Pellet heads!! What's up today?

I have so many devices connected to wifi, my signal kept being dropped. So I bought a new wifi intended to deal with that. My spectrum seed went from 84 to 117. Not to shabby for around here. Now to update the connection on a couple dozen wifi defices. 5 Alexa's. numerous outlets, 4 different security monitors. and about a dozen computers, monitors, tablets etc and 4 cell phones. two families live here. Oh yes, the tv's also have wifi in them.

 

OCD kicked in big time today, cleaning mode starting with the P68 as it was dang near full the ashpan that is . North Country is a nice pellet but daw gone it creates some ash while its light and fluffy there is a ton of it as it filled my ashpan after a week of only moderate burning, not wicked cold this prior week but not warm either. Got down to bare metal through out every inch of this mother and spent 3+ hours doing so then it was into the wife's bathroom as she is up at a show in New Hampster and thought it would please her as she has been busy preparing for the show all week. Then the kitchen followed and only thing left really buggin me is my home office and the P43 but getting tired of cleaning may do some relaxing now.
Too many calls from work was the only downer for the day but all in all a good day and happy for it . Awful chilly this morning as i did not expect it to go down to 5 but guess it could have been -5 so no complaining but with the stove as dirty as it was it was struggling to keep the old house warm. Getting the yearning to do some traveling whether its a day trip or a weekend trip just need to get outta dodge for a bit but with Grandma's being in sunny Florida have to figure out what to do with the fuzzy ones. Ah almost forgot looking to get the wife a Macbook Pro for her to do her browsing and Pinterest Queening and confided in my Nephew who use to work at apple and come to find out he has a friend who still works there who is trying to sell one, so it may work out nicely.
Also did one more thing which was a must before the game tomorrow and that was figure out what was wrong with my setup, which is a HTPC that feeds a very nice Yamaha receiver and then to Klipsch speakers. The signal is sent through a HD Homerun triple TV tuner (hard wired could have it wireless but still stuck on gig wired im old) was driving me crazy as the signal was not making it to the receiver and then to the TV (video) it turned out to be that the HDMI cable had gone bad somehow. Was kind of queer as I had tried a number of cables but ended up paying too much for a really nice one which did the trick and everything is good to go .
Hope everyone is well !

 

If all Spectrum does is re-provision my modem to use 4 channels instead of 2 ( I can do 16) I'll be happy but I no trust any ISP to just update software in user owned equipment even if it is something they should be able to change, I weren't born yesterday. The day before maybe, let's just say I've seen a lot go wonky over the years.

 

What did you get for your wifi? Been looking at maybe upgrading mine but no need most of my devices are hard wired. I had to back off the hard wire on the main TV as the software (since updated was wonky when hard wired) and on DLNA. I have too many files for both of my Smart TVs to handle. In fact only my computers can handle all of the files. The VIZIO just locks up on the large music collections and doesn't play half of the video formats I have. The LG was going wonky after having played several files it needed to be reset. Yup them newfangled digital things know all about DLNA sure they do..

 

Hey Steve do you know what Spectrum is up to?

 

This is what I treated myself to a little while ago STB and have not regretted it in any way as it has been flawless and not dropped once since I have set it up and updated the firmware.
Great options to setup anything you want including forwarding ports ect, smoking fast on all devices and I have quite a few of them and plenty of wifi bandwidth on three channels and supports older devices with a 2.4 gig channel in addition to two 5 gig channels.My provider supplies 150/10 but actual speeds are 200/12.
On wifi am getting 155.46 Mbps down and 11.95 Mbps up.
NETGEAR Nighthawk X6 AC3200 Tri-Band Gigabit WiFi Router (R8000) Compatible with Amazon Echo/Alexa

 

I tried a couple of NETGEAR combo units and all of them had issues, have had a running feud with their support folks, got my money back and have no idea how their combos are doing, I went to a dual channel NETGEAR router that can run Open Source software. I was shocked and more than a little pi$$ed since back in my collection of odd ball parts there sits a purple box.

 

My current setup is a 3.0 Surfboard Modem and a NETGEAR 6250.

 

Have a surfboard modem as well 3.0 of course and have usually been happy with Netgear routers and usually run open source software as well, didn't need to with this puppy as its been rock solid and has plenty of configureable options for what I use if for now. Have always opted for modem and router in that I have never tried combo units, just out of habit I guess and can't remember but think the combo's limited the gigabit wired ports, could be wrong but I have never went for the combo units .

 

The Combo units should have been fine except ISPs were not going to push updates for them. I was trying to reduce my wall wart count.

 

I had a bit of a go around with the installation, but maybe that was just me. I have had my share of multiple attempts at installations. With this one, I just had to get frustrated with it, walk away only to come back to it and find it up and running. Impatient I think I am.

