Re: [LUG] Router question

On 21 October 2013 15:33, Neil Winchurst <barnaby@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I have had my router, Netgear D634G, since May 2010. Recently I have experienced some odd problems. Sometimes, as tested on speedtest.net, it will show up as very slow download rates. Most of the time the speed is around 12 Mb/s, but sometimes it suddenly drops as low as 3 Mb/s. There does not seem to be much of a pattern but it is usually low in the early afternoon, but not every day.

This shows up as a failure to run a Youtube video for example which will give a message that 'an error has occurred'. Sometimes, perhaps an hour later, it will all run fine. Yes, I have reset the router, that is I have switched it off for 30 minutes or so and then turned it on again. This has not made any difference.

Y'know, it might not be related, but I've had a sharp increase of that exact same error message from youtube.

Of course, none of my links are > 2.5mbit anyway, but I do rather suspect it's them and not me at times.

So my question is, do routers sometimes just start to wear out? There are no moving parts in it so I can't think why, but what do I know? I also have a laptop, obviously using the same router, and the symptoms are the same, so I think that I can rule out desktop computer problems.

I don't know that model, but I did move away from Netgear a few years ago (DG2000N and DG834G models) due to poor adsl performance. But unless your adsl method has changed, it's unlikely-ish. Course, it could be the router - and if you seriously think it is, try checking for new firmware and also reset to factory settings. Worth a try.

But first, replace that adsl filter. And any others in your house.