Best Router for VM Media

Columbo

Columbo

Columbo

Soldato
Joined
26 Mar 2007
Posts
9,106
Location
Nottinghamshire
So I'm sick of my devices disconnection from the Superhub 3.0 so I'm going to drop it into Modem mode but what's the best router for the job?

Dont need anything mega fancy as I'm not doing anything technical like port forwarding etc , just stable and easy to config and as plug and play as possible would be good.

For info I'm on VM 500mb
 
I use an Asus RT-AC88U with ethernet-backhaul RT-AC86U as an AIMesh point - get full speed out of the connection and both generally bomb proof.
 
Huawei AX3, Honor Router 3 (if you can find one) or just keep the SH3 in router mode, turn off the WLAN and add something like a Ubiquiti Unifi UAP-FlexHD. It's just good, fast WiFi in a coke-can sized unit. Or, if you really want to blow the budget, get a full-on Ubiquiti Unifi Dream Machine.
 
Columbo said:
So I'm sick of my devices disconnection from the Superhub 3.0 so I'm going to drop it into Modem mode but what's the best router for the job?

Dont need anything mega fancy as I'm not doing anything technical like port forwarding etc , just stable and easy to config and as plug and play as possible would be good.

For info I'm on VM 500mb
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How are the devices that drop off connected? If it’s powerline, that’s likely the issue. If it’s WiFi, then you may be much better off going with a centrally installed AP as installing another router in what is usually a sub optimal location doesn’t tend to give a massive improvement. Also port forwarding is a universal feature, it’s not advanced.
 
Avalon said:
How are the devices that drop off connected? If it’s powerline, that’s likely the issue. If it’s WiFi, then you may be much better off going with a centrally installed AP as installing another router in what is usually a sub optimal location doesn’t tend to give a massive improvement. Also port forwarding is a universal feature, it’s not advanced.
Click to expand...

Just standard WiFi, both mine and my daughters laptops disconnect 2-3 times per day and when Im on teams calls at work and she's home schooling its not ideal. Its in the corner of the living room and I'm limited by the length of the Cable from the VM Wall connection, which is hidden under the carpet.

I've got a old Netgear DG router which I tried and it kinda worked but at the WAN port is only 100mb its not ideal but the Wifi doesnt disconnect so need something with a Gigabit port.

I also tried turning off the Intelligent wifi function which apparently causes channel clashes but that didnt help at all.
 
Honestly if you can, run a cable from the existing router to a central location and plug in an AP - it will make the word of difference. If the old DG will operate as an AP you could use that, though obviously it's much older in terms of wifi standard support and the port speed issue, but two people sharing 100Mbit reliably is still going to be a game changer for what you describe.
 
WJA96 said:
Huawei AX3, Honor Router 3 (if you can find one) or just keep the SH3 in router mode, turn off the WLAN and add something like a Ubiquiti Unifi UAP-FlexHD. It's just good, fast WiFi in a coke-can sized unit. Or, if you really want to blow the budget, get a full-on Ubiquiti Unifi Dream Machine.
Click to expand...

I agree with the above bar buying the unifi dream machine likely extremely overkill for both your budget and use.

The ax3 is only like £50 so the cheapest option.

I'd also prefer to keep the sh3 in modem mode because the WiFi chip is now used for processing and I'm not sure if turning off wlan would work as well as modem only mode.

If that doesn't suffice then you can always add a access point later on. Going straight to access point is better but ideally require a third party router in the first place. The sh3 has a memory leak which gets worse over time unless you use modem mode only.
 
I use a Tenda AC 15 running the Fresh Tomato firmware, this is wifi speeds I get



11141503571.png
 
PfSense and Unifi AP.

The amount of control that PfSense gives you over your network is awesome...

pfsensedash.jpg
 
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neodude said:
PfSense and Unifi AP.
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I prefer not to recommend companies who have repeated unjustified history for hate campaigns against people they don’t like. Also if you want to take a project closed source, it’s probably not ideal to hire someone who between him and his wife threatened to abduct a solicitors three children, murder them and send them back to the parents in pieces, or who bail jumped a $500K bond leaving his mother to forego it while he escaped to Italy for a year, was extradited and eventually convicted for felony stalking, theft and burglary and did what appears to be a pretty poor job code wise as well. I mean of course you’re free to put your faith in whoever you think is worthy of it, but Netgate have literally gone to the extreme to grenade it’s reputation in recent years, and the last week has hit new lows.
 
