Looking for a solid router that'll last at least 10 years w/o problems

Status
Not open for further replies.
Cerulean

Cerulean

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Jul 27, 2006
Messages
9,477
I'm fed up! Recommend me a router that is guaranteed not to die on me for at least 10 years.
 
Last edited:
There are no guarantees, everything can break randomly. I've seen $80,000 routers catch on fire, literally.

If this is such a large concern buy a modern Cisco router that suits your processing needs and keep the SmartNet contract up-to-date.

Buying $100 crap from BestBuy = you get what you pay for.
 
I don't buy from BestFuckup. I always buy computer-related hardware online through places like NewEgg.
 
Home and SOHO gear is the same regardless of whether you purchased it at BB or Newegg. If you want robust gear you need to fork over the money for it and have the skill to configure and secure it.
 
cheaper alternative is to build a little server and run pfsense or the like on it. best option IMO
 
Tau said:
cheaper alternative is to build a little server and run pfsense or the like on it. best option IMO
Click to expand...
Agreed. This is what I will do next time when I have money. My budget is constrained to my mom's checkbook because it's the family router that's gone bad.

It's one of those D-Link EBR-2310's. Weeks (or months) ago it was showing signs of the control panel (http://192.168.2.1/) not working by giving a "Page not found" error page and not being loadable in IE6. Now the control panel doesn't even work, but the rest of the router does.

I went with this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127060

When I've got the money, I'll build a Mini-ITX/Pico-ITX router. pfsense or m0n0wall?
 
10 years is a long time for technology that becomes obsolete in 5 years...
 
Is the issue downtime or performance? You could build your own pair and use a IP fail-over solution in case one dies. Equipment will always fail, a standby (hot or cold) router will be there should something go wrong.
 
dekruyter said:
Had my Dlink 4300 for more than 5 years.......
Click to expand...

Come to think of it, I've had my D-Link DGL-4300 since release as well. Still quite a solid router, with 5GHz N being the new king in wireless Tech, its somewhat old(the DGL-4300) yes, but not quite obsolete yet, plus the wired bit of it is still faster than many mid level consumer routers today!

Not all tech is immediately obsolete after 5 years. ;)
 
Cerulean said:
It's one of those D-Link EBR-2310's. Weeks (or months) ago it was showing signs of the control panel http://192.168.2.1/ not working by giving a "Page not found" error page and not being loadable in IE6. Now the control panel doesn't even work, but the rest of the router does.
Click to expand...

Just out of curiosity, is that the routers address and if it is, did you change it to 192.168.2.1? Normally they are 1.1 or 0.1
Is it possible that you are inputting the wrong IP address to the control panel?
 
Zepher said:
Just out of curiosity, is that the routers address and if it is, did you change it to 192.168.2.1? Normally they are 1.1 or 0.1
Is it possible that you are inputting the wrong IP address to the control panel?
Click to expand...
I've seen a 2.1 soho router oobe before. I can't remember what brand it was though.

*edit* OK I think it was my old SMC wireless adapter/pocket router.
 
I have found buying a router then taking it apart and putting those little ram heatsinks onto the chips that get hot helps a great deal.

The tech in the routers is fine, the costs are cut on the heat dispertion which tends to kill them after a couple of years or so. Built in obsolescence I guess.

Heat is the routers worst enemy I reckon.

However, with any computer gear you shouldnt really expect to get more than 4 years serious use out of it. Most of it by then will either be flakey or totally obsolete it's not worth holding onto.
 
IPv6 will become prevalent before any hardware dies in 10 years. Or were you not being literal?

Most likely speeds of the average broadband user will go up too. It might surpass 100Mb, so gigabit interfaces would be necessary. If you wanted a platform that can change with the times, I recommend a PC and run pfSense, or buy one of these:
http://www.hacom.net/catalog/brik-intel-atom-n270-intel-gigabit-ethernet.
An Atom based board should get you over 200Mb throughput.
 
10 years...really? What internet connection type do you expect by then?

Seriously...even 50 dollar DStink and Stinksys and Nutgear routers last a heck of a lot longer of you use little battery backup units for them. I've noticed that setups I do that in, they don't have many problems at all with their routers...versus when you plug your network gear right into just some surge strip. Little APC es350 units..45 bucks. Nice clean power really helps.

Every router I've used at home....except for the really early first generation ones that I've thrown out...I still have them in a drawer somewhere...I replaced them because I was bored by them or came across some new demo or something at work...the ones I've retired..not because of failure.
 
^^I'm with stonecast. An amazing number of hardware failures are from dirty power. There's no reason a sub $50 router shouldn't meet 99% of home users needs.
 
