The most reliable router that exists is?

iwrox said:
Another vote for pfSense visualised, you do not even need multiple network interfaces if you have the right kit. I currently have 2 VDSL PPPOE connections and the WAN interface running over 1 port to my GEN8 HP Microserver.

Using a Cisco 1921 with 2 VDSL HWICS I put the Cisco in bridge mode to pass over the PPPOE and management interface to pfSense using 3 VLANS. Works perfectly so far.
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Yeah, with VLANs it can be done on a single NIC.

I assumed the OP would have dumb switches though.
 
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Caged said:
I’d widen your search to just “a router that works”. To get away from the problems you’re having you don’t need something with crazy reliability claims, you just need a piece of hardware that isn’t broken.
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neil_g said:
Agreed.

Not even my boggo vm router has the issues the op has. Sounds like crap/faulty hardware.
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Yes this router is an issue, but call me fussy but most routers I find die at least every week or two, normally in the middle of a game, which playing something like dota 2 is annoying as ****. I also have a theory that where the router is / wlan intro into apartment is the cleaning room which is hot as, and suspect it is causing overheating issues. However as it is where the board that goes out to the network ports in the flat I at least need the switch there.


crinkleshoes said:
Yeah, with VLANs it can be done on a single NIC.

I assumed the OP would have dumb switches though.
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Your assumption is correct, intending on an unmanaged switch per reasons above and cheap as.

Figure can do this whole process for the price of a network card and a 8 port giga switch. Will use the existing router for now as the wireless access point, and upgrade it when we move. Will see if it is more reliable out of the heat of the room, and not under load of being a router.


Thanks everyone for your input, one last question, any intel network card I guess will do the job for the second NIC?
 
Just buying the switch, is there any real benefit from a £90 Nighthawk S8000 "Gaming and Streaming" switch to a totally unmanaged £18 giga switch like the Netgear GS308-100UKS?

Effectively does a smart switch take some of the load / latency of the router or network congestion? Or is it totally unnecessary? And is the Nighthawk just a overpriced version of something like a simple smart £35 giga switch?

If it makes any difference the network in question has wired the server which includes a Plex server which will be running PFSENSE virtualised, and is used in and outside the house by friends, my main gaming PC which plays things like Dota 2 and BF1, an nvidia shield which is streaming 4k content, phones, laptops, tablets are conected wirelessly. On Hyperoptic for the WLAN (internet).
 
No real benefit to that, tbh.

If you wanted to get something a bit more beefy with the option to connect 2 devices with 10GbE... then have a look at the Netgear GS110MX

For a switch with 2x 10GbE built in, the price is pretty good.

Alternately, if thinking of getting an access point, then a PoE switch could be useful for you, to avoid using an adaptor or injector... but power adaptors and injectors work well too... so up to you.

ZyXel do a really good L2 managed PoE 1GbE switch for under £100.
 
i used a virtual router which was rock solid using x86 version of dd-wrt on a virtual machine. no complaints with the free version. if u spend the extra for the pro version u can end up with a very powerful setup
 
crinkleshoes said:
No real benefit to that, tbh.

If you wanted to get something a bit more beefy with the option to connect 2 devices with 10GbE... then have a look at the Netgear GS110MX

For a switch with 2x 10GbE built in, the price is pretty good.

Alternately, if thinking of getting an access point, then a PoE switch could be useful for you, to avoid using an adaptor or injector... but power adaptors and injectors work well too... so up to you.

ZyXel do a really good L2 managed PoE 1GbE switch for under £100.
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Thanks, legend as always.

Have purchased a vanilla dumb 8 port giga switch for now. Will test it, with the existing router as an AP. If I am happy how it all runs using the server to drive a virtualized session of PfSense will consider if want to get PoE access points, and if so upgrade the switch.
 
Finally had time to do this today, went to install the intel NIC I bought, realised it is PCI not PCIe.
Fail.
Awaiting new NIC in the mail.

Is there any recommended guides out there for setting this up.
So far have Oracle Virtual box installed, on that a virtual machine with 1gb ram (figured enough for small network) with PfSense installed.
 
Yessssssss....success. Thanks all.


I have a virtualised (within Hyper V) Pfsense "router" that is feeding my network switch via the second NIC.


Tbh the most confusing thing (except everything considering I had never created a virtualised environment ever, and initially started in a stage 2 virtualisation (virtualbox) which clearly is stupid) was the fact that when you create the "virtual" switches, the internal switch still has to be flagged as an external so that you can allocate a NIC to it. This literally stumped me for over an hour. Likely impacted because I was so obssessed for ensuring the WAN NIC wasn't shared with windows.


Also it reminded me why headless servers are super annoying, when you need to go into bios, espcially when your only avaliable card is a tripple slot 1080ti. Triggering the profile on the ram which doubled power usage (silly 5820k bus speed issues), putting a card back in it, turning of the profile. Trying to start, dying. Realising on putting card back in (why did I jump ahead and take it out again) I have accidentally turned on the old over clock.
 
JasonM said:
What about Draytek Vigor? Owned my Vigor 2860N 4 years now and other than power cuts don't recall it resetting once.
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Been using Draytek in a work/home environment over multiple sites for years and I've also never had issues with there equipment.
 
@jeff83nz glad to hear you finally got sorted with your nic card.

Inspired by this thread I decided to get my feet wet with Pfsense. Bought an old Dell sff and a gigabyte nic card and set it up on an old ssd with Pfsense tonight. Went great, love the interface and all the options can't wait to see what it's capable of.

Waiting for my first house purchase to go through but planning on going to Virgin for broadband, putting the SH3 in modem mode and having Pfsense handle the routing then access points for WiFi, job done :)
 
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