Do I need a new router??

[bicker]

"Connecting the dots" is not the same as proving something -- it is projecting assumptions. The difference between "4 years" and "more than 4 years" (which is all that I said) is pretty small... I cannot understand why you'd think that they're so far apart, just based on your "connecting the dots". As it is, my point stands: Most electronics has characteristics along the lines you've outlined, with regard to how they amortize warranty service and facilitate upgrades and such. My point was along the lines of this -- given that routers have no moving parts, and DVRs do, and that routers are relatively low-power devices while plasma displays are not; and given that both DVRs and televisions have far more complex protocols that apply to their inter-operability with the services they use -- that other electronic equipment is much more likely to hold to that 4 year timeframe, and fail, or fail to live up to evolving needs, much more consistently shortly after that 4 year timeframe, than routers will. So my point was more about how this problem is to be yet even more so expected with regard to other high-tech devices.

Given that I'm going to claim that you are actually substantially agreeing with me, despite your protestations to the contrary, I'll invite you to join in a related discussion to which, perhaps, your unique perspective might be quite an interesting addition. http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=showbiz&msg=4642.3 I think it would be interesting to see you have a discussion about this with the poster of message #3 in that thread, who said, "I am not used to replacing TVs that often, so to pay hundreds of dollars for something that will be obsolete in a few years makes very little sense. I may keep what I have now for as long as I can, given that new information."

 

[MarkBarbieri]

OK, I am calling BS. You've got nothing but conjecture. I could just as easily argue that consumers don't want well built routers - at least not in the sense that they are willing to pay the extra cost for them. If they did, companies would cater to them by building better routers and then heavily advertising their higher MTBF stats.

The market for routers is fairly competitive with many different manufacturers and brands. With standard chipsets available, barriers to entry are low. The products are seen as a commodity by most purchasers, with little influence in styling. It seems an unlikely market for a manufaturer to deliberately cripple their hardware. It seems much more likely that the market is responding to consumer demand and building cheaper routers rather than more reliable routers.

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Maybe you're both right.

Also, company beneficial practices that do not benefit the public are rarely stated in documents that are provided for public use. Like that would get past legal, much less PR?

Still. Here's a challenge. In science, you don't prove the positive, you prove the negative. Anyone out there still listening: do you have a router that's 6 years old? 7 years old? If no one can turn up such a machine, then, for whatever reason, home use plastic routers aren't lasting that long.

Must be home use, cannot be metal box. (They recently excavated a Hopewell mound in Indiana and found an old metal box router that still worked. Tru Fact!)

Anyone?

Oh, and I would particularly love to see a home use switch/router/wireless that's more than 5 or 6 years old. Must be in use and having been used every day for that time period.

 

[bicker]

Also, company beneficial practices that do not benefit the public are rarely stated in documents that are provided for public use.

It is shocking, actually, how little that one fact seems to get factored in by folks who almost surely know and understand it. There is a very strong resistance to the idea that companies might actually be operating primarily for the benefit of their owners.

 

[laurie31]

I'm jumping in because we have the same problem.

We have a Linksys that's less than a year old, and we only have two desktops and a laptop. It's driving us insane! It seems like every day I'm having to turn it off an dback on again. I've called the cable provider and they say it's not them. We are at a loss as to what the problem could be.

 

[DisneyMissy318]

Too funny! This just happened to us too!

Our neighbors had family in from New York - came and parked their big RV in the drive for a week. From that moment on - the only wireless signal picked up in our house was from their RV! Our router wasn't even a choice on the menu anymore! We didn't have wireless access for the week they were there - when they left - still none. We tried to reload the software to no avail. The router was 4 years old! We ordered a new router from Dell - delivered the next day - hooked it up and everything works better than ever!

Coincidence maybe with the RV. Although, I was told by the guy at Dell (an actual salesman who had an awesome command of the English language - because by some miracle - I had actually reached someone in America!!) that routers have a limited life of 4-5 years!

 

[JR6ooo4]

I wasn't referring to the warranty but returning it if it didn't fix their problem.

A retail store is not a diagnostic tool! You are going to open a brand new product and then take it back if it seems the old one was not broke? No wonder stores are closing or laying off thousands.

Mikeeee

 

[Charade]

a retail store is not a diagnostic tool! You are going to open a brand new product and then take it back if you do not want it? No wonder they are all closing or laying off thousands.

Mikeeee

Yes. If it works, I keep it. It it doesn't, it goes back. And 99.9 percent of the time the product is completely resellable.