Avalon said:
I prefer not to recommend companies who have repeated unjustified history for hate campaigns against people they don’t like. Also if you want to take a project closed source, it’s probably not ideal to hire someone who between him and his wife threatened to abduct a solicitors three children, murder them and send them back to the parents in pieces, or who bail jumped a $500K bond leaving his mother to forego it while he escaped to Italy for a year, was extradited and eventually convicted for felony stalking, theft and burglary and did what appears to be a pretty poor job code wise as well. I mean of course you’re free to put your faith in whoever you think is worthy of it, but Netgate have literally gone to the extreme to grenade it’s reputation in recent years, and the last week has hit new lows.
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Ok man, each to their own :p
 
jfish said:
can you share your list for the pfblockerNG
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Mostly from the built in feeds....

DNSBL_EasyLists:

https://easylist.to/easylist/easylist.txt
https://easylist.to/easylist/easyprivacy.txt

DNSBL_ADs:

https://adaway.org/hosts.txt
http://sysctl.org/cameleon/hosts
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_ad.txt
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_tracking.txt
https://pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/serverlist.php?hostformat=nohtml

DNSBL_Malicious:

http://theantisocialengineer.com/AntiSocial_Blacklist_Community_V1.txt
https://blocklist.cyberthreatcoalition.org/vetted/domain.txt
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_malvertising.txt
https://s3.amazonaws.com/lists.disconnect.me/simple_malware.txt
http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.txt
https://www.stopforumspam.com/downloads/toxic_domains_whole.txt
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Dawsey21/Lists/master/main-blacklist.txt
https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/hosts

DNSBL_BBcan177:

https://gist.githubusercontent.com/BBcan177/4a8bf37c131be4803cb2/raw

I also have a custom category called DNSBL_CJ which only contains one list, but as you can see it is responsible for the vast majority of my blocked traffic....

https://dbl.oisd.nl/
 
neodude said:
PfSense and Unifi AP.

The amount of control that PfSense gives you over your network is awesome...

pfsensedash.jpg
Click to expand...

He says he doesn't need anything fancy and you suggest pfsense?

An extremely complex solution. He wants something that is plug and play.

Just get a all in one router like the ones wja suggested and if that doesn't work add an Access point on its own down the line and use the phone app to configure it.

Controllers etc aren't required
 
Psycho Sonny said:
He says he doesn't need anything fancy and you suggest pfsense?

An extremely complex solution. He wants something that is plug and play.
Click to expand...

He actually said "Mega Fancy" :P

I wouldn't describe PfSense as either "Extremely Complex" or "Mega Fancy" tbh. It can be as simple as you want it to be, with the added bonus that the more complicated features are there if you need them in the future.
 
neodude said:
He actually said "Mega Fancy" :p

I wouldn't describe PfSense as either "Extremely Complex" or "Mega Fancy" tbh. It can be as simple as you want it to be, with the added bonus that the more complicated features are there if you need them in the future.
Click to expand...

The op also followed that by classifying port forwarding as being ‘technical’, hence why a properly sited AP was suggested, as clearly the supplied router functionality wasn’t the issue and poor WiFi coverage was.
 
Avalon said:
The op also followed that by classifying port forwarding as being ‘technical’, hence why a properly sited AP was suggested, as clearly the supplied router functionality wasn’t the issue and poor WiFi coverage was.
Click to expand...

The problem with the sh3 is the chip has a memory leak.

So they offloaded some of the processing from the main chip to the WiFi chip. Therefore the WiFi chip is now overloaded.

It's best to just put it into modem only mode as it's got a design flaw that has no proper fix apart from turning those functions off altogether.

So I reckon he's better off with a proper router first and then if that doesn't solve the WiFi then get an access point and run it into the attic or high and central
 
In the exact same boat. Virgin hub is awful and don't want to drill through walls and have cables going everywhere. Thought about the routers mentioned here but Honor 3 out of stock everywhere and Huawei AX3 seems to have dodgy reviews. Any other options?
 
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Some of the options above are just way beyond what I need but they look interesting to say the least.
I ended up go with a Tenda AC2100 Dual Band Gigabit Router. Was pretty much plug and play and I haven't had a single disconnect since, was going to buy an Asus but after reading up it was 3 times the cost for not much added value as I'm not going to messing with firmwares etc...speed via Wifi has also increased massively as well. Cost was £59.49.

T9tvaMS.jpg.png
 
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