Broadband Routers, slowdowns and crashes.

[Derek G.]

The house here is cavity wall insulated and is very warm in summer, currently mostly about 27C inside (unheated) on a day like today when it is 21C outside. This is as cool as we can get it by minimising the use of heat producing appliances.

We have always experienced lots of slowdowns / crashes ostensibly down to the router. Poor ventilation and consequent overheating seems to be a general problem,(current router is a Belkin "G" MIMO that has pathetic tiny little ventilation slots so cooks itself).

I've tried about 8 routers from the 7 quid variety upwards but from the point of view of this problem there has been little to choose between them.

In an attempt to improve this we have had a combined ADSL faceplate /filter fitted and the router lead replaced by a single short length (50cms, no joints). Speed is now very good but there has been no improvement in overheating/slowing down/crashing situation.

The Broadband provider is Talktalk which may / may not be the best, but restarting the router has always been a fix and when the router crashes the LAN side goes down as well, so kinda hard to blame this on Talktalk.

Anybody any ideas ?

I see Billion seems to be current "flavour of the month" manufacturer of routers in here but seems to be quite expensive. Is it essential to get the dearest one, or would one of the cheaper models be fast enough & OK in general for internet at ADSL speeds?

TNX

Derek G.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Dont get the billion unless you love its features and need them

If other routers are having issues, its not likely anther one will help.

More likely that talk talk are a bunch of Cnuts and you are getting a crap service, or there is a line issue.

Ive x-posted to uk.telecom.broadnaband..for better service!

[NT]

if all your routers are overheating, the simplest answer is drill or cut holes in them, or simply run them with case cover off.

NT

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , The Natural Philosopher escribió:

Please explain how a line issue would affect the switch ports on his router.

[Ret.]

I've just walked over to my router, which was provided by Sky - and it's barely warm to the touch. It's sat on my TV shelving above my home cinema system, skybox, and xbox. You would think that it would get hot in that position - but I've never had such problems.

My previous router was a Linksys Wag 160nv - and it was rubbish. It would constantly drop the wireless connection with my laptop - and the only way to get it back was to either reboot the laptop - or reboot the router. I spent many hours trying to get the damn thing to work properly - but it never did. Visiting Linksys forums I found that this router was notorious for this problem. I could also never get my mobile phone to connect with the Linksys.

I've never had the slightest problem with the Sky router - it just works.

[Dean Heighington]

Hmmmnnnn... Seems unusual the heat would cause this problem. I would think it'd have to get very hot! Can you get hold of the tech data for the unit and see what the recc operating temps are?

[The Natural Philosopher]

Please explain where in his post he mentioned that this was the problem Or why he thought a new faceplate would fix an ethernet port, or why he bothered to mention his ISP if it was an internal network issue.

Viz

"We have always experienced lots of slowdowns / crashes ostensibly down > to the router. Poor ventilation and consequent overheating seems to be > a general problem,(current router is a Belkin "G" MIMO that has > pathetic tiny little ventilation slots so cooks itself). >

[Lee]

Some routers do seem to overheat if used in a horizontal position - have you tried using it vertically to see if it runs cooler?

Lee

[Newshound]

I run my 3Com with the lid off