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Author Topic: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?  (Read 17495 times)

thesmileyone

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #30 on: September 25, 2020, 03:26:28 PM »

Did you come to a conclusion as to which router is best currently?
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Chunkers

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #31 on: September 26, 2020, 07:34:16 PM »

Did you come to a conclusion as to which router is best currently?
I'm not really the best person to answer this question, shortly after this thread was concluded in 2016 I assembled my own DIY pfSense router and have never looked back, I use Zyxel 8924 routers as modems (I have two lines load-balanced). Since then I have fooled around with home-builds running pfSense and OPNsense but I appreciate they are not for everyone ...

Regarding off-the-shelf one box routers : I recently tested and really liked the Fritz!Box 7530 and have had good experiences with Draytek in the past.

Why not create a separate post with a bit more details on your requirements / situation and I am sure you will get a lot of helpful advice for other more knowledge-able Kitz peeps?

C
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thesmileyone

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #32 on: September 28, 2020, 12:10:26 AM »

Well I'm having the same problems as you with the same router.

How easy was your pfsense solution? I have all the hw spare here to run 2 pc's assuming I can find a nice slim case with a psu inside. 3770k and 2500k I'm assuming either would be enough for a router, right? I've been thinking about it for a while as it happens as consumer networking hardware just seems so pathetic compared to consumer computer hardware.

What I didn't mention is in the last 4 years I have gone through 3 AC68U's they tend to last about 12-15 months then start conking out...I'm sick of replacing them at £150 a pop.
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Chunkers

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #33 on: September 28, 2020, 08:21:01 AM »

If you have an old PC or some old bits and pieces then it pretty easy, the configuration takes a little homework if you have something unconventional like me.  If you are modestly capable at say, installing windows, you can probably manage it!

Before I invested in dedicated hardware for my router I stuck a cheap 4 port PCI card in an old PC and installed pfSense and OPNsense to try - it took a little time but worked great and pfSense is a excellent and very powerful !

I won't go through all the advantages of an opensource homebuilt router (there are many) but one thing to be wary about is power consumption - if you use a PC as your router permanently it will use a lot of electricity compared to a low power device, thats why I ended up with a PCEngines APU2C4, I suspect there are better choices and there is lots of knowledge from others on this forum.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xSvAIq9-tM&t=1s[/youtube]

You can, of course, buy preconfigured devices with pfSense installed but its not as much fun  :)

I think it would be a really good idea for you to share your query in a separate thread and catch the attention of really smart Kitzers  :cool:

Chunks
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #34 on: September 28, 2020, 08:58:53 AM »


I won't go through all the advantages of an opensource homebuilt router (there are many) but one thing to be wary about is power consumption - if you use a PC as your router permanently it will use a lot of electricity compared to a low power device, thats why I ended up with a PCEngines APU2C4, I suspect there are better choices and there is lots of knowledge from others on this forum.

I was going to mention power consumption but there's a flip side to that argument, how long it would take the difference in power consumption vs a lower power dedicated pfSense appliance, to equal the cost of buying that box.  Considering were talking say 10-20W vs 40-60W, it could take a decade.

There's also the fact we live in a relatively cold country, any power consumption is turned to heat and offsets your heating bill.  So buying a dedicated box is not necessarily as important as first appears.
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Broadband: Zen Full Fibre 900 + Three 5G Routers: pfSense (Intel N100) + Huawei CPE Pro 2 H122-373 WiFi: Zyxel NWA210AX
Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, Netgear MS510TXPP, Netgear GS110EMX My Broadband History & Ping Monitors

Chunkers

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #35 on: September 28, 2020, 12:08:16 PM »

I was going to mention power consumption but there's a flip side to that argument, how long it would take the difference in power consumption vs a lower power dedicated pfSense appliance, to equal the cost of buying that box.  Considering were talking say 10-20W vs 40-60W, it could take a decade.

There's also the fact we live in a relatively cold country, any power consumption is turned to heat and offsets your heating bill.  So buying a dedicated box is not necessarily as important as first appears.

I agree power is not a deal breaker for most people, especially if you already have the bits.  I looked into running costs a little recently as I considering a self-build NAS to replace an old PC acting as a NAS:

My current homebuild NAS (normal) power consumption : 70-80W (its an old Q8200 PC running headless and I have a power monitor device attached to it)

I only have a single drive in it so 60-70W would seem reasonable for the PC alone. At 14p/KWh and running 24/7 this is about £80/year
A low power device like mine uses about 8W, or about £10/year

So I think you are looking at about 3 years payback on your investment, which is marginal.



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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #36 on: September 28, 2020, 01:17:22 PM »

As I have a UPS on the network shelf I have a pretty good idea how much I'm using which is around 135W.

That's including my NAS:
Code: [Select]
4xNAS drives (3x7200RPM),
1x2.5" HDD,
1x2.5" SSD,
1xM.2 SSD,
i5 8600k with 32GB RAM
10" LCD screen displaying stats.
Of course under CPU load, the NAS can pretty much double the power load by itself but even though I have remote desktop on it running torrents and firefox running 24/7 for the stats display, it doesn't need to clock that high often.

Other devices on the UPS:
Code: [Select]
i5-7200U (pfSense Router)
10" LCD for CCTV display on stairs.
Multi-gig POE switch which also powers:
 TP-Link WDR3600 (acting merely as a switch for my printer and Ubiquiti LiteBeam 5AC 23).
 Hikvision CCTV with two 4K cameras.
 8" LCD for CCTV display in hallway.
 Ubiquiti NanoHD.

