I'm running the latest version, V1.2.2.46_35.0.57SKWW. I have not had any problems with firmware updates, or with the unit. I did not try bridge mode until after the latest firmware was loaded. I also have many devices on the LAN, including three additional AP's. |
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