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Message
Do Wifi routers "wear out" over time?
Posted on 4/19/19 at 4:19 pm
Posted on 4/19/19 at 4:19 pm
I have had a NetGear Nighthawk R8000 since 2015 and it has worked great until the last few weeks. It seems to drop signal randomly or provide a weaker signal that expected even though the signal coming from my provider is strong (Fiber at 100mps).
The "salesperson" at Best Buy said there simply wear out over time and needs to be replaced. Is this true?
I do have a lot of devices (20+) including two NetGear extenders upstairs and in the garage and recently added a few more echos and smart lights.g
The salesperson person talked me out of Google Wifi which is the reason I went there. He wanted to sell me a Eero Mesh or even a much more expensive hard wired solution from their Magnolia install team.
Thoughts?
The "salesperson" at Best Buy said there simply wear out over time and needs to be replaced. Is this true?
I do have a lot of devices (20+) including two NetGear extenders upstairs and in the garage and recently added a few more echos and smart lights.g
The salesperson person talked me out of Google Wifi which is the reason I went there. He wanted to sell me a Eero Mesh or even a much more expensive hard wired solution from their Magnolia install team.
Thoughts?
6
Posted on 4/19/19 at 4:54 pm to Crow Pie
quote:Yes.
Do Wifi routers "wear out" over time?
quote:This is true.
The "salesperson" at Best Buy said there simply wear out over time and needs to be replaced. Is this true?
It's mostly an issue with cooling. Routers are little computers, and like most computers they generate heat. But we consumers expect silent devices, so they don't have fans in them to keep them cool. They rely mostly on heatsinks and whatever air happens to flow through the housing. Over time, the heat starts to break down the chips and other components inside the router. Eventually they start to fail.
The reason they usually don't die completely and immediately when something fails is because of error correction. There are ways to check if data is corrupted, and in some cases it can be corrected. This may be why your signal drops randomly or is weak. Eventually, though, more parts will fail and error correction will no longer work.
Four years is actually a pretty decent life for a consumer router in my experience.
Posted on 4/19/19 at 6:45 pm to Korkstand
thanks...makes sense now.
Orbi, Google Wifi, eero or other? $300ish range
Orbi, Google Wifi, eero or other? $300ish range
This post was edited on 4/19/19 at 6:47 pm
Posted on 4/19/19 at 9:20 pm to Korkstand
quote:
Four years is actually a pretty decent life for a consumer router in my experience.
While routers typically have failing components due to heat stress. They typically do not degrade in performance due to those conditions. They usually just stop working so together when an electronic component fails. Consumer routers are never designed with redundant systems, so just simply one cap failing is the end.
Most performance issues are due to software updates over time that require more processing power. Try flashing some open source firmware like tomato.
4 years seems really short to me, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Outside of these complete Overkill systems they sell these days, there is very little margin in these products
Posted on 4/19/19 at 9:22 pm to Crow Pie
quote:
Orbi, Google Wifi, eero or other? $300ish range
Do you have a very large home that requires these expensive mesh systems?
What do you typically use over WiFi? If it just steaming videos then you have lots of options.
Posted on 4/19/19 at 10:12 pm to Crow Pie
It's good to get a new router every 3-4 just to take advantage of new tech.
They don't necessarily degrade (although they will break eventually), but it will feel that way if you buy other new tech.
They don't necessarily degrade (although they will break eventually), but it will feel that way if you buy other new tech.
Posted on 4/19/19 at 11:04 pm to UltimaParadox
quote:Yes?..4000 sq ft including an upstairs and also a shop . That's why I needed the 2 extenders with the Nighthawk
Do you have a very large home that requires these expensive mesh systems?
Posted on 4/20/19 at 12:32 am to UltimaParadox
quote:Eh, yeah they do.
While routers typically have failing components due to heat stress. They typically do not degrade in performance due to those conditions.
quote:Upon component failure, probably, but there are many points between perfect function and absolute failure for some components.
