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streetwolf
join:2002-02-22
Marlboro, NJ | Are you sure you really want a common thread for Router Problems? It would be like me having a common thread why I can't get a date. Way to long 
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| | | George Kidd
join:2001-08-09
Vancouver, BC | Well folks, one approach is, I always leave uPnP turned "Off", and I avoid Wireless stuff. I am using ADSL and as a result have not had many of the problems mentioned. For me it "Just Works".....Happyness is... | |
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dellsweig
Extreme Aerobatics
Premium,MVM
join:2003-12-10
Campbell Hall, NY | Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems if you inlude router model, firmware rev with the things like PnP off - I will cut this stuff into a spreadsheet..... | |
| | | | | | | biker45
join:2003-10-18
Erie, CO
| Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems dellsweig:
I received your email with suggestion that I change my DHCP lease interval to 32767.
You have a good point. The router hang problem could be related to its processing of the DHCP lease renewal.
I just changed my lease expiration to 32767 and will post results in this thread. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | pooter
join:2002-11-26
Somerset, NJ
1 edit | Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems I bought a new BEFSW11S4 V4 last week and upgraded it to firmware 1.50 first thing. It has up to 4 clients and froze once a day.
UPnP: off
WEP: enabled
WPA: off
Log: enabled
MTU: default
DHCP:default
SSID: broadcast disabled
Port Forwarding: Yes - 1 port
Filter Ports: none
Edit: I forgot to mention, I could not detect any patterns regarding the router hanging. Twice it happened overnight when the router was not in use (all PCs and other Internet devices were turned off.) Once it happened while I was using XBox Live and the other time it happened while surfing. | |
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Johkal
Cool Cat
Premium,MVM
join:2002-11-13
Happy Valley
clubs: | Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router proble Flash back to 1.45.7 | |
| | | | | | biker45
join:2003-10-18
Erie, CO
| Dan:
Setting DHCP lease interval to 32767 in BEFW11S4 v4, to try and resolve the router hang problem, did not work.
Router was in a hung state when I booted my PC this morning and attempted to access the net (i.e., pings to the inside IP address, 192.168.1.1, failed). After power cycling the router, the problem cleared as usual.
I leave my router and cable modem powered on 24x7, but I shut down my PCs at night. Before shutting down last night, I verified that the router was not hung. When I booted my wired PC this morning, I found the router was hung (pings to 192.168.1.1 confirmed the hang). Nothing in the router's log indicated a problem.
After booting in the morning is typically when I first encounter the router hang problem. The router hang problem occurs regardless of whether I boot my wired or wireless PC. Subsequent boots of either PC do not cause the router to hang (so booting is not causing the problem). Also, on rare occasions, I find that the router is not hung when I first boot my PCs in the morning.
Often during the day (with my PCs already booted), I will notice that I cannot access a web site. Subsequent pings to 192.168.1.1 fail, indicating that the router has hung again. On rare occasions, I can get through an entire day without a hang, but not often.
I really hoped that setting the DHCP lease time to 32767 would solve the problem, but I guess I won't be that lucky.
Since the hang often occurs at night when my PCs are down, I am wondering if the catalyst for the hang is something that my cable company is doing/sending. I guess I could power down my cable modem over night, leave the router powered up, and see if the router hangs (over night). If so, that would eliminate my cable company from the list of usual suspects.
Any other thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated. | |
| | | | | | | mikeyuf
join:2003-01-05
Gainesville, FL | Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems Well, Im having all the same problems.. But Im trying to to find 1.45.7? anyone have it? | |
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ToasterMan78
Premium
join:2003-11-26
| said by biker45  :
Any other thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated.
Probably others have mentioned this to you, but wired setups are intrinsically more stable than wireless setups. I don't know how long you have had problems (I see you have posted in other threads on your BEFW11), but it may be time to move to a wired setup. | |
| | | | | | | | biker45
join:2003-10-18
Erie, CO
| Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems ToasterMan:
Thanks.
