Network Routers

[DL126]

For years I've been buying and using $60.00 +/- SOHO routers for myself and customers w/-30 pc's.
I'm to the point now of being disgusted due to failing boxes in 12 mths +/-

Are there any viable options that you know of without having to go to $500.00+ Cisco units?
According to what I've been told, and read, with Cisco you're paying for a name ... configuration is a nightmare w/o their specialized training ... and support is all but non-existent unless you buy a service contract.

Seems to me that there should be a $200 - $300 unit that is reliable & at least fairly simple to setup!
Have you seen it?

TIA

[KnightRid]

Maybe I am an idiot but why not just use 1 router and then a switch or 2? Depending on how you want it to run, you could eliminate the router all together I believe.

Mike

I have my wireless router going to a gige switch with no apparent slow downs.

[DL126]

Maybe I am an idiot but why not just use 1 router and then a switch or 2? Depending on how you want it to run, you could eliminate the router all together I believe.

Mike

I have my wireless router going to a gige switch with no apparent slow downs.

Na .... I'm sure you're no idiot.

Problem is I didn't make myself clear ...
In fact I DO run everything into a switch, and then to the router.
In the original post, I was referring to network sizes of 30 machines and under. (I don't do any networks larger than that.)

But again ...
It's those damn cheap boxes that keep going out.
Just this past week, my personal Linksys box (WRT150 w/DD-WRT FW installed) throttled my through-put down to almost nothing.
With the factory FW installed .. the thing would lock up every 10 - 15 minutes due to the number of incoming/outgoing connections.
I replaced it with a RVS4000. We'll see if it performs any better.

[martini161]

unfortunately once you get past the high end general consumer products (those rip of 150 dollar "Gaming" routers) you dont hit much else until your talking about lower end business stuff (like the cisco you were talking about)

[hnzw_rui]

Never had a problem with my Linksys WRT54GL w/DD-WRT v23sp2. Useless if you wanted wireless N, though.

[Skippman]

I know a lot of the small business I support love the SMC Barricade series of products. I think that would be in your price range.

Netopia made one of the coolest routers I'd ever seen for a while. It was dual broadband enabled with built in dialup backups. So you could have one DSL circuit and one cable circuit both connected to the same router. Supported multiple PPPoE sessions and had automatic fail-over and load balancing. I should have bought one. For the $200 they wanted it was a steal.

[DL126]

Ordered one of these yesterday for a customer.
He agreed to be the guinea pig.
http://biz.tigerdirect.com/applications ... &CatId=198

Did you guys know that DD-WRT firmware is available for x86 machines?
I'm wondering if it wouldn't be best to just use old PII or PIII boxes with this firmware.
According to many sites, one of the main problems with SOHO routers is that they simply overheat with time and self destruct.
Wouldn't be the case with an old computer ...
I put one together about a year ago, but never used it.


Found a couple more ...
http://www.smoothwall.org/
Gonna try this one first

http://www.pfsense.org/
This one supports multiple WAN's w/LoadBalancing

[Skippman]

I have a 1U PIII 700 machine in my home office here on my rack. I'd love to use it as a thin-net client but the 40mm PSU fan sounds like a turbine. I've considered cracking the case on the PSU and chopping the leads to it and running a 120mm on top of it but I was concnered about overheating. I think since it's not in an enclosed cage I should be ok. The only problem I have it it's a single NIC box and ther's no real elegent way to put a second NIC in it short of a USB dongle.

I've not messed much with Linux but can you do multi IP on the same MAC with it? I wouldn't thinkt that'd be possible but I've seen Linux do some crazy stuff before.

[DL126]

I've not messed much with Linux but can you do multi IP on the same MAC with it? I wouldn't thinkt that'd be possible but I've seen Linux do some crazy stuff before.

Woah there Skippman ...
You're asking questions that I don't know Jack about!

I'm about as far from a programmer as you can get!
But I can take an HTML interface and just "figure stuff out". Albeit often times on a trial and error basis ...

I've messed with Linux just enough to figure out that I don't have the time, nor the desire, to learn the "under the hood" aspects of it.
Thanks to Gates & Company ... my customers give me about all the work I need.

[Skippman]

The reason I ask is this. The box has a 100mb NIC in it which would more than handle my internet traffic as I'm on 10M Uverse internet. If I could assign the NIC two seperate IP addresses, one LAN and one WAN I could set it up as a proxy server and a firewall.

Don't get me wrong man, I'm no programmer myself. I'm just a professional TelCom guy who happens to mess with small to mid scale LAN's a lot in my day to day life. I'm much happier working in Windows and on cable than trying to debug or program code. I think I've got some kinda autism that prevents me from doing code. Like maybe discalcula or something.

[DL126]

The reason I ask is this. The box has a 100mb NIC in it which would more than handle my internet traffic as I'm on 10M Uverse internet. If I could assign the NIC two seperate IP addresses, one LAN and one WAN I could set it up as a proxy server and a firewall.

I've never heard of that being done.
Doesn't mean it isn't possible I suppose.
Every setup I've ever messed with required 2 NICS. One for Internal & one for External operations.
And this includes all the proxy software I used back when the average Joe couldn't afford a router.

[hnzw_rui]

Another thing you might consider for your PC router is Untangle. It's based on open-source software.

Tentative builds:

Shuttle KPC K-45, $100
Intel Celeron 430, $40
Kingston ValueRAM 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, $25
HDD, $50
NIC, $20

iStarUSA S3 STORM SERIES, $90
Intel D945GCLF2, $80
Kingston ValueRAM 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, $25
HDD, $50
NIC, $20

[DMB2000uk]

Skip, do you not even have a spare PCI slot to add in a PCI based ethernet adaptor?

Dan

[Skippman]

Its there but it's a 1U chasis, i'd have to run it with the case top off and jurry rig some kinda mouting solution.

[DMB2000uk]

What's behind that middle bit of silver metal?

Can you get a flexible PCI riser thing and use that with the PCI ethernet card placed around that silver area?

Dan

[DL126]

Coming to you LIVE from behind a SmootWall 3.0 router.

Holy Moly there's more options in that thing than any average person like myself could ever use.
Using an old PIII 1Ghz w/384Mb RAM.

That thing will monitor, log, block, or allow anything I've ever heard of .. and a lot of stuff I've NEVER heard of.
Hell it even has IM monitoring with a swear word filter. (My son will love that!)
It'll log all chats and save them on the HDD ... or you can watch them in real time.

Also has a POP proxy in it that monitors emails and blocks viruses.
Although I have no clue where it gets it's definitions from. Might be a farse.??

Back to it ...