Am I over-using my router?

Greetings:

I've got a Linksys WRT54G running DDWRT. I have a lot of devices on attached to this aging device, and I've questioned the stability a few times.

I have:
Wireless:
4 PCs
2 Wiis
Playstation 3
Cannon Printer

Wired:
Ooma
3 PCs
Xbox 360
Samsung TV



This morning I woke to see my Ooma complaining of no internet service. I jumped on my PC to confirm this. I could not ping my router, nor could I get to the routers Admin page. I recycled power and still couldn't access it. I didn't get a chance to troubleshoot further, so I left it and informed my wife we probably wouldn't have internet today.

My wife later called to tell me internet worked, but it was REALLY crappy. I'm going to do some more troubleshooting when I get home, but I was wondering if it was really worth it. Do I have more devices attached to this than it can handle?

We're not doing anything serious with the internet connection. It's not like we're all torrenting and streaming music. There are no file sharing apps and, for the most part, network activity should be pretty minimal unless we're watching a streamed netflix. The list of devices at the top are never all using the LAN/WAN at the same time, but I know the router still holds the routing table in memory and I'm wondering if we've finally just reached the max number of devices before it craps out.

On a side note, I did schedule a cron job to reboot the router every morning at 4am and that seemed to take care of all of the performance problems I had a while back (6-8 months ago).

While I've seen the old wrt54g series with much larger networks behind them, hard to tell if you're pushing yours too hard....you have that many devices, but are all on and running at the same time?

Is it behind a cable modem or DSL? If DSL, a pure bridged modem? Or a combo modem/router that's already doing NAT.

No -- they're not all up and running all the time. Things like the wii are, I guess, but they're not really doing much so I don't think it's a bandwidth issue. The Tv is almost always on, but that just pulls for new firmware when it powers up. Nothing intense.

It's behind a Linksys Cable modem. It's just a modem -- no combo with wireless or switch. One etherenet and usb port, but I'm not using USB. Ethernet from the modem to the router.

If you have time, might I suggesting giving Tomato firmware a try. I've used DD and Tomato a lot..over quite a few different routers over time..and I've always...always...found Tomato to be snappier and more stable. Not as many features as DD..but in some cases lighter and leaner is better...and 99.9% of users out there won't use all those additional features of DD.

If that doesn't work..perhaps your wrt54g needs to be put out to pasture. Current generation routers are much more powerful.

I don't mind trying Tomato. In fact, I went to look for an install at the same time that I was looking at DDWRT and there wasn't any support for the version that I had. I'll take another look and see if they've got a release that works (v8, if I remember correctly).

I don't need everything that DDWRT has, but I need:
* DMZ for Ooma. Might not need with another firmware, but with DDWRT it wouldn't work without being in the DMZ.
* Static Reservations : I only leave a pool of 2 addresses on my network. Everything gets a static IP and I usually just set up static reservations in the router.

I would expect both of those features to be in Tomoto as they are pretty common. I'll give it a wirl before I take old yeller for a walk.

[edit]
No go on Tomato -- still has the same restriction:

This will not work on Linksys WRT54G/GS v5 or newer WRT54G/GS routers.

Click to expand...

I believe mine is a v8, so I don't think it's going to fly.
[/edit]

Demon10000 said:

[edit]
No go on Tomato -- still has the same restriction:
I believe mine is a v8, so I don't think it's going to fly.
[/edit]

Click to expand...

Drat!

I actually think my wife fixed the issue, and it wasn't the router. We had a power outage last night and it was real brief.

I've got those DLink GB green switches. One of these is the only thing plugged into my router which gives me a GB backbone on my network with the 100MB link to the outside world. More than I need really, since it'll be a long time before comcast gives me 100MB!!

Power cycling this switch resolved the issue. I think that, since it's a "green" switch, it's used to the low power state. And because power just flickered, I think it got confused and just thought it was in a low state mode and didn't ever wake up.

Looks like the router has earned a stay of execution! (at least until a big sale comes around!)

you dont need to put your ooma in a DMZ, you just need to configure the port forwarding correctly for it. i dont know the specifics about that specific product, but it should be no different then any other voip device. you just have to make sure the NAT isnt filtering out its traffic. a DMZ removes all protection your NAT/router provides and leaves your device open to the wild and crazy interwebs.

Yeah WRT54G's are pretty tough little devices and probably why they are so popular. I used to use one for a small office I worked at with the factory firmware on it. I had 3 VoIP lines, 5 computers, and our all our T-mobile wife cell phones all connected to it. It worked pretty good for the most part, although every now and then the VoIP got choppy. The old factory firmware had very little in the way of QoS.

One thing you might want to check out is ebay to see if there are any good deals on a end of life Cisco router. I got a 2621 for 50 bucks (about the same amount as a WRT54G) and I have a home network like yours. I am barely using a fraction of CPU power on that router.

+1 to this Option:

YeOldeStonecat said:

If you have time, might I suggesting giving Tomato firmware a try. I've used DD and Tomato a lot..over quite a few different routers over time..and I've always...always...found Tomato to be snappier and more stable. Not as many features as DD..but in some cases lighter and leaner is better...and 99.9% of users out there won't use all those additional features of DD.

If that doesn't work..perhaps your wrt54g needs to be put out to pasture. Current generation routers are much more powerful.

Click to expand...

Just curious.. While the Ooma is supported behind your router, the recommendation is to have it between your ISP's modem and your own router.

I.e.

ISP modem -------> Ooma (internet) | Ooma (home network) ------------------->WRT54G.

The Ooma peforms it's own QoS that is active only during live calls. If it's downstream to your router it can't perform the QoS functions.