^ Agreed. A >$50 router that has to be replaced every couple of years is quite frankly normal for the consumer market. Technology and access to information is growing at a remarkable pace and in ten years I'd expect that both the proliferation of fibre-to-the-home and DOCSIS 3.0 (or even 4.x/5.x by then) to have ruled out may of the routers we can buy today, especially for >$50.

That said, you'll be happy with the DGL-4100. It's a great router - still have mine as a matter of fact, even though it's been retired and passed-down a few times. Still working well though.
 
My DGL 4300 is still running too.

Make sure to either have a good power strip or an UPS unit for the router+modem. I got sick of my parents routers dying due to bad power so I gave them an old UPS unit I had laying around. Never had a problem since.
 
My Buffalo tech HP router has lasted for years without any issues. Flashed with DDWRT. Model number is listed in the recommended routers sticky.
 
My D-Link DI-704 that I bought for $20 in 2000 (yes, as in 10 years ago) still worked last time I checked. It doesn't have wireless, but it does have a serial port for modem fallback and reserved DHCP (which I think some Linksys routers still don't have). I was stuck on dialup in the boonies for a while, then didn't have any wireless devices, so the DI-704 worked great for me.
 
I have seen torrents kill a few routers, so if you want a normal router to last, stay away from bittorrent, all the connections can cause problems. If you can't stay away, then get either IPCOP or PFSense. And build the computers that they are going on with good parts. I had a IPCOP box that lasted for 3 years with no issues, i just decided to upgrade it is why it went down. I have never killed one of myh IPCOP/PFSEnse boxes, but I have killed about 3 or 4 normal routers.
 
Tau said:
cheaper alternative is to build a little server and run pfsense or the like on it. best option IMO
Click to expand...

While I'd tend to agree... The hardware in said server will be old and outdated in 10 years as well. For the OP to expect to run anything for 10 years is folly.

Get realistic here... Just grab an old computer, slap Untangle or something on it... And just expect in 5 years you might have to grab another old computer (that will still be an improvement over your original one) and do it over again.

In 1 year I've seen my internet speeds here over double in speed. 10 years is a freaking long time to expect something to stay modern.
 
my old Linksys BEFSR11 is still up and running. ~8yrs old or so I believe.
and my WRT54G is still running strong, and probably about 5-6 yrs old now.

and yeah, I have seen several SOHO routers with 192.168.2.1 IP's. SMC Barricade I believe, along with some Belkin I think. Possibly even Linksky(sp?)

OP, have you tried upgrading or even re-flashing the firmware? Possibly the firmware somehow got corrupt?
 
as said 10 years is a long time when it comes to tech and it really depends what your using it with.
if you want a router to last a long time i would get a decent cisco and change the interfaces and your requirements change or use an external modem although it all depends on your service (eg if its delivered via ethernet, dsl, cable etc)
 
Zepher said:
Just out of curiosity, is that the routers address and if it is, did you change it to 192.168.2.1? Normally they are 1.1 or 0.1
Is it possible that you are inputting the wrong IP address to the control panel?
Click to expand...

He must have customized it....because that model (and all the DLinks of that era) default to 192.168.0.1 for their LAN IP. I've setup quite a few of that EBR-2310 model, pretty decent little units.

Or..like you mention, he's spacing out, and the router is still at 192.168.0.1 and he's trying to open up the web admin page at 192.168.2.1 and no wonder it isn't opening up.
 
Router is manually configured to use 192.168.2.1.

Initially, months ago, it presented a symptom where access to the control panel would only work 50% of the time. Along with this, only Firefox would have any success, whereas IE6 would instantly present a "Page not found page."

Side-note: I have noticed, since my family bought this router, IE6 would load the control panel pages instantly, whereas it would take up to 15 seconds for Firefox to load a webpage.

Stage two: the router's control panel is no longer accessible and presents a "Page not found" error page 100% of the time. This stage started a week or two ago. However, the network/DHCP is still functioning, as all the machines on the network are still getting a 192.168.2.x IP address.

Stage three: this happened just this weekend on Friday or Saturday. The router is no longer functional. It still shows LED sequences like normal, but DHCP/assigning of IPs no longer occurs, and the control panel is still not accessible. Router concluded to be dead.

One thing though ... I never tried resetting the router. I'll have to try this just to see what happens. :D (EDIT: Didn't want to reset it in the first place because I didn't want to lose my configs, but it was already in stage two when I wanted to backup the configs.)