They usually just stop working so together when an electronic component fails.
quote:Electrolytic caps are exactly one of the components that can cause weird or degraded performance. They can just "pop", but if they don't pop then they undergo a long, slow decline to eventual failure. And along the way, the other components they the caps supply power to end up getting flaky or dirty power, and they can start performing poorly.
Consumer routers are never designed with redundant systems, so just simply one cap failing is the end.
quote:What? No.
Most performance issues are due to software updates over time that require more processing power.
Posted on 4/20/19 at 8:50 am to Korkstand
quote:
Upon component failure, probably, but there are many points between perfect function and absolute failure for some components.
Some truth to this, but we are talking about mostly DC components on a router. Most parts will work on wide ranges. There is basically nothing mechanical here.
quote:
Electrolytic caps are exactly one of the components that can cause weird or degraded performance. They can just "pop", but if they don't pop then they undergo a long, slow decline to eventual failure. And along the way, the other components they the caps supply power to end up getting flaky or dirty power, and they can start performing poorly.
Come on man... electrolytic caps are typically low tolerance parts that are used for bulk input and output capacitance for regulators. Since we are talking about a primarily DC product. You basically have wall power going through a transformer into some sort of regulator. On the input side of that regulator you will find the majority of the electrolytic caps found in the system.
By design the tolerances of these guys are basically +/- 20% at best, most common cheap aluminum ones are -10% to +100% on any given day!!! Temperature plays a huge factor, but it really doesn't matter because you are only using it smooth out the input into your regulator.
The good news is that we are talking about DC voltages. So take for instance the ARM processor that probably powers your router. It is designed to run on 3.3V (Probably today it is more like 1.8V), but reality is that your input is probably more like 3.26V that is supplied. But that is fine, because it is tolerant to inputs between 2.6V and 3.6V. If you have "bad power" it would cause brownouts, surges etc... Operating outside of these voltages will usually cause the CPU to trigger into reset and stay in reset until normal operating conditions occur, which may be never. Or even cause weird behavior where it constantly resets. Obvious stuff
quote:
What? No
Software is the death of basically every great hardware design. Most common day systems are not running low level code, they are running some sort of operating system like linux. So the code that actually runs on your router is just some program running on a linux kernel. It is abstracted away and not running on "bare metal". Obviously this makes the code much easier to write at the cost of performance. That is the direction it will always go because we have the horsepower today.
I will give you that the on-board RAM that is soldered down to these boards will degrade over time. Obviously you can only write so many times to them before they fail. Modern down wear leveling though allows for these chips to last a very long time. Because they either fail catastrophically or one sector at a time.
To clarify, I am not saying that the router will never fail or degrade in performance. I am saying in the short time frames people are talking about here that the number one culprit is the software these guys are running, second would probably be memory degradation over time. The hardware is typically very forgiving and usually catastrophic in failure. Now if you had the router running more like 10 years then there are some other factors.
This post was edited on 4/20/19 at 9:09 am
Posted on 4/20/19 at 9:00 am to Crow Pie
quote:
Yes?..4000 sq ft including an upstairs and also a shop . That's why I needed the 2 extenders with the Nighthawk
Just making sure since I see these systems pushed all the time for people who really have no need. Typically one centrally located router can do the job for most.
In your case not so much.
Posted on 4/20/19 at 9:14 am to UltimaParadox
Lol, you aren’t going to see noticeable performance degradation in parts. You will see failure or poor software/firmware performance if you even upgrade your routers firmware. More likely performance issues will be on the computer side of the connection with whatever garbage you been putting on the computer.
Best Buy guy is just trying to sell you shite cause that is his job. They will lie to make the sale. I did when I worked there decades ago. I lied about monster cables all the time. I felt bad about it.
Best Buy guy is just trying to sell you shite cause that is his job. They will lie to make the sale. I did when I worked there decades ago. I lied about monster cables all the time. I felt bad about it.
