with the new wireless network at home in use full-time, i have found that while downloading the latest fedora core torrent (or any torrent for that matter) that the wireless network basically is gridlocked. other machines get sporadic access to the internet, if you are lucky.
the culprit? it turns out that the default timeout value for a bittorrent connection is something absurdly high and the default keep-alive connection in the dd-wrt firmware is also pretty high. the combination of these factors make for an unstable wireless network.
the solution? apparently a lot of other people use this firmware and bittorrent and have found a workaround. i applied the changes in the settings and the network is purring once again.
i started to look at powerline solutions which are very expensive. ethernet over your power line seems like a cool concept, but it’s very expensive and from what i hear can be kind of flaky and prone to interference. luckily, i didn’t have to go down that route so that was quite a relief.
Update: Link above is dead.
Here is another source with the solution used.
I continue to be surprised. Surely, you must have an old “junker” PC lying around. Why mess around with the ‘amateur’ stuff?
Load up Linux or FreeBSD on it. Get one of the widely available AP toolkits. Get some crazy-powerful firewall (your choice). Get yourself a copy of Quagga for a much more powerful router (of course, then you’ll also end up wanting MPLS-linux patch, and the next thing you know, you’ll have to have a number of other switches running.) Throw a django/RoR web-based interface on it with your own authentication, tie in some X11, a necessary webcam, etc…and the next thing you know, instead of a lame little fast router, you have an automated home. You’ll totally be adjusting your lights from work, etc.
i know you’re kidding, but…
my biggest issue with building your own linux-based router is that i hate how unreliable PCs are. especially for essential hardware like a router. i used to work at an ISP and we had linux-based routers. the thing was a total junker, but you don’t need a lot of CPU power to route packets.
the problem is if hardware fails, it’s more expensive buying replacement parts for whatever failed than to just get a new router. additionally, dd-wrt just has such an amazing feature set that it’s hard to pass up. some of the more compelling features are: PPTP VPN, QoS Bandwidth Management, and a nice web GUI for management to wrap everything up.
plus, it took me about 30 minutes to set up this router. it’d probably take me about 2 days to set up a linux router. =P
i do like the idea of connecting a web cam to my router though. i think i’m going to point a web cam outside my window and make it web accessible.
Actually, I wasn’t joking.
– I find PC’s to be super reliable hardware.
– I don’t use PPTP VPNs/don’t even have an access concentrator/terminal to connect to.
– If you’re connecting to the public Internet, I’m not sure I’d care about QoS—sure you can deprioritize some of your traffic, but it’s *all* best effort once it’s out there.
– A nice GUI is, indeed a nice thing. But a nice GUI is available without “hacking” your router.
See, it seems to me you’re interested in this as a plaything…and I’d much rather play for 2 days than 30 minutes. If it was purely for utility, you could have gotten any number of GUI-contolled, pretty powerful gateways (including some that would have built in facilitation for your webcam.)
PCs aren’t so reliable for me. they are good for about two years in a server environment (though i suspect as a router, less components are likely to fail because the wear is so much less).
hacking away at a router isn’t as interesting for me as saying putting together a media center machine. the thing with a router is that you set it up once and then you pretty much forget about it if you did your job right. i guess, for me, it isn’t worth spending a couple of days working on that when i could spend a few days slapping together a media center device, having it act as my DVR and then have it do other tasks like download tv shows, act as a file server, etc.
The link to the uTorrent site just takes you to the FAQ page… I think they removed the info you are referencing.
Can you explain what you did to stabilize the wireless?
check http://techfatale.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/help-utorrent-is-choking-my-dd-wrt-router/ out.