The PCs that I use at home are wired to the BEFW11S4. When it hangs, my wired connections are down (until I reboot).
My wife's PC (in another room of the house) connects wirelessly to the BEFW11S4.
Prior to my wife getting her PC (last Oct), I was in an all wired configuration (and did not have any problems - I used a different vendor's hub to connect my PCs).
When my wife bought her PC, I installed a BEFW11S4 to serve as a wireless AP and router. That's when I began having reliability problems caused by the BEFW11S4 hanging. I could probably move my wired PCs to a different (non-Linksys) device, but I'd still have the Linksys box to contend with for my wife's wireless connection (running wires to the room where my wife's PC is located is not an option ... I will need some kind of wireless AP in my network ... Linksys or otherwise). | |
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ToasterMan78
Premium
join:2003-11-26
| Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems said by biker45 :
...running wires to the room where my wife's PC is located is not an option ...
I suspect you don’t want to damage your house by drilling to run wires. I had a friend who had Comcast cable TV installed, and before he could say “don’t drill through the hardwood floor” the Comcast guy did just that. | |
| | | | | | | | | | MSNhurts
join:2003-12-27
Los Alamos, NM
| Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems My router used to hang constantly, and then I upgraded to 1.44 or 1.45 (forget) - and it worked great. Then, in hopes of WPA, I upgraded to 1.5 - now all the convenience of wireless is lost because every 10 minutes (ok, not quiet that often) I have to get up and go reset the router. Is this the first upgrade since Cisco acquired linksys? I want to know who to be pissed at for releasing a firmware upgrade that re-introduced a problem that had, at one time, been solved. At least the firmware reminds me of who I can likely thank - Linksys *A division of Cisco, inc.* | |
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JJ_Mclure
join:2002-03-13
East Greenwich, RI | i understans the common thread model. but isn't that like a stitch in time saves nine. Or, look before you leap.
think people that threads come in many varieties. Clothes, CPU Multitasking, sewing, Lines of code Etc. Etc. | |
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Scott W
Premium
join:2003-08-09
Beaverton, OR
4 edits | Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems said by dellsweig :
If there is a home security requirement - use MAC filtering - do't screw around with WPA...
Mac's are easily spoofed. And unencrypted data can still be intercepted, whether the interceptor is on your network or not. Yes, do use MAC filtering, but WITH, not in place of, encryption.
So far, I've had no problems using WPA on my WRT54G. I did have one computer that wanted to disconnect upon user logoff, but following the advice in the wrt54g disconnection thread about the "AuthMode" registry edit seems to have taken care of that. | |
| George Kidd
join:2001-08-09
Vancouver, BC | Yup, that about covers the problems. Does NE1 have some "Good" Working Answers/Solutions that we can all put to good use? | |
| biker45
join:2003-10-18
Erie, CO
| dellsweig:
Thanks for your initiative to try and figure out the cause of the dreaded router hang problem.
Here's my info...
Router: BEFSW11S4 V4 (firmware 1.50) Locks/freezes approx twice per day (2 clients). Problem also occurred with older firmware 1.45.7 and 1.45.3
UPnP: off
WEP: enabled
WPA: off
Log: enabled
MTU: 1500 (previously set to 1400 but problem persisted)
DHCP Lease: 0 (label on config setting states that 0 minutes implies one day)
SSID: broadcast disabled
Port Forwarding: Yes - 1 port
Filter Ports: Yes, 4 ports | |
| 
Jan Janowski
join:2000-06-18
Skokie, IL
 ·AT&T Midwest
| My problem is I either mis-interpret the manual, or over-interpret what I read in the manual.... Which gets complicated by things in manual being covered in less detail than what I needed, and an occasional breaking of features in later version firmware.... and me running around trying to determine what I did to kill it.
I would say that more than 70% of the problems I've encountered are of this type.