This post was edited on 4/20/19 at 9:16 am
Posted on 4/20/19 at 9:23 am to Dam Guide
quote:
You will see failure or poor software/firmware performance if you even upgrade your routers firmware. More likely performance issues will be on the computer side of the connection with whatever garbage you been putting on the computer.
Best Buy guy is just trying to sell you shite cause that is his job. They will lie to make the sale. I did when I worked there decades ago. I lied about monster cables all the time. I felt bad about it.
This.
Hell these routers are just like your computer. Think about how just reloading windows fixes so much shite. A lot of these routers are running full blown operating systems now.
Posted on 4/20/19 at 10:05 am to Crow Pie
You probably just need to reboot it.
Posted on 4/20/19 at 12:30 pm to Crow Pie
Everything wears out over time. The problems you describe could be hardware related. Or maybe a few weeks ago one of your neighbors switched to the same WiFi channel as you and interference is causing your problems. Have you used a WiFi analysis app to optimally configure you access points?
The BestBuy salesperson is right that hard wired solutions > Eero > Google. Using WiFi to solve the shortcomings of WiFi is idiotic to me.
You live in a 4000 sf house with a shop. You have over 20 wireless devices. And you don't want to spend more than $300 on your network infrastructure. Come on man. That's like owning 20 cars and only 500 feet of road.
The BestBuy salesperson is right that hard wired solutions > Eero > Google. Using WiFi to solve the shortcomings of WiFi is idiotic to me.
You live in a 4000 sf house with a shop. You have over 20 wireless devices. And you don't want to spend more than $300 on your network infrastructure. Come on man. That's like owning 20 cars and only 500 feet of road.
Posted on 4/20/19 at 1:57 pm to UltimaParadox
quote:Nothing mechanical, but it does operate in this physical, analog world. And although we are talking about digital hardware and signals, where things would seem to be black-and-white, all-or-nothing, works-or-doesn't, that is not necessarily the case. The transistors that store the 0's and 1's are not perfect digital devices. As you said, they operate on a range of values. If the voltage is above a threshold, it's a 1. If it's below another threshold, it's a 0. Then there is a range of voltages between the two thresholds where the value is undefined. And it takes time to change states and reach a stable value. It's an analog device that stores digital data. It can work flawlessly for a thousand years. It can fail altogether. Or it can fail intermittently.
Some truth to this, but we are talking about mostly DC components on a router. Most parts will work on wide ranges. There is basically nothing mechanical here.
Non-fatal errors occur in digital systems all the time. This is why we have error detection and correction schemes. In the case of wifi, errors can occur for a number of reasons. Maybe there's environmental interference. Maybe a power supply issue is reducing output power, and signal range as a result. Maybe a transistor has been affected physically by heat, no longer operates to spec, and occasionally holds the wrong or an undefined value. Or maybe a particular transistor has failed altogether, but it is only ever accessed at a certain level of system load so the problem is intermittent.
In any case, errors are detected, packets are dropped and resent, and hardware problems can manifest as degraded performance rather than outright failure.
quote:I am familiar with modern software, and I am aware that although many software upgrades claim "improved performance", the opposite is usually true. I am also aware that router devs are more likely to add a daily auto-reboot function rather than fix the problem that makes the router require a reboot.
Software is the death of basically every great hardware design. Most common day systems are not running low level code, they are running some sort of operating system like linux. So the code that actually runs on your router is just some program running on a linux kernel. It is abstracted away and not running on "bare metal". Obviously this makes the code much easier to write at the cost of performance. That is the direction it will always go because we have the horsepower today.
However, router wifi performance can and does degrade even when the software is not changed. Actually, degraded performance is usually the reason software is upgraded to begin with.
So what did change? Maybe OP added more devices and the router isn't handling it well. Maybe there's interference. Maybe that interference is internal. Maybe the hardware is going bad and there's a power supply issue resulting in flaky performance. OP's router might even run like new if he just gets a new wall wart.
