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We Have A Failure To Communicate
I also recently changed my router test procedures to see how many simultaneous sessions routers will support. You usually won't find this parameter specified by any consumer router manufacturer, but it is important for both online gaming and for P2P file sharing applications. In spite of the negative connotation that P2P currently has, the recent BitTorrent / Warner Brothers Home Entertainment announcement is just a precursor of things to come. Router manufacturers would be smart to make sure their products can handle P2P since it is likely to soon be an important part of a legitimate digital entertainment distribution system.
Since the complaints I saw about the V5 included packet loss and problems with P2P, I figured that I would see how the GL and V5 performed with my simultaneous connection test. The test used the same two computers that I used for the previous tests and also the same modified IxChariot throughput.scr script.
I first ran a one-hour test with 180 connections (the maximum for my IxChariot license) between the two computers connected via a 10/100 switch to make sure that the computers themselves could handle the traffic. The 180 tests were evenly split with 90 test pairs for receive and transmit each. The test passed with no problems and Figure 10 shows a portion of the test results including a plot that shows well-behaved and evenly-shared throughput.
Figure 10: Results of one hour 180 pair throughput test (click to enlarge)
I then took the basic up / down throughput test and duplicated up/down pairs to expand the number of simultaneous connections in the test. All tests ran for one minute, which did not include the time it took IxChariot to establish communication between all test endpoints at the start of each test. Table 1 summarizes the results of the test and confirms that the WRT54G V5's problems with P2P applications are not due to users' imaginations!
| Test (# of connections) | WRT54G V5 | WRT54GL V1.1 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 pair (2) | Passed | Passed |
| 4 pair (8) | Passed | - |
| 8 pair (16) | Failed | - |
| 16 pair (32) | Failed | Passed |
| 32 pair (64) | Failed | Passed (30 mins) |
| 64 pair (128) | - | Failed |
Table 1: Summary of Simultaneous Connection test
("-" = Test not performed)
Even though the V5 appears to be more well behaved than the GL with a single simultaneous up/down pair (compare Figures 6 and 9), it fails miserably when attempting to handle upwards of 16 simultaneous continuous connections! The good news is that the V5 didn't lock up entirely and need to be rebooted after failing.
To make matters worse, when the V5 is managing to handle multiple connection streams, its throughput sharing among streams is terrible as shown in Figure 11, which shows 16 connections.
Figure 11: V5 16 connection throughput sharing (click to enlarge)
As a point of comparison, Figure 12 shows how the GL does with 32 simultaneous connections.
Figure 12: GL 32 connection throughput sharing (click to enlarge)
While the GL's ability to evenly distribute throughput among multiple connections isn't anything to write home about, it certainly does a better job than the V5. But I've seen much less expensive routers such as Zonet's ZSR0104CP do a better job, as shown in Figure 13.
Figure 13: Zonet ZSR0104CP 32 connection throughput sharing (click to enlarge)
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User reviews
Average user rating from: 1 user(s)
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Not As Much Loved But Inexpensive and Handy
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After Linksys introduced the WRT54G router for home/small office use it must not have taken them long to figure out that they had a hit on their hands. Linksys used an open source Linux based operating system for the router and this worked well and also opened the door to 3rd party firmware developers such as DD-WRT, Tomato and many others. All was well. Measures were taken as time went on to reduce production costs yet keep the unit identical on the outside and as far as the consumer was concerned. At some time it was determined that money saved by using Linux was offset by the fact that more memory both RAM and flash were required to store Linux than would be required if the router instead used VX Works (a more compact yet proprietary operating system that was not open source). The change to VX Works happened with the V5 of the WRT54G and with this change 1/2 of the memory both flash and RAM was installed and thus saved money for Linksys on each box sold. Sure the firmware cost more but the overall unit cost was reduced. This reduced memory or the switch to VX Works caused problems for some users and made the product less stable when used under higher than normal loads. Was this caused by VVX Works or by the reduced RAM? I'm not sure..... The reduced resources on the new WRT54G caused problems for the authors of 3rd party firmwares and special "micro" versions were needed to allow them to fit in the reduced flash memory which was now only 2MB in size. It didn't take long for the word to get out that the later, v5, v6 etc versions of the WRT54G were "neutered" and thus worth less money than the earlier versions. In fact Linksys re released the V4 as the WRT54GL model to fill this niche. Now when shopping for used equipment in places like E-Bay these neutered models tend to be inexpensive(good). As it turns out the micro versions of DD-WRT work very well on them and the micro versions have most of the features needed to make these routers very versatile and handy devices. They make bargain AP's, client bridges, game adapters, etc when flashed with DD-WRT and they are very reliable when used in this capacity and I've used a bunch of them in these applications for a very long time. Since these versions(V5, V6) are inexpensive and still have the removable antennas using them outdoors in waterproof enclosures with large directional high gain long distance links becomes a "why not" situation. They are cheap and reliable enough that it makes sense to use them and keeping a spare or two is no problem. |
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