--
Looking for 1939 Indian Motocycle | |
| 
ChrisDAT
Google Keyword Compsysnyc
join:2002-02-26
Hollis, NY
| DHCP seems to be a contributor here... Does anyone have good performance with DHCP off --- You really dont need DHCP with less than 10 or so clients, it's easier and more stable to assign IPs, especially if you expect the machines to communicate with each other...
To add to that... For a "cheapie" NAT/Router, I would guess that the LinkSys suffers from poor packet buffering, both on the Switch/LAN side, and especially on the NAT/Router/Wan side, where a few, fat 100BaseTX boxes have to squeeze into a 10BaseT cable or DSL modem, which then squeezes into what amounts to a 1Mbit or so broadband connection... Routers hang and drop packets when their input buffer is full. I don't know if any linksys product sends source quench messages (probably not) to protect themselves, and many Windows implimentations have a tendency to free-flow (ignoring them anyway). The switches do not have (give) the ability to set the Duplex of the individual ports, this is important, because you really have no reason running full duplex (collision avoidance/detection is off here) on a small lan, and that can make the problem far worse since your cable/DSL modem is certainly half-duplex and supports CSMA/CD(sp.).
Overall the problem may be that the LinkSys may suffer from small buffers (not enough RAM) and trying to act like a big boy so that the little guy can take advantage of what is usually high-buck hardware... My suggestion, only use what you need, DHCP and logging require tables, not using them may free up more packet memory, especially if you're having big problems... Turn off that ZoneAlarm, the UPnP, and let the router concentrate on NAT.
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someoneyoudonotknow
| Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems dellsweig,
I use WPA exclusively and it works just fine. As far as microsoft not working with vendor xyz you are incorrect. At this point microsoft XP is the ONLY game in town if you want to use WPA.(I don't feel like paying for the odyssey client.) Admittedly the wirless client in XP is buggy. I must say I have rolled out a couple of these types of wireless networks for customers and it works perfectly. Now you must patch the XP wireless client twice for it to work properly.
As far as DHPC and UPnP and advanced features using CPU overhead. I have run NAT, Firewalling ACLs, DHPC server, syslog, SNMP polling and trapping, and quite a bit more but my memory is failing at the moment. The point is all of these proccesses were run on a platform with a 40 Mhz 386 Equivalent CPU with 4MB of RAM. (Cisco 2500 series) Now I do realize that these are Cisco boxes, I am just trying to show that yes the processes use CPU and memory it is not as bad as you might think. These small routers run with 125Mhz to 200Mhz processors in them! Hell 3 years ago my core router for 140,000 end users only had a 200Mhz processor! (MIPS R5000) The difference is the software running on the platform, and linksys does not spend the appropriate resources in this area to make things work properly. (Cisco/Juniper spend a large amount of money and software developement) Linksys boxes are way to cheap to recieve that kind of treatment.
James | |
| | | rdhw
join:2002-09-21
Cambridge UK
| said by dellsweig :
Our routers 'see' all traffic on the local ISP switch - it has to process all of your neighbors traffic to too.
No: on a cable modem system, none of your neighbour's traffic gets through your cable modem (if this were not so, the security implications would be immense). All that comes through your cable modem is traffic addressed to this particular customer, plus any broadcasts (ARP, DHCP) from the head end that are essential for the correct operation of IP networks. The bandwidth taken by those head-end broadcasts is trivial and not an issue.
The other things you mention (logging, UPnP, DHCP leases, etc) are also trivial in terms of network loading. Whatever is causing the problems you are suffering from, it isn't network loading from having these options active.
--
Robin Walker »homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d.h.walker/ for broadband troubleshooting tips | |
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someoneyoudonotknow
| Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems rdhw,
You are not correct. Cable data networks such as comcast are basically a hubbed architecture. Any traffic that is put out by ANYONE on your neighborhood cable node can be seen and sniffed by ANYONE else. Cable is not switched at this time it is simply repeated like a hub. With a router connected into a cable modem you mitagate this somewhat in that other folks can attack you machines directly but they can still see your packets. I sniff all of the time and you would not believe the traffic that you can see. I use comcast cable BTW
James | |
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ToasterMan78
Premium
join:2003-11-26
| Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems said by someoneyoudonotknow:
...Cable is not switched at this time it is simply repeated like a hub. ...[and you can therefore sniff your neighbors traffic]...I use Comcast cable...
