Home Firewall/Router

[Jeff Golas]

I went the ASUS Route using the exact model above, but in hindsight, I feel it was a waste of $. Lots of cool features on box, almost none of which work correctly. You're not going to use it as a itunes server, or even a file server from a usb stick like they say you can (there's little support and I believe NO write support back to the usb storage).

Go cheaper but simliar spec and install DDWRT again for custom features if you need em.

(The asus works fine, but I dont think its worth the premium cost).

[Mark]

I was looking at the dual band Buffalo router that comes with DD-WRT installed, but it got horrible reviews.  Some of them were just people unfamiliar with DD-WRT and didn't like it, but MOST of the reviews were hardware related.  Plenty of RMAs, comp,aints about signal strength and no antennas, complaints about bitrate even with a good signal, etc.

I think we're switching to U-Verse as much as I don't know if I want to, and I'll just use their crappy WiFi (which doesn't seem to follow standards and I've had all the usual problems setting up for people).  We'll see how that works out and if I don't like it, I'll grab something to put DD-WRT on.

Or maybe by that time an ASA will be cheap! lol

[Joshua Conner]

I will agree on the asus NAS is horrible yes it does work but has very few options to config.  For example to find it I think its //unknown/sdb2/share   Because you cant change unknown but it does work to write and read from a usb hard drive attached to the router.

[Mark]

Doesn't the ASUS support DD-WRT?

[Billy Welsh]

Another Homer Simpson moment, or maybe a senior moment.  I did not take any notes when I got this working.

Before I identified the offending D-Link switch, I was trying to swap out the wireless router that is operating as my WAP.  The spare was not configured as a WAP, but I could not remember every single setting and I could not get to the existing WAP to compare the settings.

Do you set it with a fixed IP, or have it pull an IP from the firewall?  Or does it even have an IP given that it is just a pass-through to router which is serving IP's to the wireless devices?

Once I got it all working again I may not have tried to get to the original WAP via an IP address - I had missed enough of the playoff already.  If it is a fixed IP I believe I know what it is. 

Yes, you most definitely could.  To do this, disable DHCP on your wireless router and plug one of the computer ports (NOT THE WAN) into one of the network ports on the sonicwall and you're golden.

I have everyone who gets U-Verse do this.  also avoids having to reconfigure wireless devices for a new router.  I've had nothing but trouble with the U-Verse WiFi!

[Mark]

I think you could do it either way.  I always put a static on it though.  You have to edit the settings anyway because you want to turn off the DHCP server.

[Jeff Golas]

Yeah if something's getting bad reviews, RUN away from that stuff. I learn my lesson time and time again thinking its just loser users not understanding things - that seems to be 25% of the time unfortunately.

I've been messing with WRTs and such last night. My garage is 12 feet from my house, yet my wireless is unusable out there. I can see 20 other access points yet my house isn't accessible. (My router is on ground level of my split house so its literally less than 50 feet from where my garage PC is).

So to fix that I used Netgear Powerline adapters (I hate Netgear) which do work but also drop out.  So last night I downloaded the software and did firmware updates to all, only to have two of them essentially get bricked. They work and talk together no problem, but I can't update names or firmware or encryption settings to get them to talk to anything else now, and I stopped just short of taking them outside and chucking them in the trash.

[Joshua Conner]

DDWRT isnt supported on my asus I run tomato on mine.