Why do I have to reboot my home network router? [closed]

Question

This is not related to this question, as the performance of the router does not degrade.

For the most part, every home networking router I've owned stops functioning periodically, connectivity simply drops, and the router is unable to get an IP. This usually happens once a week, and a simple power cycle solves the problem. My colleagues have the same problem, and the heated question arises "why do I have to reboot my router!?". In all of these cases, it's been a new purchased router, and this happens from the get go. I've bought brand new routers, and this does not solve the problem. I've tried flashing the firmware with DD-WRT, still no luck.

I'm sure there are many variables that could cause the problem, but I'm not looking for an precise solution to my problem. I'm just curious as to why so many people have to reboot they're router to regain connectivity. Is this a technological hurdle we've yet to perfect?

Answer 1

It's because they're all junk unless you spend some extra money or get lucky. Modern routers are really pretty sophisticated little machines made on the cheap and packaged in plastic boxes. I've never been surprised that they're unreliable. Anytime someone calls me up complaining that their "internet is down" the very first thing I have them do is recycle the power on their router, and it often works. (granted this doesn't mean that the hardware was to blame, but I stopped going through the "troubleshooting" phase a long time ago, because it often was)

Sub-$100 routers by Linksys, Netgear, D-Link, Belkin... all pretty much the same in my experience with them. I have only had one home router that I didn't have to restart every so often... My current Linksys WRT54G is pretty rock solid, and I'm chalking it up to luck.

Now if you spend a little more money you can get into an economy router that should be more reliable. I have an old Cisco 806 that's been running for over five years non stop, and a Linksys RV042 that's been running in front of a web server non stop for well over a year. They're both entry level "business" grade devices that when new were a couple to several times more expensive than the typical home router from Staples.

At any rate, my guess is that it's all about build quality and QA. You get what you pay for...and having to restart a router occasionally may not be such a big problem at home that it'd be worth spending more.

Answer 2

Ever since obtaining my WRT54G v.4 and flashing it with DD-WRT my router woes have been few and far between. It's been my experience that the bane of routers is software that creates many concurrent connections. Bit torrent is an excellent example of this, and if this sounds familiar you may want to limit the number of concurrent connections that your client is able to utilize.

Answer 3

Writing good, long term stable embedded software is difficult. It gets more difficult as feature complexity rises. Lots of testing is required to get it just right. None of these requirements are well suited to the current home networking market. Every manufacturer is trying to get products out the door quicker, with better features than their competitors and for the lowest cost possible. Problems can always be fixed with a firmware update later (which never come because the manufacturer is trying to get the firmware for the next version out the door).

Testing time is responsible for a lot of the difference in price between consumer grade and commercial grade routers.

For your problem specifically, I would guess your internet connection is unreliable. I've noticed that most of the problems with consumer routers are DHCP related. The router and the modem or headend equipment get out of sync. A reboot of the modem and router usually fixes the issue. (Or you can pay more for a static IP from your provider, those tend to work well for months.) Some routers also run out of memory with too many open connections. Running connection/data intensive services like BitTorrent can cause issues.

Otherwise, just keep trying different routers until you find one that is stable. I am running a T-Mobile version of the Linksys WRT54GS and it has never required a reboot in 2 years of operation.

Answer 4

I have a 5 yr old linksys wrt54g that I only ever need to reboot when starting things up again after my isp was down. At the moment, I'm at 8mo+ without an outage.

Answer 5

Can't say that I've had these same problems so I don't know that it's "general" as much as it may be specific to your network setup/usage.

My network consists of several routers (both wired and wireless) since I run multiple subnets. I have a mixed client environment (Windows, Linux and Mac's). I use my own cable modem, i.e. one I bought at the store and not the cable company "lease it for life" model. My IP is dynamic and not static. My only reboots have been with the cable modem due to insufficient signal strength from the cable company (which they finally diagnosed and fixed with a booster going into my house).

A couple rules of thumb I try to use in my equipment selection are to use the same manufacturers equipment as much as possible to eliminate any compatibility issues and to avoid anything that has the word "draft" in it's name/description. Again, I don't want compatibility issues due to various interpretations of the "draft standard" regardless of how close it is to being final (I'll wait).

My cable modem problem was due to the fact that the local cable company adjusts it's signal strength twice a year (summer and winter). After contacting the cable company their tech's were able to diagnose the problem (my home lacked the required signal strength to maintain a proper network connection which by the way did not interfere with the cable TV signal one bit). They added a signal booster to my home and I've not had the problem since.

In short, if you're having the problem weekly and with different manufacturers routers then the problem is probably not the routers.

Answer 6

Overheating and "overwhelming" are the two things I see most. If you are pushing the maximum bandwidth through a home router the firmware can get overwhelmed.

Assuming you are using a streaming data service... Try throttling your BitTorrent back to about 80% of maximum throughput (both up and down.) You are only hosting legal content. right? ;-)

Answer 7

• Is there a management/log page in the cable modem you can access?
• Have you tried a different cable modem?
• Do you power cycle the modem as well as the router? (Warning: I always found this to be a "Russian roulette" troubleshooting step. i.e. it might not reconnect for hours... or at all.)
• Have you tried firmware updating the router (as opposed to installing DD-WRT)

I used to have a similar, frustrating connectivity issue but the firmware update fixed it for me.

Answer 8

Is it overheating? Mine does that occasionally.

Edit to include:

Checking modem signal

Answer 9

Had a Linksys WRT 54GS that would do that when I had encryption enabled. I put a fan on it and it never happened again. Seems the chipset got too hot when the encryption (WEP, or anything else) was turned on and that once a week was when I and the roommate were both using the wireless.

Had a problem with that happening to a Netgear router. It was their base 54G, don't remember the model. It started after I had it for a few years. Replaced it with a newer model I got cheap, problem has come back once in 4 months. No idea why.

As others said, probably not the routers, since it's multiple models and brands. Could be the modem, or the providers, or even power maintenance, like a weird surge resetting something in your house weekly, or on the provider's end.

Answer 10

Mainly I believe the software which these devices run are the culprit of requiring a reboot every now and then. Essentially, when the router's memory buffer is filled, any new connections or packets are dropped (thus probably the cause of the "no Internet" disease).

Answer 11

I finally figured it out. Had the same problem, brand new router, Netgear that I paid about 90 bucks for. ordered it with my new Dell mini.

Got tired of rebooting it, sometimes 3 or more times a day, and most of the time the connnection showed up as "LOW", so I broke down and called Dell. It seems that there are 2 issues.

One, I had the router on the floor. The tech said that the strongest signal from the router cascades downward, so that was one problem.

Two, he changed the channel to .11. There are a lot of wireless networks in my area that were showing up when I clicked on "show all connections". Most were stronger than mine.

I think he said that .7 and .9 were the most popular. Changing to another frequency or channel (sorry, I'm not very tech savvy and don't remember which it was) would eliminate some of the interference I was having with other networks.

At any rate, the problem is solved and my signal strength is showing as "excellent".

Answer 12

Hmm. I bought an expensive router (expensive for me), and reputed to be good - WRT 400N, because I have no expertise and didn't want any issues. I have to reboot carefully (pushing in a hidden reset button in the back) about once a month. I am still getting up the nerve to flash the thing, and hate this bloody process. It's mounted in a high place, and I'm just using whatever the standard settings are. Cisco is so big, but this is consumer-ware now. Anyway. So I'm just echoing the inital thought. And next time I get a network, or upgrade, I'll figure out how to do hard wiring everywhere. Enough problems already!