My understanding is that switches are about the same price as hubs (at least for home users, I assume it carries through on the business end), and it would seem to be insane for a major ISP to use hubs on their network from a network-congestion point of view. Especially with hundreds of people potentially connected to a single node. | |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | pooter
join:2002-11-26
Somerset, NJ
| Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems The wireless Linksys I bought froze once a day (4 times in 4 days), any time of day with no discernable pattern (my setup details are in an earlier post.)
On Sunday, I ran a couple cable runs and put in a refurbished (wired) DLink DI-604. No freezes in 3 days (logging is enabled.)
For comparison's sake, I wish I could snag a new wired Linksys and see if that freezes on me. | |
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someoneyoudonotknow
| dellswieg,
Fact:
In a lab envirnonment you can crash any router no matter how well you tune its config. Very simple, use pageant, smartbits, or agilent route injectors and apply and withdraw thousands of BGP or OSPF or even RIP routes per second and in a few minutes you expensive powerful router is toast! You don't even need a traffic load.(Usually not even that long. But boy is it kinda fun!)
Do not forget that even though these routers are small they have fairly respectable specs for the processor speeds, and memory and flash sizes. Do not forget that a Cisco 2600 router has a 50Mhz 486/Pentium class CPU with between 8-16 MB of RAM, and 4 - 32MB of Flash. And that router costs much more. I have pounded on all sorts of routers. And with its processor memory specs the Linksys should eat up the 2600 but it doesnt. For comparison the BEFSX41 has a 162Mhz ARM 9 processor, 16MB of RAM and 4MB of Flash! Linksys has a problem with its firmware developement,optimzation, source code versioning, and physical quality control. All symptoms of the sub $50 prices for a lot of their gear.
That was it for you.
Regarding cable internet architecture.
Cable Internet services piggyback off of traditional cable by being Frequency Division Multiplexed into a higher carrier that is filtered out of traditional devices. Only devices that listen for that carrier can pick it up. The data signal is encoded with 16-64 QAM and can be upwards of 30Mhz of spectral width. Because of the nature of legacy cable for each neighborhood or collection of neighborhoods there is a cable "node". A cable node is a router with a tie in into the neighborhood cable run. That same cable run phsically and electricaly connects to EVERY home that recieves cable, even if they do not subscribe to cable internet service. Thus cable is a hubbed architecture. If the cable were switched every home would not be electircally connected to the other. (This is what ethernet switches do, they segment the physical ethernet collision domain into a collision domain per port instead of per switch.) But the cable companies would have to replicate the analog and/or digital baseband video signal to many different physical segments. Not only would signal quality suffer due to increased load impedance, but costs would skyrocket due to the vastly increased cost of balancing out the impedance load, and building so many different physically seperate cable segments would simply not be pratical. Remember, why does cable get slower as more users use it? Because it is a shared architecture. Switches do not have this penalty.
Do not confuse the cost of little home switches and hubs with the costs of gear that ISP's have to pay. Their gear has to be reliable and the firmware needs to be bulletproof, not to mention that the basic technology of cable service just described, at this time mitigates against using cable "switches".
Cable modems are indeed the bridges between the cable wire and the ethernet wire. But only newer cable modems have the built in MAC-Filtering (L2 Bridging) capabilities. The data is still there on the wire for all to see.
Regarding heat, this certainly could not hurt any devices. Go buy some small aluminum heatsinks and glue them to the switch chip and the CPU chip in the linksys routers. It will help pull the heat out of the silicon mutch better.