Modern PCs are pretty crazy, my desktop is an i9 9900k with 2xNVME M.2 drives and an RTX 2080 and FIVE fans, but it idles down to 36W in Linux although probably hanging more around 54W.  It doesn't idle nearly as low in Windows 10 and you don't want to know what it can hit under load.  ::)

I apologise that I've gone a bit off-topic here.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2020, 01:52:45 PM by Alex Atkin UK »
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Broadband: Zen Full Fibre 900 + Three 5G Routers: pfSense (Intel N100) + Huawei CPE Pro 2 H122-373 WiFi: Zyxel NWA210AX
Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, Netgear MS510TXPP, Netgear GS110EMX My Broadband History & Ping Monitors

Chunkers

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #37 on: September 29, 2020, 02:35:07 PM »

As I have a UPS on the network shelf I have a pretty good idea how much I'm using which is around 135W.

That's including my NAS:
Code: [Select]
4xNAS drives (3x7200RPM),
1x2.5" HDD,
1x2.5" SSD,
1xM.2 SSD,
i5 8600k with 32GB RAM
10" LCD screen displaying stats.
Of course under CPU load, the NAS can pretty much double the power load by itself but even though I have remote desktop on it running torrents and firefox running 24/7 for the stats display, it doesn't need to clock that high often.

Other devices on the UPS:
Code: [Select]
i5-7200U (pfSense Router)
10" LCD for CCTV display on stairs.
Multi-gig POE switch which also powers:
 TP-Link WDR3600 (acting merely as a switch for my printer and Ubiquiti LiteBeam 5AC 23).
 Hikvision CCTV with two 4K cameras.
 8" LCD for CCTV display in hallway.
 Ubiquiti NanoHD.

Modern PCs are pretty crazy, my desktop is an i9 9900k with 2xNVME M.2 drives and an RTX 2080 and FIVE fans, but it idles down to 36W in Linux although probably hanging more around 54W.  It doesn't idle nearly as low in Windows 10 and you don't want to know what it can hit under load.  ::)

I apologise that I've gone a bit off-topic here.

You are right way off-topic ;D, but I think the economics of device power consumption and how it may or may not justify expenditure on low power devices is a good subject area for a different post - I am been surprised at the (potentially high) cost of running PC's 24/7

C
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #38 on: September 29, 2020, 09:10:31 PM »

You are right way off-topic ;D, but I think the economics of device power consumption and how it may or may not justify expenditure on low power devices is a good subject area for a different post - I am been surprised at the (potentially high) cost of running PC's 24/7

C

I'm actually really impressed all that comes in at 135W average, I use more than that on LED lighting in my room and during my childhood every room had 100W bulbs.  So really, its not that they use a lot of power, its that electricity companies are ripping us off left and right.

As we've hit the limit of Moores Law and mobile computing has skyrocketed, the focus has been on efficiency.  But the price of electricity has gone up quicker than the gains in efficiency.

I think a mod should split this topic off now so can continue (assuming there is much else to say about this).
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Broadband: Zen Full Fibre 900 + Three 5G Routers: pfSense (Intel N100) + Huawei CPE Pro 2 H122-373 WiFi: Zyxel NWA210AX
Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, Netgear MS510TXPP, Netgear GS110EMX My Broadband History & Ping Monitors

Weaver

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #39 on: September 29, 2020, 10:19:43 PM »

One thing that you can do; move to the Highlands or further north, somewhere where it is not too hot, install a thermostat on your central heating and then your router’s energy consumption will be effectively exactly zero as the heat it produces will warm your house thus requiring less energy input into your central heating system. I have four modems, a MUX/DEMUX small VLAN switch, plus a router and other LAN- and WLAN-related boxen, so that lot all warms Janet’s office nicely and we really need the heat.
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #40 on: September 30, 2020, 04:04:02 AM »

I deliberately have the radiators in my room down lower than everywhere else in the house as the TV, PC, games consoles can make up the difference.  ::)

Would work even better if our crappy council house wasn't so draughty. (the councils "improvements" made it much worse)
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Broadband: Zen Full Fibre 900 + Three 5G Routers: pfSense (Intel N100) + Huawei CPE Pro 2 H122-373 WiFi: Zyxel NWA210AX
Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, Netgear MS510TXPP, Netgear GS110EMX My Broadband History & Ping Monitors

Weaver

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #41 on: September 30, 2020, 05:30:52 AM »

I went crazy with draft excluder strip stuff at my parents’ house, which had a ridiculous north wind blowing straight in under the garage door then through a leaky crappy inner door into the interior of the house. Blocked all the draft at that inner door, stopped it dead. There were PVC patio doors from the sitting room cum kitchen looking out into the garden which had ridiculous drafts coming up around and especially below the frame so some gap filler goop/sealant did the job 100% there too. Warmed the whole place up enormously and slashed their heating bills.
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Alex Atkin UK

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Re: WAN Disconnects Caused by Asus RT-AC68U Router?
« Reply #42 on: September 30, 2020, 06:44:23 AM »

You can feel the cold coming in through both outer doors and around every window frame, around the SEAL that holds the glass in.  Plus as they took up the carpet to redo the central heating, it also gets in from under the skirting boards.  But, umm, we've gone even further off-topic now.  :-[
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Broadband: Zen Full Fibre 900 + Three 5G Routers: pfSense (Intel N100) + Huawei CPE Pro 2 H122-373 WiFi: Zyxel NWA210AX
Switches: Netgear MS510TXUP, Netgear MS510TXPP, Netgear GS110EMX My Broadband History & Ping Monitors
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