I have a similar issue as OP. I have a decent router that's about 4 years old, and the wifi performance isn't what it used to be. I haven't changed anything. No additional devices, haven't moved anything. Router in the same place, laptop in the same exact place (on a desk). The signal strength is not nearly as strong as it used to be, and the connection drops randomly then reconnects. This happens on the laptop and my phone while sitting at the desk. The problem persists after a router reboot. It persisted after updating the firmware. The connection is decent in the same room as the router, but the signal just doesn't reach as far as it used to. The router still works, in fact I'm still using it. I hooked up an Ubiquiti AP to it for wifi, and the router is perfectly fine handling all the same routing duties it's been doing. It just sucks at wifi now.
Posted on 4/20/19 at 5:33 pm to Crow Pie
I think it's very plausible radios in routers "wear out" over time. As you know your home router has 2 parts, the "computer" and the RF section. Component variations/ internal connections in the RF section could very well reduce the efficiency of the radio. The "computer" part not so much.
Or I could be wrong.
Or I could be wrong.
Posted on 4/20/19 at 5:43 pm to Korkstand
quote:
The transistors that store the 0's and 1's are not perfect digital device
True
quote:
As you said, they operate on a range of values. If the voltage is above a threshold, it's a 1. If it's below another threshold, it's a 0
Also true, but I think you might be confusing interface communications and a transistor storing a value...
quote:
And it takes time to change states and reach a stable value
Literally nanoseconds, ever troubleshooted digital signals using an oscilloscope? These are jarring transitions from gound to VCC, it is not a ramp.
quote:
It's an analog device that stores digital data
Not sure what you mean here. There is a distinct difference between a digital and an analog signal. We are talking about purely digital signals here.
quote:
Non-fatal errors occur in digital systems all the time. This is why we have error detection and correction schemes.
99% of these errors are due to mismatched clocks between two devices. In our case our Wifi transceiver and microprocessor. These errors are corrected typically in the interface. If bad data is sent it is typically resent or in some cases even assumed.
quote:
Maybe there's environmental interference. Maybe a power supply issue is reducing output power, and signal range as a result
True, but you are mixing "transistor" erorrs and RF interference.
quote:
Maybe a transistor has been affected physically by heat, no longer operates to spec, and occasionally holds the wrong or an undefined value. Or maybe a particular transistor has failed altogether, but it is only ever accessed at a certain level of system load so the problem is intermittent.
You are severely underestimating how modern microprocessors work. Unless a huge block of flash goes corrupted, this is a non issue.
quote:
In any case, errors are detected, packets are dropped and resent, and hardware problems can manifest as degraded performance rather than outright failure.
True, the backbone of all network communications.
quote:
OP's router might even run like new if he just gets a new wall wart.
Extremely unlikely, wall warts usually work or they don't. If they can output enough power, most modern electronics are not that sensitive on the input. When a wall wart fails it typically can not provide sufficient power and causes the device in question to reset or not power at all. ESD is a much bigger cause of concern.
quote:
The router still works, in fact I'm still using it. I hooked up an Ubiquiti AP to it for wifi, and the router is perfectly fine handling all the same routing duties it's been doing. It just sucks at wifi now.
In your case it is most likely the connectors or the frame that hold the antenna are cracked. These failures are usually caused by cheap plastic.
Look you obviously have some pretty decent understanding of how most of this stuff works at a high level. And once again I am not denying that these consumer routers fail routinely. I am just disagreeing on your basis of what causes the performance degradation.
This post was edited on 4/20/19 at 5:50 pm
Posted on 4/20/19 at 6:11 pm to Crow Pie
The primary problem with consumer routers is limited buffers and compute capacity relative to active sessions. People vastly underestimate total session growth over time as every app wants to be open at the same time and 4 or 5 people try to share the hardware. This is why $10k+ enterprise routers don't fail over time, they fail due to increased workload. Disable wifi, plug an ethernet cable directly into a single laptop, and see how "blazing fast" your router will then seem.