James | |
| | | | | biker45
join:2003-10-18
Erie, CO
| Most of the recent posts here seem to conclude that the "hanging" problem experienced by the Linksys BEFW11S4 (and/or any other "cheap" routers) may be due to these devices not having enough processing power and/or resources (RAM, etc) to handle the load. Thus, they periodically freeze/hang. Sounds reasonable to me. Although, it seems as though only the more recent models of Linksys hardware are experiencing this problem ... owners of the older models seem to be saying that their routers are solid. Could it be that Linksys has started using inferior components in their more recent models (this is only a conjecture, not an accusation).
Based upon the configs (of "working" routers) collected by dellsweig, I will disable logging and see if that helps to resolve the router hang problem I'm experiencing. I have already set my DHCP lease interval to 32767 (but that alone did not resolve the problem). If that does not work, I will just disable DHCP and assign static IP addresses.
I am using WEP, and really do not want to disable it. I live in a high density area where many of my neighbors' wireless APs are visible to me, so my AP must be visible to them. Even with its shortcomings, I'd rather have WEP enabled to stop the curious lurkers and rookie hackers, than just leaving my AP wide open.
In my case, the hang often (at least 90% of the time) occurs over night (between the time I power off my PCs and go to sleep, and when I reboot in the morning and find that the router has hung). During this time, there could be incoming packets destined for my router's IP address that overwhelm the router's resources and cause it to hang, but there is no traffic to/from the PCs on my LAN (they are powered off at the time). I have "Block Anonymous Internet Requests" and "Filter Multicast" both enabled to help reduce the exposure of my router. As dellsweig mentions, the problem may be caused by other traffic on my cable (not necessarily traffic destined for me, but traffic that my router must process to determine that it can ignore the packets).
MSNhurts asks whom to be angry at (Linksys or Cisco) for releasing a firmware upgrade that re-introduced a problem that had, at one time, been solved. My guess is: be angry at Linksys. Having been through a corporate "take over" (like Cisco buying Linksys), I believe it takes more than a year for a large parent corporation (Cisco) to impose its culture (and the resulting improvements in quality and reliability) on the newly acquired subsidiary. Cisco only bought Linksys early in 2003.
Cisco could have set a high objective for Linksys' bottom line, and to achieve their financial objective, Linksys may have found that they needed to use less reliable components in their newer models (and spend less staff resources solving firmware problems reported on their products). Again, this is only my conjecture. It certainly would be nice to get Linksys' side of this issue. | |
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ToasterMan78
Premium
join:2003-11-26
1 edit | Re: Looking for the Common Thread in router problems said by biker45 :
...the "hanging" problem experienced by... routers... may be due to these devices not having enough processing power and/or resources (RAM, etc) to handle the load....
One problem is that manufacturers of home-class products (AFAIK) do not list the CPU, RAM, etc in the product specifications for their routers, etc. I wonder if there is any independent website(s) that would have this info? I suspect not. But it would probably be an eye-opener. | |
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ChrisDAT
Google Keyword Compsysnyc
join:2002-02-26
Hollis, NY
| How about Cable -v- DSL?
I have DSL and a BEFSR41v2 router w/FW v1.45.7 and the one before that, that has been bulletproof since I got it in FEB 2002 --- No DHCP, no Multicast forwarding -- I don't do VPN, but I host several Apache servers (on different ports) supporting downloads, and TWO ShoutCAST streams that are busy 24/7... all this from a "modest" residential 640/128 Verizon DSL. It gets dead slow under load, but it does not die.
The modem is a Westell InfoSpeed Bellatlantic branded modem with one Flash upgrade.
Internally I run MS networking to share disks over IPX [Ethernet_802.3] just because it's faster.
I wonder if the connection type has anything to do with this puzzle?
(Just another thought: I wonder, what happens when the LinkSys DHCP expires leases while the clients are shut off? ie: how hard does it try to contact them? and what does it do when it cannot?) | |
| biker45
join:2003-10-18
Erie, CO
| After disabling Logging on my BEFW11S4 v4 (firmware 1,50) last night, I noticed that it did not hang (as usual) over night.
