O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Broadband > What type of router to purchase?

reply to Guspaz

Re: What type of router to purchase?

reply to TypeS

reply to silvercat

reply to MissSherlock
hi MissSherlock:

The stock firmware on the RT-N66U should be good enough for you. There's also the "Merlin" firmware:
»www.lostrealm.ca/tower/node/79

Quoting from the "Merlin" website: "The primary goal of this custom firmware is to tweak, fix bugs, and enhance the original Asus firmware. It is NOT meant to become a feature-ladden alternative - for that look at existing solutions, such as Tomato or DD-WRT, both offering a wealth of additional features."

More discussion about the Asuswrt-Merlin firmware on the SmallNetBuilder forums:
»forums.smallnetbuilder.com/forum···php?f=42

And some of us prefer Tomato (i prefer the Toastman version). Might be more of a challenge to initially flash Tomato on the RT-N66U. You need to use the Asus Firmware Restoration Utility for that. I got stuck where i initially flashed to Tomato, but then i couldn't access the router's webpage configuration at all ! Researched and found out that i had to do a factory reset after the initial Tomato firmware flash. With the router powered off, press and hold the "reset" button (it's the button nearer to the power jack -- there's another button at the other end of the router (WPS ?) that you don't touch) for 30 seconds. While still having that button pressed down, power on the router (hit the power button) -- wait for another 30 seconds, then release that "reset" button. At least i think that's how it goes (from memory) for resetting the router to factory defaults. Someone correct me if i'm mistaken.

Nice thing about Tomato is that, it's "different", and you have a lot more "QOS" options.

reply to MissSherlock
Benchmarks seem to show that Tomato has a big negative effect on the throughput of some of these routers. This may be because some of the stock firmwares ship with some secret-sauce Broadcom kernel modules that Tomato doesn't, for example.

EDIT: Specifically, the RT-N66U sees a massive performance hit for wifi throughput with Tomato: »forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showt···p?t=7978
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

reply to Guspaz
Good point.

reply to Guspaz

reply to Guspaz
i also seen the rogers speed boost doesnt seem to work on tomato, wrt54gl-tm, speed test show my sustained speed but if i connect directly into rogers modem i see speed boost working

i dont have qos enabled and tried every conceivable tomato setting but still dont see any speed boost when testing from any speedtest websites

ya i know some are going to say speed boost is useless, but i just like to know why its not working on tomato/router

reply to MissSherlock
With a WRT54GL, most likely you're just maxing out how fast the thing can route data. My experience with MLPPP showed it's definitely not fast enough to route a 50 meg MLPPP bundle, for example. I think mine topped out somewhere around 30ish?
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

i thought so too, but b4 rogers could shape my speed when i initially got their internet, i was getting over 35 - 45mb on a 25mb plan, now i just get over 26-28mb

the ports are 100mb so i cant see why the router would be the issue unless someone can confirm getting 75-85mb w/speed boost on tomato w/a 25/2 plan

reply to MissSherlock
The ports are 100 megabit, but there's a difference between how fast the switch chip can switch packets and how fast the very very very slow CPU can route packets.

The WRT54G is an 11-year old hardware series... it was fantastic when it came out, but you're expecting a bit much from it to still be able to keep up with today's needs.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

ya i know, but i love the damn thing( i own 2 of them), it never dies on me, dont think any router will outlive this thing, they only thing it supposedly cant do is use rogers speed boost and the 5ghz radio, other than that its flawless and imho not worth spending any money on another router

reply to MissSherlock
Well, the limitations are:

1) Very little RAM limits what it can do
2) Very little flash means custom firmware can only have limited features
3) Extremely slow CPU gives it very low routed throughput (which drops if you try to use CPU-intensive features like QoS)
4) No gigabit switch means very slow copies over the LAN
5) No 802.11n support means wireless maxes out at 20 Mbps rather than the 150+ that a decent 802.11n device can do
6) No 5GHz support means that it's stick on overcongested 2.4 GHz spectrum

The thing is basically useless in my apartment. So slow of a CPU it can't route my internet connection fast enough, so slow of an ethernet switch it slows my file copies to a crawl, so slow on wireless (and congestion) that playing back media files over the network barely works.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

i dont need/use 5ghz
5 family members hardwired via switch and keeps this thing going, average 500gb/mnth of internet traffic and never froze
3 cell phones connecting wireless
tm model can support the big tomato file, but only use/need the mini
we dont transfer much between comps so gig switch not needed but they still can stream from my machine to theirs without issues

reply to MissSherlock
+1 for PFSense on an x86 computer! A thinclient + gig switch with an added 1000/100/10 ethernet card (intel) should make a good wired router option.

reply to MissSherlock
+1 for PFSense on an x86 computer! A thinclient + gig switch with an added 1000/100/10 ethernet card (intel) should make a good wired router option.

was going to try that to see if speed boost would work, just for fun kind of thing

reply to MissSherlock
pfsense on an x86 computer tends to cost a heck of a lot more than the hundred bucks a good wireless router costs, though... and doesn't really offer any advantages for the typical user.
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Developer: Tomato/MLPPP, Linux/MLPPP, etc »fixppp.org

was going todo it more for fun, it just a dumb terminal setup, cost for electricity shouldnt be much

edit: i already have the hardware

reply to elitefx