I'll give you that every once in a while you should factory reset the router to see better speed. But this has more to do with flushing various tables and cache rather than some magic smoke in capacitors.
I'll give you that every once in a while you should factory reset the router to see better speed. But this has more to do with flushing various tables and cache rather than some magic smoke in capacitors.
This post was edited on 4/20/19 at 6:14 pm
Posted on 4/20/19 at 8:43 pm to UltimaParadox
quote:
Software is the death of basically every great hardware design. Most common day systems are not running low level code, they are running some sort of operating system like linux. So the code that actually runs on your router is just some program running on a linux kernel. It is abstracted away and not running on "bare metal". Obviously this makes the code much easier to write at the cost of performance. That is the direction it will always go because we have the horsepower today.
You're acting like this is new and it isn't. These routers have been running Linux forever. I mean the famous WRT54G released in 2003 was Linux based.
Then you compare an embedded Linux device that's never touched by a user to a Windows box. Why? Windows is known for its cruft and degrading performance over time, Linux isn't. Linux is known for rock solid uptimes. And most people don't upgrade their router firmware and even when they do it's not common for router manufacturers to add new features, only fix bugs.
And on top of that if it really were a software issue you'd just wipe the router and start fresh and get that performance, but that's not the case.
So no. Nothing to do with software.
This post was edited on 4/20/19 at 8:45 pm
Posted on 4/20/19 at 10:06 pm to UltimaParadox
quote:
Also true, but I think you might be confusing interface communications and a transistor storing a value...
quote:
True, but you are mixing "transistor" erorrs and RF interference.
quote:I'm not confusing or mixing anything, I went on (too long) about transistors as an example of how digital systems have to work in an analog world. Nothing is perfect.
Literally nanoseconds, ever troubleshooted digital signals using an oscilloscope? These are jarring transitions from gound to VCC, it is not a ramp.
quote:I know, I'm just trying to get at the fact that digital data and signals still must rely on analog systems, and analog is messy.
Not sure what you mean here. There is a distinct difference between a digital and an analog signal. We are talking about purely digital signals here.
quote:And what causes clocks to get out of sync?
99% of these errors are due to mismatched clocks between two devices. In our case our Wifi transceiver and microprocessor.
quote:And if a noticeable amount of data must be resent, how does that impact transmission rates / performance?
These errors are corrected typically in the interface. If bad data is sent it is typically resent or in some cases even assumed.
quote:Are you now agreeing that hardware malfunctions can result in degraded performance and not necessarily immediate outright failure?
True, the backbone of all network communications.
quote:Or they can put out enough power to boot a device but not enough to operate it under heavy load. And the way a device behaves when it is starved of power depends on the design of the device.
Extremely unlikely, wall warts usually work or they don't.
quote:I don't think that's the case, but if so that's yet another way a hardware failure can degrade performance.
In your case it is most likely the connectors or the frame that hold the antenna are cracked. These failures are usually caused by cheap plastic.
quote:I know I'm not the most experienced hardware guy, but I've been through my fair share of routers, and friends and family's routers, and employers' routers. I've flashed manufacturer firmware, DD-WRT, OpenWRT, tomato, merlin. I've seen plenty of routers reach total failure, but I can't recall any that went directly from working perfectly to not working at all. In pretty much every case there has been some indication that the router is on its last legs.
I am just disagreeing on your basis of what causes the performance degradation.
Yeah, a lot of times software is to blame. But a lot of times you can flash 3rd party firmware and still drop packets or drop the signal entirely from time to time. Software can be pretty shitty, but it can also be pretty good at hiding and correcting hardware problems until it can't anymore.
I have a drawer with 3 or 4 routers that I simply cannot get the wifi to function anymore. They all boot up and work perfectly fine with wired connections, though.
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