When my broadband was upgraded, the BT Openreach engineer installed a BT Openreach Modem which he coupled to a (new) Netgear N150 WNR1000v3 Wireless Router.
One of these
And for a while – a couple of days – everything was fine.
Then I started to get locked out by, what I suspected to be, the wireless router.
I’d be pootling through internet activity (and that could mean downloading audio or video via direct links, or via iTunes, or via media secure portal; or browsing websites, or uploading files of any description) when suddenly I’d get a browser-generated ‘I can’t find the website you’re looking for’ error message.
All download/upload activity would cease, as my internet connection was, effectively, lost. Yet my laptop still maintained a solid WiFi connection with the router.
I would also lose connection to my NAS, which is directly attached to the router, via cable.
My NAS unit
Hmm…
I restarted the router and, when it had completed the reboot, everything was back on line; Internet was back, upload/download continued and my NAS began talking to me again.
Until the next time; a couple of hours later the same thing happened again. I restarted the router again, and was back up and running in a few minutes.
A couple of hours later (there’s no ‘passage of time’ connection to this event – and, also, there is no ‘I was doing this thing’ connection either), my internet connection froze again.
Over the next three days my internet connection froze ten times. That’s ten ‘switch the router off and switch it back on again’ events in 72 hours.
I rang Plusnet – my ISP – and explained the problem. The nice chap on the other end of the phone suggested two things. Firstly, I should do a factory reset on the router. Secondly, I should change the channel that the router broadcast on.
I did these things.
Less than three hours later my internet connection froze again. A couple of hours later it happened again. And even later, it happened again.
I rang Plusnet, we talked about the recurring fault and they said they’d send me a new router.
Good old Plusnet!
Three days later I installed the new router, connected my WiFi and non-WiFi devices to it and off we went.
For five hours.
Then my internet connection froze.
Wanting to be analytical about this, I rebooted the router and then accessed my NAS control panel.
In here I checked for operating system updates (there were none), then I took a deep breath and shut down the NAS unit.
That left me with the N150 WNR1000v3 Wireless Router and two WiFi-enabled devices. I switched the other device off, which left me with the router and my primary laptop. Not exactly going to tax the router too much, I thought.
A couple of hours later my internet connection froze again.
I rebooted the router.
The internet froze again some time later.
I called Plusnet and explained the problem. The nice guy on the other end of the phone suggested I do a factory reset and change the channel the router broadcast on. I explained I’d done that with the previous router, but I would do it with the replacement one as well. He also suggested that the next time it happened, instead of rebooting the Netgear WiFi router, I left that switched on but that I should reboot the BT Openreach Modem.
So I did these things.
I did a factory reset on the Netgear router, I changed the channel of the router and, when my internet connection inevitably failed a few hours later, I reset the BT Openreach Modem.
Which had no effect at all.
The only way to get my internet connection back was to reset the Netgear Wifi router.
I called Plusnet (who I have absolutely no issues with at all) and asked them to search their records to see how many instances of the N150 WNR1000v3 Wireless Router locking up, have been reported to them.
None, was their reply.
So what is it that I’m doing, what is it in my setup, that has continually forced two N150 WNR1000v3 Wireless Routers to lock up and freeze my internet connection?
Answers, please, on a used £5-note.
Is there any way to ‘count’ the amount of data passing through the router? Could it be throttling your usage? Is there a throttling clause in your contract with Plusnet?
Thanks for this. It’s not the same symptoms; a throttle is a slow-down, this is a total halt. I do pay for a no-throttle service and check my speed fairly frequently, to ensure it’s in the right ballpark. So far so good. Except when it freezes, obv.
Daniel’s come up with some blinding suggestions below, which I’m implementing.
Set a ping -t running to your default gateway via a wired connection to the router, and another to your NAS.
Leave for a few hours.
If both stop, then
Now that’s cunning thinking, young Daniel. Except my NAS is powered down, yet the problem still happens. But you’ve started a train of though. What happens if, next time I get the ‘freeze’, I try to connect to the router with a cable? That’s one thought.
Another is to run the ping -t in the background anyway.
I think I shall do both of these things.
Cheers.
…router is borked. If some other combination, report back via the twitter.
(inadvertently submitted form whilst writing my last post!)
I have got no idea what’s causing it, but it is bound to have something to do with BT. Useless sacks of shit they are. They have bodged every broadband connection my business has ever had.
An intriguing one! This sounds to me like some kind of threshold is being reached.
Given this affects the local subnet (i.e. your laptop can no longer see the NAS) I would say it is a function of the router that is going wrong.
My next avenues of investigation would be:
– is the wired connection similarly affected? (Do you have a device that you can plug in to the ethernet socket on the router and carry out continuous pings of the internet and the NAS to see what happens when it all goes rubbish)
– are there any counters/metrics on the router that would suggest network traffic to and through it? I make great use of the graphing on my Draytek router, not least to find out why the internet’s gone slow – more often than not it’s because one of us has sucked down our daily allowance of 2GB 😀
Hope this helps if only a little..
I realise now that it took my so long to get round to writing this comment that Daniel has pretty-much covered my thoughts already – sorry!
I have a simple take on this: Netgear is rubbish.
They used to be pretty good… until they started producing routers and hubs in bulk for the likes of BT and VM. I think an element of price over quality crept in.
Netgear provide the hubs (I think that’s the term for a combined modem and router) for VMs high speed broadband customers and, though I don’t yet have one myself, I’ve heard they are a bit crap. Many people apparently turn off the router part of the hub and just use it as a modem, preferring to connect their own router.
I shall probably do the same when I am upgraded (next month, hopefully) as my LinkSys modem has been switched on continually for over six years now and hasn’t missed a beat.
The plan of action I would go for in terms of troubleshooting dodgy home routers is driven by the following thoughts (some of which you have indirectly ruled in/out through your earlier tests):
The router is actually a combination of a number of things bound together:
– Multi-Port Ethernet switch on a chip (LAN)
– Wifi Controller on a chip
– The packet forwarding chip (normally including a DSL modem on the same die)
– Another Ethernet PHY for the WAN side (used for Cable or FTTC/P deployments)
If it all works fine when on the wired ports, then the Wifi Controller is naff (almost certainly bad firmware)
If you can ping on subnet (to the NAS) but not hit the default gateway, then the problem lies with the packet forwarding chip, again probably poorly designed firmware.
If you can’t ping anything at all, then the Ethernet controller is not working. In DSL routers, this is a pretty generic component and not normally firmware dependent, so the problem probably lies elsewhere (see the power/heat comment below).
If you can ping the gateway and other devices, but no interweb, then it’s either the WAN PHY (Ethernet or DSL depending on the router type) or the firmware on the packet forwarding chip that is naff.
You seeing a “firmware” related theme developing here?
One other thing – as you have swapped the box with no joy, some other causes of your issue could be heat/power quality driven – just to check, is it all running cold, and did you use the new PSU provided when you changed it?