I was all set to celebrate (hoping to have found a resolution to the hang problem). Unfortunately, my router hung this afternoon.
So, it appears that disabling logging on the router is not the silver bullet that will kill the "router hang beast". SIGH. | |
| | | George Kidd
join:2001-08-09
Vancouver, BC
| @someone (anybody?) Hmmm if I get this right and a cable node is the same as a Hub then you can easily do the equivalent of a "Wiretap" on your neighbours. That should make it relatively easy to discover things like Passwords, Credit Card Numbers etc. How come the crooks are not doing a land office business on cable then? | |
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ChrisDAT
Google Keyword Compsysnyc
join:2002-02-26
Hollis, NY
| You're both right, kinda:
Cable is a party line, but it is not really ehternet on the cable side, remember it is designed for cable TV, so it is not designed to be "secure." Your cable modem is the bridge that only forwards data destined for your internal network. That means that you cannot "snoop" packets from your side of the cable modem.
note: DSL works internally the way you expect because the POTS system is switched by nature -- that's one reason why DSL has a design advantage over cable, and that's the primary physical difference detween the two "under the hood." | |
| George Kidd
join:2001-08-09
Vancouver, BC
| Well I find it quite interesting how Linksys carefully avoids things like Processor Clock Rate, Amount of Flash storage, Amount of RAM etc. in their Specifications. We always check this kind of stuff when we purchase a PC/MAC and so on. With Routers we are left to assume that as the costs of these items drop, then newer models will have faster processors and such. Over time loads on the Internet will have increased so one would expect routers need to be more robust to handle that.....Also increasing Wireless from 11 Mbps to 54 Mbps etc. must place a significant load on devices that handle the Traffic.
So the question is, what have the manufacturers done about all this if anything..... | |
| biker45
join:2003-10-18
Erie, CO
| For the second day in a row, my router (BEFW11S4 v4 with firmware 1.50) did not hang overnight. Last change I made was to disable logging. However, my router did hang while I was using my PC during the day. So I cannot conclude that disabling logging has solved the router hang problem.
As others have mentioned, the Linksys routers do not have much power nor resources, and they could be getting overwhelmed by traffic (and hang). Or, there could be some kind of bug in Linksys' firmware such that a specific set of events (even under low load) causes the router to hang. The fact that other vendor's routers (including older Linksys models) seem to be more solid (see pooter's recent post about his DLINK box) implies that it is possible to make cheap SOHO routers that do the job (even under load) without hanging multiple times per day.
Dellsweig: I can leave my PCs on overnight to see the effect, but since (during the last two days) my router has not hung overnight, but did hang while my PCs were in use during the day, I'm not sure that leaving my PCs on overnight will shed any additional information on the problem. You mentioned that your setup has been solid. Which version of BEFW11S4 do you have? I have v4. I am just wondering if the router hang problem may (in part) be due to Linksys using more inferior components in their newer models (many people with older BEFW11S4s report that their routers do not experince the hang problem).
George Kidd: regarding your concern about the security of financial transactions on a cable connection which is a shared media where all packets on the LAN can be sniffed ... be sure to enter sensitive data (in your browser) only when you have an SSL (HTTPS) session. That will help to protect your data from easily being observed. | |
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ChrisDAT
Google Keyword Compsysnyc
join:2002-02-26
Hollis, NY
| I just want to mention that HEAT was mentioned in another thread here the other day -- a user opened up his totally dead box that exhibited the "symptoms" mentioned here for some time just before it went kaput, and found a roasted capacitor... [jpalmer]
Most CPU boxes have cooling fans, LinkSys "BEF" series "blue" boxes have no fans (typical of modems) -- they have cooling holes above and below... in my house dust tends to settle on any horizontal surface over time, I dust my hardware often to clear the holes in the top because if they become filled with dust the internal case temp will kill the electronics inside... The bottom holes are of no use at this point since heat rises.