Other information: We live in the "boonies" of Missouri and have satellite for our internet connection. There are only three computers on the network (total) that would access the Internet. As you may know, satellite has an absolute minimum latency of 1000ms (or some number close to this), on an average at least 1500ms for latency (some people are lucky if they have an average lower than this). Maximum downstream is 128 KB/s and maximum upstream is 24 KB/s. Satellite functions on a limited-bandwidth basis; in our case, we're limited to less than 80% of our quotas in usage on a rolling 30-day period. (If we hit 80%+, we're flagged for a Fair Access Policy violation.)

So no bittorrenting, no gaming, no videos (we don't have enough bandwidth for the number of people in the family that share the same connection) ... just surfing the web and checking e-mails. As far as LAN goes, traffic is minuit.

Satellite modem <-> Surge protector w/ electricity cleaner <-> Main router (EFB-2130); server connected to this (rarely turn this machine on), optional ethernet cable for when I don't want to use wireless <-> Switch (DD-WRT wireless router, forgot model), Printer, two computers

Thanks for the replies guys! :D
 
Can't say it will last 10 years, but I have been very happy with the half-dozen ALIX boards I've installed at client's running pfSense embedded. Low power consumption, small fanless box + pfSense awesomeness = win.

http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?cPath=60_84&products_id=671

That said, I agree with the others here. A properly built router (ie. one known to be fairly reliable) should serve you fine.
 
Surely you've tried Tomato or something? Third party firmware?
It's kindof like Windows 7 and old PCs... It breathes modern life into old equipment that used to be useless.


And yea, Sat Internet sucks. Too slow to do anything with other than web surfing and email.
 
cooter said:
I have seen torrents kill a few routers, so if you want a normal router to last, stay away from bittorrent, all the connections can cause problems. If you can't stay away, then get either IPCOP or PFSense. And build the computers that they are going on with good parts. I had a IPCOP box that lasted for 3 years with no issues, i just decided to upgrade it is why it went down. I have never killed one of myh IPCOP/PFSEnse boxes, but I have killed about 3 or 4 normal routers.
Click to expand...
I've had my wrt54gl for I think 5 years, maybe more now. Currently run tomato on it with no isseus at all (I do run torrents often with it). Torrents should not kill routers themselves. If you get torrents that kill routers then those routers were crap to begin with. I'm with the guy above that said to put heatsinks on the chips inside the router that get warm. I have a feeling that would help extend the life of the router.
 
pwrusr said:
I've had my wrt54gl for I think 5 years, maybe more now. Currently run tomato on it with no isseus at all (I do run torrents often with it). Torrents should not kill routers themselves. If you get torrents that kill routers then those routers were crap to begin with. I'm with the guy above that said to put heatsinks on the chips inside the router that get warm. I have a feeling that would help extend the life of the router.
Click to expand...

Well, fact is most of the home-grade routers (like the WRT54G, etc) just aren't that beefy. Even if you enable QOS, the router just doesn't have enough beef in it to handle that much stuff.

Hence my suggestion if the OP is actually wanting to buy something, the WNDR-3700 is a great high-performance enthusiast router.
 
Hah, this 4100 doesn't have any "warranty will be void if seal is broken" stickers on it. :D
 
TechieSooner said:
Well, fact is most of the home-grade routers (like the WRT54G, etc) just aren't that beefy. Even if you enable QOS, the router just doesn't have enough beef in it to handle that much stuff.

Hence my suggestion if the OP is actually wanting to buy something, the WNDR-3700 is a great high-performance enthusiast router.
Click to expand...

Yes I wholeheartedly agree. This is afterall [H] ;)

I'm personally looking into getting a PF sense box running on a old computer. I'd just move the 54GL off to the side, yet still use it as a wireless access point for the lappys.

It may not be as powerful as what some people need, however the WRT54GL has treated me and a few friends very well. No failures or reboots are ever really needed with Tomato's firmware (other then the reboot that's required for firmware updates). Even for how old it is it still does what I need it to do. Tomato is a very lightweight Linux based firmware that has a bunch of great features packed into it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_(firmware)
 
I've had 4 routers.

The first was a old BSR Linksys model which died in the first year of usage, but I am pretty sure it was because of heat related issues.

The second was an old 3 series Netgear wireless B router, which was still working after 5 years when I gave it away. This model was unable to maintain a internet connection while I was using file sharing. (too many concurrent connections)

The third was a D-link 634M which I loved. (HUGE performance increase from the previous model) Lasted 6 years before the wireless started to become flaky. I opened it up and found the wireless chip was a little crispy. The room was always at 70 degrees. If you turn the wireless off the unit appears to be reliable, with the wireless on the network traffic would stutter and sometimes stop completely until you power cycled the unit.

The fourth and current router is a Netgear 3700, its a moderate performance increase over the D-link 634M with one exception, that being the wireless performance is far better in most circumstances. No issues at all so far with the factory firmware.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top