expired Posted by xlnc • Sep 3, 2024
Sep 3, 2024 11:10 PM
Item 1 of 1
expired Posted by xlnc • Sep 3, 2024
Sep 3, 2024 11:10 PM
Linksys LN1301 Tri-Band AX4200 WiFi 6 Wireless Router
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Mind you that I only have 100Mbps Spectrum internet but I do stream/direct play 4k videos from a Plex media server to several Amazon Firestick 4k devices without issue. Overall IMO you would be hard pressed to find such relatively decent hardware for so cheap; especially a Mesh network.
It wasn't all smooth at first mind you. I kept getting disconnects; especially with the streaming IP cameras. But I discovered by disabling Express Forwarding all my streaming issues went away. (CA>Connectivity>Administration>Express Forwarding)
I'm guessing that Cisco's/Linksys' proprietary Express Forwarding routing protocol was causing havoc with the IP cams streaming capabilities. Also, disabling Node Steering seemed to make things more stable as well; mesh nodes no longer disconnect from the router when Node Steering is disabled. (CA>Wi-Fi Settings>Advanced>Node Steering)
Of course, user experience can vary so feel free to experiment. if the routers are giving you problems, try turning these features off and see if it works
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Yes I got two and setup a mesh w/ stocked firmware. No priority setup
Yes OpenWRT does lower speeds a little bit. I went from about 700mbps to 500mbps maximum. Range also decreased slightly. But connection is stable, and I have so much control now that it's worth it to me. Primarily VLAN control so the my iot devices and chromecast can't spy on or hack me, but I can access them just fine through the firewall.
But if you don't like to tinker, and need few options, better to just stick with stock.
Btw, I always set static IPs to ALL my devices as that's the first thing I do. In fact, I have scripts to assign static IPs to my devices in DDWRT and OpenWRT but it's NOT possible in stock.. Even if there are issues, I know how to resolve them as there are ONLY few settings that you can tinker with in stock anyways! And, we always have OpenWRT and/or DDWRT to fall back if something doesn't work in stock but stock is rock solid for me and has a much better performance than OpenWRT and that is from my extensive anecdotal experience with Linksys MR9000/8300 on OpenWRT/DDWRT vs stock!
Seriously though, I was just trying to give you and the community here an example how disabling Express Forwarding can help sometimes; it all depends on your network topology, how many devices connected etc. Express Forwarding for some; being yelled at by RainGaters for others...
I preemptively apologized about the static IP recommendation too and inferred you already were cognizant of it; I was just hoping to contribute to the conversation here and perhaps help others with the advice.
Overall, before fiddling with Express Forwarding and disabling Network Steering make sure that you check for IP conflicts as they can cause symptoms of dropped connections and freezing streaming video as well.
I would have preferred to have those options enabled but I was forced to change them to resolve the issues that I had. Again this advice is not given directly to you but to contribute to the overall conversation/thread here and perhaps help others. No need to get your truculent titmouses all hot and bothered
What's limiting me is my relatively slow internet 100Mbps speed; I really can't push the hardware too hard because of it. The router plus 3 Mesh nodes serves my purposes/needs well covering an 8000 sqft area though and I don't have any complaints.
They are an amazing buy for $15 that's for sure; still wondering what's the catch. Someone here mentioned that perhaps the Chinese government is virtually giving them away to infiltrate American homes. I'm not that paranoid but something is funky; why is there so much stock still? Very strange indeed; perhaps I shouldn't look a gifted horse in the mouth and take the Cheap Basterd win
You can mix and match the back-haul of the mesh node network too; some wireless and others with Ethernet. You can confirm this on the Linksys app [google.com]; all mesh nodes that are connected via Ethernet will show "..." rather than a WiFi icon.
I believe the back-haul Ethernet should be attached to the yellow LAN port and not the WAN jack of the Mesh node; don't hold me to that though as I haven't extensively tested this and only tried the wired back-haul very briefly a few weeks ago.
Ethernet Bridging works as well. I have several IP cams attached to 2 out of the 3 mesh node's Ethernet LAN jacks and they work rock solid/reliably.
You can mix and match the back-haul of the mesh node network too; some wireless and others with Ethernet. You can confirm this on the Linksys app [google.com]; all mesh nodes that are connected via Ethernet will show "..." rather than a WiFi icon.
