Do wireless routers wear out over time? Netopia 2247w? Or is it just sh!te to begin

hatrickpatrick

...with?

I have an eircom issues netopia 2247w. My wireless connection is absolutely abysmal, frequently dropping, constantly lagging and slowing down, and never getting to more than 3 our of 4 bars on my macbook (even when sitting right beside it).
Our eircom connection is down this evening and will be until tomorrow morning so I set up my iPhone as a wireless hotspot until the eircom is back again. The iPhone is beside me now.
WHAT a difference! I'm at 100% signal strength and my connection is insanely fast. Haven't seen this kind of internet in YEARS!

Now, something isn't right here. This is a mobile internet connection through Vodafone. On a daily basis it craps out on me or slows down, particularly around here where the coverage isn't the best (in a room which is half way below ground level in Sandycove, quite close to the sea as well). It makes absolutely no logical sense that this is about 4x faster than my landline based eircom broadband, which supposedly boasts about 8,000kbps download speeds and 800kbps upload.

What's going on? Even when the router is plugged into the laptop via ethernet it's almost unbearably slow. Furthermore, the connection drops absolutely all the time. Every 5 minutes it becomes completely unresponsive, when I go to my mac's network settings it'll say "Airport ok, network settings ok, ISP failed, internet failed" basically meaning it's all ok until you get to the actual router connection part.

Furthermore, the router itself has some disturbing issues - it makes a very loud buzzing / hissing sound whenever it's on and connected, sounding a little like a rattlesnake. I've deduced that this noise is coming from the transformer powering it.

Any idea what could be going on here? Do these routers have a bad name? Is it my router or is it eircom? Would asking them for a newer router, or perhaps a different model entirely, make any difference?

Please give me any advice you can, I'm at the stage of pulling my hair out frequently as my internet drops during crucial skype conversations or while filling out forms which then have to be completely re-entered, and until today I assumed my laptop was the problem. Now that I have full speed internet through a feckin' iphone I'm almost certain this is not the case.

Any suggestions?

Also, the router has some disturbing issues

PogMoThoin

Change wireless channel, it's most like interference from other wireless devices.

Fuzzy Clam

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Also, the router has some disturbing issues

Get it some counselling

Noise from the power supply is not good.

See if Eircom will send you a new router.
I've never found the wireless on those to be great.

hatrickpatrick

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Change wireless channel, it's most like interference from other wireless devices.

I've tried pretty much every channel there is, no luck
One potential issue is the router being in the same room as the receiver for a cordless phone, would that be a big issue? Eircom issued phone, you know the blac ones with the silver front plate

quaalude

This is certainly a power adaptor issue - ask Eircom to send you a new power adaptor.

MarkHitide

I'm in Clare and we use a Netopia 3347W (at least 6 yrs old) for all wireless devices and activity and have never had any problems that haven't been fixed by the on/off button, so I doubt the brand of router is the issue. Also the router is a few feet from the cordless phone receiver. Perhaps it's a one off router or adapter issue-

Doom

Fuzzy Clam wrote: »

Get it some counselling

Noise from the power supply is not good.

See if Eircom will send you a new router.
I've never found the wireless on those to be great.

Be careful you may be entering a new contract if you order a router from Eircom :cool:

hatrickpatrick

quaalude wrote: »

This is certainly a power adaptor issue - ask Eircom to send you a new power adaptor.

The only problem here is that the router doesn't seem to be completely shutting down when the connection drops, based on the network status which I get on my macbook it's more like, the router itself seems to still work but it repeatedly drops its own connection to the internet and therefore so do all its client devices.
However, there is also the issue of the incredibly reduced range - as I said, even when I sit right next to it the most I can get is 3 out of 4 bars, whereas here with my iphone it's 4 bars all the time no problem.

Could a power adapter issue cause a serious degradation in performance while the router is powered on, without causing it to fully lose power?

superluck

it was always a pretty rubbish router to begin with i think.

psicic

Nasty little router. Just search boards to see the problems people have had. Threads go back years on the topic with a wide variety of issues.

Used to have the 2247w (and previously the Camen 3300). Also they used to use a couple of them in work.

Transformer went a few times on the ones in work - but that was heavy usage. The transformer on my own also became 'unstable' in the same manner you mention.

Connection used to drop all the time - used to have to unplug it to get it to connect back up. I can't remember all the times I sat there cursing Eircom for 'another' outage in my area before I realised it was just a crappy router.

Somebody here might be able to advise you on a nice, non-Netopia alternative. I'd certainly recommend a change - but I was lucky enough to make the change to UPC a few years ago so someone else who currently has broadband from Eircom might be able to advise you on a cheap-but-reliable alternative.

Be careful if you're sourcing a router from Eircom itself - as was previously said, they might try and lock you into a new contract.

quaalude

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Could a power adapter issue cause a serious degradation in performance while the router is powered on, without causing it to fully lose power?

Yes - I have personally seen this many times. The power adaptors that ship with these routers are cheap and nasty, and often fail long before the router does. The power adaptor failure can be gradual, as seems to be the case here.
Ask Eircom to send you a new power adaptor.

PogMoThoin

quaalude wrote: »

Yes - I have personally seen this many times. The power adaptors that ship with these routers are cheap and nasty, and often fail long before the router does. The power adaptor failure can be gradual, as seems to be the case here.
Ask Eircom to send you a new power adaptor.

Eircom will send you nothing without a new contract.

@OP Go out and buy a decent ADSL router, it will give better wireless coverage and last longer than the crap ones Eircom use. They will most likely send you the Zyxel and make you sign up to a contract. The Zyxel gives lots of trouble, it makes wireless devices re-authenticate every 3 minutes kicking off all connected devices for an instant (useless for gaming, annoy the hell out of you)

quaalude

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Eircom will send you nothing without a new contract.

Really? That's rather mean of them.
I recommend getting a power adaptor of the same spec then - it'll just cost you a few quid, and you won't have to reconfigure your network.

hatrickpatrick

Don't really mind reconfiguring the network, I have to do that on a daily basis already with this yoke! I think I'll go for a new router tbh as I've had so many problems with this one (correction, it's actually the 3347w not 2247) it feels like it's cursed.

Question though: I presume the Linksys is compatible with Apple's Airport wireless on macbooks and iphones? Should be obvious I know but the page you linked me to makes so many references to windows security etc that I'm not so sure

maddragon

Wireless routers do have performance deterioration over time and my wife (the IT guru in our house) is always helping out her clients who have eircom broadband with the as supplied wireless router so it is prob a sh1t router as well.

PogMoThoin

Wi-Fi and IEEE 802.11 is a global set of standards all manufacturers including Apple must adhere to