 

[Illuminations_Rocks]

My old router dropped signal. A lot. And it happened more and more frequently.

I got a new router. Problem solved.

Old one seemed to get REALLY hot, too. But a fan on it didn't help.

This new router, for a little while after we moved it would also drop signal.
That was NOT a problem with the router, but with the cable modem.

Cable company didn't think it was that... but I knew better.

When my router failed, it would be the internet that wouldn't work, not the modem.. and this time it was the modem.

That was a bad connection outside our apartment to the modem. Everyone else's in the neighborhood worked fine.

So... well, it's probably the router, but it could be the modem.

I remember a LOT of blinking lights on the router when it would die....

Good luck. Mine was a netgear... and I have another netgear.

 

[bicker]

It is always easy to prove to the HSI provider that the problem is in the modem, not the router: Connect your computer directly to the modem, instead of connecting the router to the modem.

 

[manning]

Did you recently get cordless phones? I think I read that the G series routers operate on the same frequency as cordless and can knock out the router.

 

[ClarabelleCowFan]

Did you recently get cordless phones? I think I read that the G series routers operate on the same frequency as cordless and can knock out the router.

No, we have had the same cordless phones for years.

A friend of mine in FL has a D-Link and is having the same issues. Is there some cosmic force that is causing all of our routers to fail??

Guess we will head out shopping for a new one this week. Ugh.

 

[Scurvy]

We have that happen sometimes. It always happens for a few days if we've unplugged the router while we've been out of town and sometimes happens other times as well. We finally realized that when it's happening, one of our neighbors networks show up in our list of choices, but when it isn't happening that network doesn't show up. We think it's some kind of interference from their network. I have heard that 802.11N routers can cause connectivity issues for people with 802.11G routers, and I wonder if that might be part of our problem.

 

[bicker]

I have heard that 802.11N routers can cause connectivity issues for people with 802.11G routers

Where'd you hear that?

 

[momrek06]

All of the sudden we are having to reset our router several times a day because we lose our internet connection.

This issue seemed to start when we added another device that had access to the network (the Itouch). Our router is about 3 or 4 years old - do we need a newer/faster model?

We have 5 devices total in the house that have access to the internet connection thru the security enabled router. Is that too many for 1 router to handle?

Any advice on how we can keep our internet connection without having to constantly reset the router?

Thanks!

Kel, we were doing that as well. It seemed around Jan, we (DH, DS and me) were constantly resetting the router. But we just dealt with it. Then my DVR stopped recording shows so I called COX and they came out with a new DVR and while they were here I told them about constantly having to reset the router and COX said "that is not our modem that is your problem, it would be your router that is the problem." DH said that he had brought the router from our MA home and that was about 4 years old. We bought a new one ... "Belkin "N" Wireless Router"!!! Yeah, everything has been great now.

Hope that helps!!! How you doing, babe?

 

[sewer]

I've used Cisco switches, and routers for years, and generally you'll find the only thing that will fail is the power supply. Get a general replacement power supply, and try that first.

 

[Scurvy]

Where'd you hear that?

I honestly can't remember. It was on television or online, but I can't remember where I heard it. Probably on G4 or something with Leo Laporte or Kevin Rose online somewhere. They said something about the fact that the "N" routers would look for frequencies that aren't currently being used, while the "G" routers are locked in to specific frequencies. They said that if the "N" router starts using the frequency that someone's "G" router usually uses then it could cause interference.

And this was a while ago, when 802.11N was newer, so maybe it isn't an issue any longer. I just remember thinking that in an area like ours, where everyone has their own network set up, it could be a problem if one person had a router that would interfere with everyone else's. Then when we started having our router problems I wondered if that might be it.

 

[bicker]

Yeah, that sounds like a reason why the FCC would ban the sale of the routers.... I'd bet that what you heard is not the case at all anymore.

 

[laurie31]

Did you recently get cordless phones? I think I read that the G series routers operate on the same frequency as cordless and can knock out the router.

aHA!!

We did just get new phones, much more powerful than the old ones that died.


Maybe this is our problem. Thanks! I'll tell DH to investigate

 

[Charade]

aHA!!

We did just get new phones, much more powerful than the old ones that died.


Maybe this is our problem. Thanks! I'll tell DH to investigate

Routers have channels. Try setting the router (via it's homepage web interface) to a different channel.

But if they're not "2.4ghz" type, that's probably not it.