Do I need a router to connect my big house?
Do I need a router to connect my big house?
Hi everyone and thanks for checking in. Yesterday, things got super annoying when one computer was on while the other two were off. We got a message saying the internet connection broke for all devices. I tried fixing it with the command prompt, registry tools, and some useless tricks, then gave up to go eat dinner. The WiFi on that same router actually worked fine. We were watching a DVD from yesterday night. I thought that was safe -- right? It just wouldn't turn on. I guess the cats knocked the plug out (this happens all the time). When I turned on the DVD player and put it back in, all the ethernet connections suddenly looked good again. AUGHHH! This made me wonder if my router isn't strong enough anymore. There are four powered ethernet switches scattered around a big house with lots of electronic toys nearby. The cables run from four feet to one hundred feet long (depending on when I installed them). All the old cables were CAT5 or CAT6 (depending on what year it was). Right now, my router is an Asus RT-N66U which was in the top half of the game back around 2017-2018. Can't say anymore. Bottom line: should I think the router isn't working well enough? By the way, streaming speeds on those distant computers are usually pretty good since we live out here where weather and bad drivers make the whole network slow down sometimes. Guesses whether I need two routers or a mega hub or just something tougher. After chasing this weird ghost for three hours, I realized nothing could fix it with regedit either. It took hard-booting the DVD to get the system working again. Cheers, Skip
You don't need anything fancy at all. Even very cheap consumer routers can handle many internet users. Usually, it's the wifi connection that slows things down when you have too many devices connected to your router. The current router is very old and if it worked fine before your problem started, you probably don't need a brand new one. Even comparing the newest models, there isn't much difference between them if you only use them as ethernet routers. Most of the real differences are in the wifi speed. Now they do make some routers with more ethernet ports, but really, there is no good reason to buy those unless you have specific needs. You already have switches and can probably plug new ones into your existing router. If you had hundreds or even thousands of devices at once, that might be a different story since consumer routers aren't built for that big scale, but I doubt you will hit any limit with just a $20 router. It's hard to say exactly what I recommend here. The newest thing on the market is wifi6e, but it is also expensive and buying it doesn't help much if your devices don't support that speed. Normal wifi6 routers give very little benefit over wifi5 (also known as 802.11ac) even though they cost almost the same money. They have changed their names to call it wifi4 (which is actually 802.11n), but anything new in this category will be an improvement when compared to older versions. I would look for a $50 router from any of the big internet providers. If you don't have special needs, all you really need is just a box to replace something that broke or stopped working. You could even buy one exactly like yours but with newer technology; they charge more than the cheaper models do today.
You added some good details. In general, DVD players don't need an internet connection; only Blu-Ray players really do because they use that to update their software. If you have a Blu-Ray player and it's no longer supported by the manufacturer, then you should probably leave the ethernet unplugged forever since there won't be any more updates coming ever again anyway. Also, in general, you'll want an AP and especially a Gateway router to be brand new enough that they can still get regular security updates for a reasonable amount of time. The last big update from ASUS happened back in 2020. On the good side, your old router was very popular so it gets continued security updates from third-party tools like FreshTomato-MIPs and DD-WRT. But there is a catch: for devices like MIPsel, that third-party software does all the routing on its own, which means speed is limited by the processor's slow 600MHz CPU instead of using fast hardware features in the original factory firmware. So, the RT-N66U would likely only reach about 107Mbps when used as a gateway with some light quality settings like fq_coDel in DD-WRT, and whether you actually need to get a new router or not depends on your internet provider's speed. If you've been using an N router all of this time then your wifi probably isn't very demanding anyway, plus even the fastest router's ethernet could be taken down by a bad device like your disc player.
Thanks guys! I ran a speed test and got 370 mbs. That feels pretty fast for now. The DVD sounds like it needs to be unplugged because it's actually a Blu-Ray and it's fresh on the shelf. My Denon receiver, my TV, and they all work together pretty well with streaming. But sometimes they fight or clash when trying to use them at the same time. And the Blu-Ray stays off most of the time but doesn't get fully shut down; it just sits waiting there. Thanks a lot for helping out, Skip