I believe the back-haul Ethernet should be attached to the yellow LAN port and not the WAN jack of the Mesh node; don't hold me to that though as I haven't extensively tested this and only tried the wired back-haul very briefly a few weeks ago.
Ethernet Bridging works as well. I have several IP cams attached to 2 out of the 3 mesh node's Ethernet LAN jacks and they work rock solid/reliably.
Mmmk. I think I'll order them and see how it goes. I have ~2.4gig Internet and a 2.5gbe wired network, so using this as a router is a non-starter ... I pretty much have to use pfSense on a mini PC because there's no consumer router that can handle that amount of speed mixed with running a VPN and seeding a large number of Linux ISOs. However, as an AP for my cameras, phones, IOT junk, TV boxes and laptops, this is more than adequate.
Of course, user experience can vary so feel free to experiment. if the routers are giving you problems, try turning these features off and see if it works
Got a source or resources on express forwarding? Everything I'm reading anecdotally suggests express forwarding on is ideal to skip any packet processing and filtering by the cpu and delivers packets faster? Is this bad for streaming in general or just an IP camera thing?
Maybe those complaints were of older Linksys routers with less powerful CPUs, as I haven't seen any complaints yet of slow throughput with Express Forwarding disabled on this router.
The Express Forwarding issues start with those using a mesh setup, as that seems to break something with Express Forwarding and cause problems.
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Seriously though, I can somewhat relate as I was considering having all my IP cams and various other wireless crap on it's own separate wireless SSID network via a simple Bridge/AP LN1301 + Mesh node setup.
In fact that was the exact setup I had for a few days as I wanted to continue using my Netgear RAX38 router for its DFS channel capabilities; something the LN1301 does not support.
But considering that LN1301 is so much more powerful than the RAX38 I decided to go full router mesh with it. So far, I haven't missed DFS at all and the LN1301 seems decent/capable. Not powerful enough to handle your jaw dropping speeds and network requirement though; pretty impressive to say the least...
Forget my previous superfluous rant; I can confirm that LN1301 Bridge/AP mesh clients support ethernet backhaul.
Look at this post by whodiini; "Bottom line: this works as an access point (router disabled) mesh system with wired or wireless backhaul." Hope that info helps and good luck.
Seriously though, I was just trying to give you and the community here an example how disabling Express Forwarding can help sometimes; it all depends on your network topology, how many devices connected etc. Express Forwarding for some; being yelled at by RainGaters for others...
I preemptively apologized about the static IP recommendation too and inferred you already were cognizant of it; I was just hoping to contribute to the conversation here and perhaps help others with the advice.
Overall, before fiddling with Express Forwarding and disabling Network Steering make sure that you check for IP conflicts as they can cause symptoms of dropped connections and freezing streaming video as well.
I would have preferred to have those options enabled but I was forced to change them to resolve the issues that I had. Again this advice is not given directly to you but to contribute to the overall conversation/thread here and perhaps help others. No need to get your truculent titmouses all hot and bothered
I haven't thoroughly tested my setup for speed yet but all I can tell you I'm maxing out my 100 Mbps Spectrum Internet connection via Sabnzbd constantly, streaming 16 1080p IP cameras 24/7 to an NVR and watch/stream 4k movies from my NAS which requires around 50-100Mbps for about 2 weeks now with no issues.
What's limiting me is my relatively slow internet 100Mbps speed; I really can't push the hardware too hard because of it. The router plus 3 Mesh nodes serves my purposes/needs well covering an 8000 sqft area though and I don't have any complaints.
They are an amazing buy for $15 that's for sure; still wondering what's the catch. Someone here mentioned that perhaps the Chinese government is virtually giving them away to infiltrate American homes. I'm not that paranoid but something is funky; why is there so much stock still? Very strange indeed; perhaps I shouldn't look a gifted horse in the mouth and take the Cheap Basterd win
Check your plan online with spectrum and maybe yours is 200mbps now... Recently spectrum upgraded all plans for free
One on each level is best.
This won't replace a modem/router combo.
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This has to be cannibalizing sales for other Linksys mesh and routes. I fear even more more now than they could reach in and disable mesh features. It's sold specifically without mesh . Hopefully the company is too inept.
They should have just taken it the loss and moved on. Now we all don't need routers for 3yrs
And have you speed-tested using each channel and not letting the router auto-assign? I found a big difference between the channels as well. And this is with only one other 5Ghz router using 1 channel detected nearby.
How do you check the channel specific speed on iOS?