Electronics are extremely heat sensitive -- electrical resistance increases with temperature, most electronics are designed to operate within a temp. range [that should also appear in "specifications"] -- "cheaper" electronics have a smaller range than top-shelf electronics. It's not do-or-die, but when the temperature goes out the high end of the temp range strange things happen... too far out of range and... well, we all know the smell.
Some things are certain... over time, dust settles -- a brand new router will have less restriction to airflow than an older one -- a WIRELESS router, with RF modulators, will generate more heat than one that does not have the wireless stuff...
I was thinking also about how to address this -- mounting the unit vertically may not help because placing the holes to the side may only allow heat to accumulate in the new "top" [get out the drill?] -- place CPU Fans on top? -- run the LS with the cover off? I'll try some of these myself - and maybe present a case-mod LinkSys for y'all.
What does YOUR physical location look like? Is the router sandwiched between alot of other stuff? Is there anything stacked on top of it [like another "Blue" box"]... Put your hand above the unit [about an inch or so], you should feel a LOT of heat, more than you can feel below -- if it is hotter below the unit than above, it's likely that the upper holes are restricted -- I use a soft paint brush [without paint ] to clear them... Without built-in fans, the unit NEEDS free airflow around it. The LS seems to rely on convection, the hot air must escape the top of the case to draw cooler air in the bottom.
This is not THE answer to the LS "issue," but it is a piece of the puzzle.
"When the only tool you have is a HAMMER, the whole world looks like a NAIL" | |
| | | | manross
join:2003-09-05
Colorado Springs, CO
| ChrisDat,
In regards to the bottom vent holes in conjuction with the design of the case. It's a cheap way to offer cooling without fans. The cooler air below the router will be sucked up throught the router as the warm air rises out of the top vent holes, I think it's called convection currents. It does work somewhat....
Marty | |
| George Kidd
join:2001-08-09
Vancouver, BC
| Hi folks, ah yes HEAT. I have had a few encounters with this issue as well. A couple of years ago Linksys made a BEFSR41 V2 design that had a chip which ran hot enough to Fry Eggs....The unit kept crashing too, so I cemented a big aluminum heat sink to the chip and left the cover off. The unit never crashed since and has worked well. Recently I purchased another BEFSR41 V3 this time. The V3 unit runs off the same model of wall wart but is hardly warm at all. Guess the chip makers have made some real progress in the past couple of years.
Linksys is still using the same Plastic Box enclosure design that they started with. Frankly I much prefer the Box design that D-Link is using now. Their box can be placed on end, which I always do, so there is good airflow across the circuit board inside. The Box has vent holes in each end so it can be installed flat if necessary and still not get too hot. I found in that case the units run much cooler though if they are placed on end....More grit for the gears to grind..... | |
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ChrisDAT
Google Keyword Compsysnyc
join:2002-02-26
Hollis, NY
| I did a little check too: BEFW11S4 above a BEFSR41 -- the BEFSR41 supports the WAN and has two active clients... the "11S4" has no active clients and is only attached to the "41", its wan port is not connected.
Like yours, MY "11S4" was cool as can be ABOVE, below was a different story -- I used a baby thermo in the space between the two boxes ... it maxed out [went off scale high] at >107.6 deg.F.! Beneath the "41" it was warm too, but not as hot, I would assume "room temp" since the baby-t went offscale low [89.6 deg.F.] just like it would do in the open air.
Activity must contribute to heat production, as my "41" is always busy because I have two systems that constantly talk to each other and the WAN 24/7 [ShoutCAST/WinAMP DSP and ShoutCast DNAS]...
Anyone else "see/feel anything?" | |
| | George Kidd
join:2001-08-09
Vancouver, BC
| Hey a 1 star General. Actually Linksys made several different V2 models that were all called V2. Some had one kind of problem and others had something different. Several different chipsets were used inside, you had to peek into the box to find out. Would not be a surprise to me if they are still doing this. That spreadsheet just keeps on getting bigger and bigger...... | |
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