 

re: dropping connections Larry - suggest partitioning each router on a different sub-net, and connecting your "low-bandwidth" devices to the older router: e.g.: split the device usage between the (2) WiFi routers, giving each WiFi band a different radio channel in the WiFi setup. Just a thought.

 

Those cables are most often the last thing I think of as failing, but I have had it happen. So when I buy a really good cable and it works, I think it was money well spent. I can't tell you how many times I bought replacement parts just figuring out what really was wrong. (process of elimination)

 

That is interesting. I was told (can't recall by whom) that having two wifi's (modem->Wifi->Wifi) could cause conflicts. I actually did that for some time and did OK, but tossed them out after buying the previous Netgear wifi. I will keep that in mind if I start getting drops. This new one was intended to stop that. there are some features on it that allow you to set up how the bandwidth is shared. Should stops issues associated with streaming.

 

And I as well, seems to be in our DNA process of elimination that is In addition thanks for bringing to my attention that it was money well spent after all.

 

It's a nice solid router Larry - I support a few of those at client sites, handling up to 15 simultaneous devices without issue.

* iPhones on the 5 gHz channel are pretty demanding though - so if that applies to your environment, and you experience any 'streaming lag' on other WiFi devices, that may be something to check into / investigate. Latest firmware from Netgear is working excellent at the client sites, FYI.

re: dual networks - recommend using a separate radio channel for 2.4 / 5 gHz bands in each router (prevents each router having to 'interpret' WiFi traffic, vs. the other), but sure - you can have both WiFi networks on.

Setup here is Fairpoint DSL modem -> (bridged mode / WiFi turned off) -> to a Linksys EA8500 router in the office,
a LAN cable < - > run to the living room (other side of the house) -> NetGear switch ->
and a 2nd Linksys EA8500 router, on it's own sub-net, w/ separate WiFi SSID (or network).

Office router handles, well, the office.. Living Room router handles DirecTV, HDTV, BlueRay player, and 8-10 WiFi devices connected at any given time -primarily for the Ladies laptops, tablets, cell phones, etc.

Giving some distance separation between the (2) WiFi routers is always good, if you have a physical LAN cable run, to place the routers apart.

By all means, I'd keep it as simple as possible, again that's a nice router - but if you find that device / bandwidth use is exceeding the router's ability ( 2 families / devices is a lot to ask of any one router ), enabling the existing router or adding a 2nd router is always an option. * And partitioning bandwidth w/ the Netgear apps. is easy, as you know.

 

Certain NETGEAR routers took a bit of time measured in minutes to do a simple update. I forget which routers and which changes.

 

Fairpoint, how are they these days?

 

The biggest issue with multiple routers is that out of the box they try to use the same default channels. Leads to all kinds of confusion for both humans and routers. I can see three routers from where I sit. Some people are running hot transmitters out there.

 

Not bad David, not too bad at all. ... We'll see how it goes, once they change the name to (Consolidated Communications) .

Service has been very reliable, we have no issues utilizing the bandwidth we pay for, and they continue to install & improve access for town folk here w/ new DSLAMs and Fiber to outlying areas each year.

Of course I wish we could get direct fiber @ the house - but considering the amount of infrastructure damage here following the Ice Storm of '08, (big Cable still hasn't returned to the area), we are very fortunate to have 15/1 service currently, w/ the option to go (channel bonded) 25/2, if needed.

Network latency (aka "Bufferfloat") on the Provider is always a challenge (regardless of vendor), which is why we run the Linksys EA8500 units, with custom LEDE / OpenWRT firmware, and SQM QOS (Smart Queue Mgmt - Quality Of Service) to improve (or "smooth out") outbound requests, and take advantage of DNSMASQ to provide local-based DNS resolution: both of these services really make a difference during high network use here.

All network topology was upgraded here last year, with Cat5e/Cat6 wiring, and Netgear (GS105e/108e/116e) Gigabit Switch equipment. This alone made a huge difference in stability & throughput to all wired devices in the home.. Got tired of 'chasing ghosts', due to older / slower equipment.. And cabling.

In non-Geek speak: above allowed us to reliably Skype / stay in touch with Emily, while she was in Japan for her study-abroad session, and currently allows Natalie to reliably Skype from home -> w/ Emily @ UNH, while they are both watching (aka "fan girling") some video streaming from some random site, while Betsy has actively queued some HD movie on-demand from DirecTV which is playing -> downloading in background...

And I can still access the internet reliably on the office network. Sometimes a little slower (due to VoIP / Skype / Streaming being prioritized higher), but reliably.

Without the LEDE firmware or SQM QOS - the same traffic would have & did choke the older Fairpoint modem & network equipment here.

Speaking of Geek stuff - time to get busy: gotta pay the Bills, lots of IT work to do..

Have a fun day all, see 'ya later.