A
Good Thing there's no
Love for Huawei.
I was here searching for a VDSL modem router combo over four years ago, decided on a Netgear Nighthawk D7000 v1.
As technology advanced, with the whole family playing games/streaming videos, WiFi connections became an issue over time.
Having unlocked the BIOS Whitelists to install Intel WiFi 6E AX210 network adapters did not help, it was modem router inadequacy.
After many Months searching, I decided upon a
ZyXEL VMG8924-B10A and was most pleasantly pleased to find an open-box unused model (£22 + £5 delivery). Updated it with Johnson's Firmware
28-jumbo-tel-x6-stats1.1-cmd then set it up as a modem router.
Slight improvement but my OCD was still unsettled.
So next I set up the ZyXEL in Bridge Mode with the Netgear as router, having opened up the Nighthawk > removed heatsink, removed thermal pad > inserted 20x20x0.8mm copper shim +thermal paste.
This configuration was better than ZyXEL modem router combo on its own....but with two laptops (side by side) on a different level to the modem router inside a Georgian building (thick sandstone block walls), WiFi still stuttered slightly. Then a thought came to mind, why don't I utilise WiFi 6 as all my devices are compatible ?
With modem sorted so began searches for an AX Standard router and came across
The Huawei AX3 Quad-Core handles 900mb/s easily
.
I checked,
Huawei WiFi AX3 Plus was discounted to £49.99 and at that price it was most difficult to resist compared to an Asus RT AX68U (which I firstly had in mind), no mention of £5 delivery charge until Checkout though. Received it with next working day delivery.
https://consumer.huawei.com/uk/routers/ax3-quad-core/buy//Well packed. Router was sleek and minimalistic (no gimmicky spaceship shape) in design with matt plastic that Sherlock Holmes would have had difficulties to find finger prints....but I was sceptical how such a small device (smaller/slimmer than the ZyXEL) can function with so little ventilation (compared to the Netgear D7000). Only 3 LAN Ports but then again why would anyone wish to connect any more cables....wireless is the way to go.
I'd wanted to open up the casing to check their proprietary chip out of curiOCD but there are no screws to be found and I'm not willing to pry open a brand new device.
Disconnected the Netgear router that was attached to the ZyXel moden and connected with the Huawei AX3 Plus router.
Opened a Browser and Huawei AX3 UI was automatically detected without the need to enter
192.168.3.1 The Configuration Wizard was most intuitive and minimal, successfully connected to the internet within a few minutes, only needed inputs of ISP Username & Password, WiFi Network name & Security Password....et voilá.
Cleared out all the previous saved WiFi networks settings on every device and reconnected all.
To my amazement, it's all working seamlessly with no more mouse cursor stuttering when playing two MU-MIMO games on one laptop while the other laptop was streaming a film utilising Mouse Without Borders software.
In total, all for £81.99p and if one device break, it's not going to hurt Mr. Wallet with the added bonus of having satisfyingly addressed my current OCD issue.
So it is a good thing that there's no
Love for Huawei as it drives down their prices and hopefully increase their products standard.
Thank you all for reading, see you in a couple of years time.
Edit: Found two screws underneath the label.
